Date: Thu, 02 Jan 2003 07:59:31 -0000
Subject: Re: p. 5 list annotations

On the perception of buildings and other forms of erections and
tombs . . . .

HCE is a Latin equivalent, to some extent, of RIP . . . well, it
would be, except RIP already stands for something in Latin --

HCE is a set of initials engraved on Roman tombstones standing
for "Hic Conditor Est" . . . .

Hic Conditor Est means "This Is [the] Conditor" . . . . ("Here Is --")

"Conditor" can mean builder, founder, contriver, maker, author,
composer . . . .

Compare with "Daedulus," meaning skilful, arfully constructed --

Yours, in her grace's watch, the
Riverend Sterling ----




Date: Thu, 02 Jan 2003 09:30:43 -0000
Subject: Re: and this is where the skirtmisshes begin . . .

<Sir Tristram> [003.04]

Yes, it does appear that Sir Tristram will rearrive (he has not yet --
_pas encore_ ) all by himself. Sir Tristram, however, is a nobleman
and a warlord, and they do not generally arrive anywhere alone. Mine
would be a petty and perhaps irrelevant observation, were not
Giambattista Vico cited on the immediately previous line.

In _The New Science_, Vico makes a point that in earlier days, a
warlord's army was referred to simply by it's leader's name. Sir
Tristram may represent a number of soldiers under his command.

<his penisolate war> [003.06] would seem to imply that Sir Tristram
is solitary and insular, sporting the bunker-mentality of a dickhead
perhaps, but there is a second intent of the author's which I infer,
and believe important: while Sir Tristram's war will involve
killing "enemy" soldiers, it will also involve pillage and rape, and
most particularly rape is in reference =96 the rape, I believe, of one
woman especially.

"Penisolate" introduces the Issyness of the Wake, for she is Isola,
whose name is found within that otherwise rather repulsive word. Issy
is associated at various times in the Wake with the word "sola,"
which commentators have sometimes extrapolated into being a reference
to the scale which singers practice, here in its synecdoche as the
fifth and sixth tones of the sequence which begins "do, re . . ."
But --

"Sola" in Latin refers to a single women, in the sense of an isolated
woman, as the cognancy indicates. In the Latin Bible, "sola" is first
used in reference to a case of rape, one where a woman was attacked
as she worked in a distant agricultural field. That, however, is not
the case which I think Joyce has most specifically in mind. Joyce
builds a case throughout the Wake that Issy is a type of St Brighid
of Kildare, and that the rape in 1132 of Brighid's surrogate, the
Abbess of Kildare, affects both Issy and her ravished minion, one
Puppette [014.08] (note the "sola" motif's encore in that line's
parenthetical _sobralasolas!_; also, Issy is a blonde,
so "brazenlockt" is apt for her.)

I apologize for not quite hitting the mark of this list's lovely
formatting and style. The freshness of your approaches, flashing with
informed intuition, and your general gaiety while smelling of the
lamp . . . it is most welcome, and contributes a festive meter to the
dance. Suzanne, you seem to have your project off to a great start!

Yours, with best wishes, the Riverend Sterling ----





Date: Fri, 03 Jan 2003 09:24:10 -0000
Subject: Re: fw 6 interdij plain text begun through line 14

Suzanne queried:

<a roof for may> [006.06]

<***anyone know who "may" might be?
somehow I don't think this is the month of may___>

(the Riverend muses):

Mary/May Jane Murray (1859-1903) The author's mother;

May Joyce (d 1966) The author's sister;

Mary/May Goulding (mourned in Ulysses) Stephen Dedalus's mother.

Maia, the Roman goddess who was the spiritual personification of a
MArried MAma, and whose month was MAy (April means "opening," and is
the spirit of the young MAiden; June is named for Juno, the goddess
who personified the MAture woman of power).

[All derived from the word known to all men, "MA"].

James Joyce's childhood was frequently upset by his da's difficulties
in providing (erecting, building) a roof for the ma he'd married,
whose name was Mary and nicknamed May. In 1903, she found permanent
and restful dwelling at last, in her tomb (MAstaba = flat-roofed
Egyptian tomb).

<orra whyi deed ye diie? of a trying thirstay mournin>

It was on a Thursday that May Joyce gave birth to James Joyce, who
seemed fascinated throughout life by its intimacy with death.

_Ulysses_ starts on a thirsty Thursday morning, as three young men
wait for a suspiciously Brighidine crone (who uses a mushroom for a
dairy stool) to bring them their milk, while one of them berates
Stephen Dedalus for remaining in mourning for his mother, May.

Yours, with best wishes, the
Riverend Sterling ----




Date: Sat, 04 Jan 2003 08:59:36 -0000
Subject: Re: knitting and goddesses what biddies dew after the yggs has hatched

<[208.33]
And they crowned her their chariton queen,
all the maids.
Of the may?
You don't say!
Well for her
she couldn't see herself.
I recknitz wharfore the darling murrayed her mirror>

A timely example of just how interknitted the Wake can be . . .
Suzanne pursues a thread on "knitting" and immediately stumbles on
confirmation that Joyce associates the word "may" as a month with his
mother's middle name of May, for we find this reference to the maids
of may soon followed by his mother's maiden name of Murray (murrayed).

As so often in the Wake, the words are in a cluster which to some
extent mirrors a previous word clustering, that on page six, where <a
roof for may> on 006.06 is followed shortly at 006.11 by a reference
to marriage, <a mon merries his lute> seems to anticipate the
following of <Of the may?> at 208.33 with the marriage reference on
the next line, <the darling murrayed her mirror> [208.34].

So I recognize that a reknitting (recknitz) which mirrors May Murray
actually does take place -- it's a reknitting of words, but that is
what yarns do, so to speak.

Yours, with best wishes, the
Riverend Sterling ----





Date: Sat, 04 Jan 2003 10:50:16 -0000
Subject: Re: MA

<nor avoice from afire bellowsed mishe mishe to
tauftauf thuartpeatrick> 003.09-10

Eric's citation of the above lines as a possible early appearance in
the Wake of Brighid is very interesting to me, of course. Points:

1) a voice from a fire -- Brighid is a fire goddess;

2) bellowsed (as "bellows") -- Brighid is a patron of smithies (<to
forge in the smithy of my soul>: Stephen's promise to himself at the
end of _Portrait -------_) . . . ;

3) bellowsed (as "below") -- Brighid is a goddess of spring ("the
fires of spring"), and as such, must spend at least three months each
year underground (she is escorted underground on All Hallow's Eve by
her two sisters, and does not reappear until Brighid's Days, which
begin at sunset on January 31, and continue to sunset on February
02) -- Brighid does not really become re-enthroned until the Beltane
at the start of May;

4) a voice from below -- according to Vico, Hell is underground, but
not far underground . . . no deeper than a ditch, he says . . .
perhaps someone could then hear Brighid speaking from her underground
entombment, just as Hamlet and Horatio hear the dead king encite them
to swear . . . if Brighid's voice is crying through the bleak earth's
frozen surface from the hell of her temporary but cyclical
entombment, then the sense of a voice from fire below is made
mythically coherent and pictorial;

5) mishe mishe -- this keening-like sigh, the Irish "oy veh!," is
reasonably what we might expect to hear from Brighid while she bides
her time of internment below;

6) to tauftauf thuartpeatrick -- Eric mentioned that Brighid was
baptized by Patrick, and in return as it were, allowed him access to
the magical Irish underground upon Patrick's demise . . .

7) thuartpeatrick -- among other things, the rape of the Abbess of
Kildare, Brighid's surrogate, in 1132, is a synecdoche for the slow
struggle of the Roman Church to dominate and replace the Irish Church
in Ireland -- the first major concession of the Irish Church to the
Roman Church occurred at the Synod of Whitby (7th century?), at which
the Irish delegates were allegedly forced to concede that the
statement of Jesus to Simon, "Thou art Peter," being wordplay having
to due with Jesus saying to Simon Peter that "you are the rock (tu es
petrus)," meant that Simon Peter was to be the cornerstone of the
Christian Church, which is interpreted as meaning that Rome should
run the church, according to Rome . . . interestingly, the whole
verse does contain a reference to Hell:

"And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I
will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against
it."
KJV Matthew 16:18

Hell is specifically associated with fire in other area of Matthew's
Gospel. The politically crucial "thou art petrus" verse, however,
adds the information that Hell has gates, resonating with the mythos
which portrays Brighid imprisoned below the earth, possibly shouting
up from the fire, "mishe mishe" . . . .

Issy, whom so far I feel to be the most Brighidine of characters in
the Wake (whereas Anna Livia states one of Anna's purposes to be to
tell a story about Brighid) -- Issy also speaks unseen from a
fireplace, to her father.

The first paragraph of page 004 portrays, in my reading, the
depredations on the Abbey of Kildare in 1132, which was burned and
had part of its stonework razed, during the armed attack on the Abbey
which included the kidnapping and subsequent rape of its abbess. What
perhaps is the first appearance in the Wake of one of Brighid's many
names occurs in <bidimetoloves> [004.09], which contains "Biddy
(bidi)," a common Irish nickname derived from Brighid. References to
the assault on Biddy the Hen by an icy cock are located in the Wake.

"bidi-" will seemed a strained allusion to Brighid to those
unfamiliar with her, but it certainly is less distorted than the
nevertheless undeniable reference to her which we will see at 012.22
as <scentbreeched>. Few would likely agree at first that this is
obviously meant to be understood as Saint Brighid, but in that local
word-cluster we immediately find her followed by <and somepotreek>,
our old friend Saint Patrick, the peat rick (pile of cut peat,
another allusion to his being under the ground). Reading, we quickly
find the two of them associated together with the <tauftauf> motif:
<in their swishawish satins and their taffetaffe tights> [012.22-23],
which adds a little reinforcement to Eric's most stimulating insight
that we may be hearing an intial cry from our good Brighid at:

<nor avoice from afire bellowsed mishe mishe to
tauftauf thuartpeatrick> 003.09-10

Yours, in her grace's watch, the
Riverend Sterling ----





Date: Sat, 04 Jan 2003 21:43:04 -0000
Subject: Re: p. 3-8 the tale

Reading Robert's artistic and well-chosen redactive excerpts, one
sees among the reknitted threads this one:

<His crest of huroldry,
a hegoak,
poursuivant,
horrid,
horned>

[the pervasive goat motif of the wake, introduced at 003.10-11 by <a
kidscad buttended a bland old isaac>, seen again at:]

<Otherways
Cropherb the crunchbracken shall decide>

[for its is goats who most notably crop herbs and crunch bracken,
being both grazers and browsers, the type of predaceous omnivores who
won't hestitate to eat bitter, and even toxic vegetation:]

<But so sore did abe ite ivvy's holired abbles>

[ivy being the dark, clinging vine suggesting the eventual spread of
the grave over all of us, combined in the above line with holly, the
gay growth which fruits in the winter, symbolizing rebirth, which
leads us to thoughts of the tomb to which all are led, and from which
some return:]

<Mastabadtomm>

[and to death's sister who both takes us and releases us repeatedly:]

<for the owl globe wheels in view>

[the owl globe being the moon, which also cyclically disappears and
returns, for which reason neither night nor the moon is apt to
frighten goats:]

<ninnygoes nannygoes nancing by>

all leads me to recall that a friend of Charles Cave, an author whose
name I cannot recall at the moment, has published an amazing
interview he took some years back in New Zealand of Margaret Alice
(Poppie) Joyce, recorded in her Sisters of Mercy Convent before her
death in 1964. James Joyce's oldest sister (and closest sibling in
age), in her interview, recounts a dramatic moment in her and James'
youth which seems very much present in the Cropherb the Crunchbracken
passage in particular, and which relates to the more general Wakean
obsessions with thunder, graves, ivy-holly, and goats. Not a bad
number of Wakean motives on which to receive early Joycean background
from a close family member!

The incident took place as James and Poppy, if I may call her such,
were returning from a long walk in the country, and were caught both
by night and by a fierce thunderstorm. Big brother, of course, was
already reduced to jibbering heeby-jeebies by the thunder itself,
when the two children found themselves crossing an overgrown Irish
graveyard. Suddenly a burst of lightning revealed a monsterish being
seeming to commit satanic depredations of a tombstone, and the
children ran screaming to their home. Their father, hearing their
excited tale, returned with the children to the graveyard, and was
able to show them, in momentary explosions of chiaroscuric light
provided by the thunderstorm, that there was a big goat standing on
its hind hooves eating ivy off the funerary monuments. James,
apparently, was not sufficiently mollified by this mundane
explanation provided by his father's expedition, as he seems to be
going on about it almost feverishly many decades later in his book of
the night. (And after all, kids'll eat ivy too).

[Meanwhile, as we take off our hats to enter the giant mushy-room, I
cannot refrain from pointing once more to the motive of rape
reappearing:

[ <Penetrators are permitted into the museomound free>].

Yours, in her grace's watch, the
Riverend Sterling ----





Date: Sun, 05 Jan 2003 00:06:09 -0000
Subject: Re: the "dream" business

I have to agree with Suzanne that FW seems to have little in common
with standard dreaming. Dreams tend to be very theatrical, and
however at times bizarre, usually are dominated by clear story-lines,
which may take sudden shifts, but which generally are clear in
keeping the action close to the proscenium. Nothing like this ever
occurs in FW. A Raymond Chandler novel is more like a standard dream
than anything in the Wake.

What I think we have in the Wake is exemplified early in the book by
the tour of the mushy-room. FW is a long exploration of the storage
area from which our dreamweavers draw their properties, the images to
be woven into a dream's narrative level. It is not the dream itself.

One can imagine our dreamweavers going into the Wakean archives and
puttering about, saying things like, "Hmmmm, the history of Ireland
in the Middle Ages . . . OK, I can use that, but it has to have a
goat in it . . . where do we keep the damn goats . . . 'damn' . . .
yes, we can use that as well . . . hell fire, and all that . . .
something devilish about goats . . . where's that section on
childhood traumas . . . wasn't there a goat in a graveyard storm, or
something . . . yes, here it is . . . OK, we've got something now,
but we need to add some ivy . . . over to the vegetation files . . .
hmmm . . . holly, too, I like that . . . holly, it has red berries,
like apples . . . Eve ate an apple, opened the gates of Hell, it
fits . . . yes, yes, O this is going to be a good one, blow my bloody
mind open this time, hoohah . . . wonder if . . . yes, Irish history
and goats equal Isaac Butt . . . not the Middle Ages, but so
what . . . ."

That is the sense I get from the Wake. Not a dream, but dealing with
the elements that form dreams. As the title of the book indicates, it
does not seem to focus on sleepiness, but its opposite, the awareness
of lucidity on every level that the mind operates. All the things,
the little sidethreads, which we have to block out to operate in our
limited daytime concerns, are unblocked. A voice echoes through the
mushy-room's PA: "It is now alright to think of Isaac Butt as being a
goat and several characters in Genesis simultaneously. Now earwicker
this! Now earwicker this! All parts of the mind report to the mushy-
room! Lot's of fun at . . . ."

But I am just riffing. A little Freud helps. We are dreaming every
second of our lives, before and after birth. The tasks set before us
during the day require that we block most of it, because it can be
distracting. But the dreamweavers are always at work. It is when we
finally lie down that they sit on the bedposts and show us what they
have been working on for our viewing pleasure. What we read in the
Wake is their conversation about what they intend to bring into the
editing room.

Yours, with best wishes, the
Riverend Sterling ----





Date: Sun, 05 Jan 2003 03:47:18 -0000
Subject: Re: the "dream" business

Earlier today Suzanne bravely and perhaps too much so wrote:

<I know I am flow going against the grain
of almost all wake commentators
. . .
but . . .

I have yet to feel or believe
this is a dream.>

Now, mere hours later, Karl informs us:

<Suzanne would like you all to know that she has not given up the
list.
She is snowed in and has lost all electricity including her computer.>

-- the Riverend wishes quickly to got on record at this time that he
has completely reevaluated his own position in this regard, and I DO
believe the Wake is a dream, it is a dream, Auntie Em, it totally is
totally a dream . . . . that's me quietly standing here behind Bob
and Eric, and as per Susan K's suggestion, to look at the bigger
picture . . . besides I never meant it to begin with, etc etc. It IS
a DREAM, and a SCHEME, and a VACUUM MACHINE already . . . . I mean,
it is, isn't it?

Sinducedly Sincerely, in etc etc, the etc sterling ----




Date: Mon, 06 Jan 2003 06:24:27 -0000
Subject: Re: retourne of the snow quean

Now that the storm has subsided, and its effects revealed as benign,
it needs to be clarified that I was only kidding when I said that I
was only kidding.

---- le Riverend Sterling -------

"Can you tell me what is a cure for dreaming?"
James Joyce in a letter to "Stannie" Joyce
mailed from Rome and postmarked 1906 Aug 19

-------------







Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2003 08:33:46 -0000
Subject: Re: p. 8 this way to the museyroom


--- robert amos wrote (re: <grouching down in the living detch>
[008.22]):

"They aren't very happy with their job of murder and rape, grouching
down in the living detch. The living ditch is a a furry furrow."

le Riverend: I have forsworn McHugh for the time being, he is just
too powerful a presence on my humble table. Therefore I apologize
where some of this may be redundant to his work. Following are two
excerpts from posts on a war/historylistgroup:

1) "Had Napoleon not sent Marshal Emmanuel de Grouchy and 30,000
French troops to follow the Prussians around and if Marshal Michel
Ney had not been so indecisive about engaging Wellington initially,
do you think the battle of Waterloo would have had a different
outcome?" And,


2) "The field of Waterloo is shaped like an "A". The top half of
the "A" is where the Prussians where, the bottom half where Napoleon
was, and the crossbar was a small road going between the villages on
either side. Well, at the bottom half of the field where Napoleon
was, was a small hill leading up to the road. But the road itself was
dug downwards, like a ditch. So Napoleon couldn't see either the
ditch or the road. So when he ordered the cavalry charge, the men
charged straight up the hill, and got jammed in the muddy ditch.
Basically it was a slaughterhouse, because they couldn't retreat, and
they couldn't climb the bank on the other side."

le riverend: item number one is notable for its reference to Marshal
Grouchy, an obvious player in the Willingdone Mushyroom; item two
explains the basic source of the living ditch. Many hundreds of
soldiers died horrid deaths in this ditch. As they reached the top of
what seemed a hill, in full charge, they cascaded down the invisible
cutbank into an abyss already writhing with hundreds of other
flailing men and horses, most screaming in agony an horror as they
were slowly crushed and suffocated by fresh succeeding waves of
incoming men and horses, also charging toward their deaths in the
deep pass. In the sickening annals of war, this futile ditch of the
living dead manages to stand out as particularly awful.

Yours, in her grace's watch, the
Riverend Sterling ----





Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2003 16:03:18 -0000
Subject: Re: ffantastic

<The ff is Welsh, signifying our /f/ sound, whereas F is more like
our /v/. A doubling of the digamma!>

le riverend: Brighid in Cymric (Welsh) is Ffraid.

Shem was ffraid-born; Joyce was born during Brighid's days.

Yours, in her grace's watch, the
Riverend Sterling
-----------------




Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 22:33:46 -0000
Subject: Re: p. 9 notes

Eric mentioned:

"an armour against pleasure"

So I suppose this is an appropriate juncture for this:

As the frequently interwoven wordplay upon military violence and
sexual penetration suggests, there are many implications on pages
eight through ten of _Finnegans Wake_ regarding the rape of the
Abbess of Kildare, and the razing of her abbey's grounds. It is quite
helpful to realize that, along with other things no doubt,
the "jinnies" are the nuns of Kildare.

<jinnies with their legahorns> 008.31

As will become evident on subsequent pages, Joyce makes a powerful
association of St Brighid, and her devotees at Kildare, with that
delightful gnarlybird (a bird in the configuration of an oak), Biddy
the Hen (Brighid, the One [within her many and various apparitions]).

There are two meanings for "leghorn." One of course is a type of a
chicken. The other is a type of straw which is dried and used for
weaving. There is a very distinct type of a cross woven from straw
called St Brighid's cross which was woven by Irish girls for St
Brighid's Eve, the last day of the first month (Jan 31, the date of
the letter pulled from the midden by Biddy the Hen). The cross of
woven straw is thus emblematic of Brighid.

<jinnies is a cooin her hand> 008.33

St Brighid is called the Mary of the Gael. Mary's familiar, if you
will, is the dove. If you won't, then call the dove Mary's attribute.

<jinnies is a ravin her hair> 008.33-34

The raven is the Celtic bird of death and the battlefield, and thus
the opposite of the dove. The jinnies offer peace, but are attacked
by war.

<the jinnies' hastings dispatch> 009.02-03

In one sense, we see the jinnies running swiftly through the night,
trying to escape the New Year's Eve incursion by the soldiers of
Dermot MacMurrough; in another sense, we hear their cries for help.

<tictacs of the jinnies for to fontannoy> 009.06

The tactics of the jinnies are not martial; they are the counter
tactics of religious ceremony. Fountains built over natural springs
were the primary religious sites for worship in pre-Norman Ireland.
Brighid was considered to be a presence at holy springs in general,
and her own specific fountain at Kildare may be seen still flowing
into and across its attendant stonework. The Normans built tall
phallic stone towers in their campaigns to overthrow traditional
Irish power. The stone tower versus the stone fountain. These were
the emblematic players in the war in Ireland as to whether she might
rule herself, be it in the Church or the Castle.

<jinnies is jillous> In this bloody war between the foreign erectors
of stone towers and those who built stone wells around naturally
occurring springs, it is of course the jinnies who were given the
sacred task of attending and drawing from the well. To break
traditional Irish power bases, it was not enough to unseat the jacks
(warlords) and break their crowns. Ireland's soul was ruled to a
great extent by a college of nuns at Kildare. The jills who kept the
holy well there must be sent tumbling down with the lords. The pail
versus the Pale.

<Cherry jinnies.> The nuns of Kildare were Vestal.

<the camp for the jinnies. Drink a sip> 009.17

A reference to the Abbey of Kildare, found in a context of threats
and blasphemy and disrespect. The rape of the Abbess of Kildare was
calculated and martial and tactical. The overlying strategy was to
desacntify her, and thus break the longheld power of the abbey and
its abbess. To drink a sip at Brighid's well in Kildare without the
permission of the nuns would have been unthinkable prior to
1132. "Drink a sip" is thus a synecdoche for the invasion of the
Abbey of Kildare that year, and for the rape of its abbess. To
disrespect a goddess's well as a mere drinking fountain was
considered an extreme form of outrage in olden times.
See "Philoctetes."

<jinnies in the bonny bawn> 009.21-22

Issy, a Wakean stand-in at times for Brighid, is blonde, in
distinction from her red-haired mother, Anna. "Bawn" is Anglo-Irish
for blonde. In Irish mythology, Ann/Danu is indeed an older goddess
than Brighid; in Christian mythos, Anne/Hannah is the mother of Mary
of Nazareth. Candlemas, the holy day upon which James Joyce was born,
and which quickly comes into reference as soon as we leave the
Museyroom, is dedicated to St Anne, Mary's mother, in her guise as
the old temple prophetess to whom Mary presented Jesus. As if that
brew is not already strong enough, Candlemas also falls on Brighid's
day (though not on St Brighid's day, the day before). On line 14 of
page nine, the Celtic Ann is cursed, a necessary adjunct to the rape
of her temporal daughter, the abbess, as the temporal representative
of Issy/Brighid/Mary.

"Said the mother, `Don't take me daughter from me, or after death me
ghost will haunt ya.' "

That line is from a song about Irish troops marching through a
village drunkenly on their way to fight in the Napoleonic Wars, or as
they were called, the Peninsular (Penisolate) Wars.

<This is jinnies cry. Underwetter! Goat strip Finnlambs!> 009.27-28

Joyce makes several very key associations of the depredations against
the Abbey of Kildare with that of a flood, and with the Great Flood
itself. It indeed began the Irish betrayals by the MacMurrough which
opened the floodgates of invasion to the Normans in 1169.

The nuns cry out because they are overrun, as by the wild waters of a
broken dam. Their walls indeed were breeched that night, 1132 January
01, Julian Time (Jan 13, modern time). The goat is the universal
symbol of lust, and of the very devil himself. Finn is derived from
the Gaelic word, Fionn, meaning white. The lamb is emblematic of
Mary, of course, and her son =96 but especially in this citation, of
Brighid, who is often pictured with a lamb at her side, and whose day
upon which Joyce was born, February 02, is called "lambing day" in
rural areas.

Thus, we read in that sentence that a devil tore the clothes off the
white lambs, the innocent nuns, who cried out as if caught in a flood.

<This is jinnies rinning away to their ousterlists> 009.28-29

Suzanne queried as to why the jinnies would run to the east. The
thesis that the jinnies are the fleeing nuns of Kildare would
provided a tentative answer. They ran east from Kildare to Dublin,
probably following the course of the Liffey.

MacMurrough's ancestral holdings were to the south of Dublin, which
is why the Normans had to land at Wexford and Waterford to invade
Leinster. It also is why MacMurrough invited the Normans. After
decades of fighting and maneuvering, MacMurrough, almost forty years
after he ordered the rape of the Abbess of Kildare, still was unable
to hold Leinster, and its capital, Dublin, within his grasp.

The natural instinct of the escaping nuns would have been to reach
Leinster and Dublin, where MacMurrough and his legions could not harm
them. Thus would they run toward to the east, in hopes of reaching
Dublin's outlying marches.

<marathon merry of the jinnies> 009.33

Mary of Nazareth was the Mary of the nuns. Citing the famous run
named for the Battle of Marathon, while praying to Mary, could
reinforce the sense of life and death involved in the nuns' long
flight to Dublin and environs.

<royal divorsion on the rinnaway jinnies> 009.35

A case for several layers of meaning can be mounted. A royal divorce
would describe the severance of the raped abbess from her lord, Jesus
of Nazareth, which the MacMurrough wished to result from his attack.
If the people could be convinced that the abbess had been
desanctified, and could no longer represent the will of the holy
church, then he hoped to replace her with his own relative.

The abbess and Kildare were the sought prizes on the night of the
awful raid. In terms of martial priorities, MacMurrough would likely
have seen the flight of the nuns from the abbey as a diversionary
tactic, and sent relatively few soldiers after them. MacMurrough had
accomplished his goal by razing the walls and ordering the violation
of the abbess. The scattering of the nuns and local residents was
small potatoes to him. He had effected a ricorso, the savage
interlude between the end of one Viconian era and the beginning of
the next =96 in this case, several decades of savage rivalry between
Irish warlords which would serve as a prelude to the Norman invasion.
The 700 year era of domination in Ireland by the Celtic Church had
ended (432 =96 1132). In 1169, the 600 year era of Roman Catholic
hegemony would begin (ending in 1769, when the Bishop's of Maynooth
officially recognized the holy office of the Protestant King of
England).

As Giambattista Vico notes in his New Science, no wars are as bloody
as religious wars. Deliver us from eras!

Yours, in her grace's watch, the
Riverend Sterling ----





Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 23:18:24 -0000
Subject: Re: p. 9 notes as it came about for Saint Brighid

suzanne wondered:

<was there some singular event
akin to the 1132 rape of the abbess,
presaging the turn of the great wheel
from Brighid the Goddess
to Saint Brigid?>

Yes. That would be 432, the arrival in Ireland of the second coming
of Patrick. Although there were various Christians and Christian
communities in Ireland prior to 432, there was no significant
Christian authority in Ireland, and no Christian authority over the
mass population, which was Brighidine in its religious sensibilities,
and whose priests were Druidic.

As Eric has cited from Barbara Walker, there is evidence that Patrick
was himself associatied with a pre-existent pagan Pa-Da in Ireland.
Brighid, as we well know, was well established prior to 432 as a
Tresmater, a triple and protective goddess, who could trace her own
origins back to an ancient Indo-European cult of the Bona Dea
Tresmater, the traces of whose hem can be found all over pristine
European mythos, despite the Pa version of the Trinity which Pa-trick
brought to the land of the sham-rock. Try not to get me started on
that!

As to how the suppression of the tresmater might be represented in
the messy room . . . let me cop out by assigning that presentation as
best to be made by your awesome bat self! Ultimately, of course, the
tour of the messy room is a look at all wars in the infinite glory of
their stupid-assed addiction to slaughter, lies, and mud.

I will follow with a post on several battles, other than the raid on
Kildare by the MacMurrough, which are among the many referenced in
the messy room. This should encourage others to square the circle by
their own best lights in terms of what other conflicts may be
highlighted by Mr Joyce. Just don't get caught smugging in the square!

Yours, with best wishes, the etc.





Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 23:26:19 -0000
Subject: Re: p. 9 notes as it came about for Saint Brighid

Here are a few notes stolen, edited, and annotated off the web
regarding several of the battles referenced in the Museyroom.

---------------------------------------

<sneaking his phillippy> 009.01

The Battle of Phillipi in Oct 42 BC was as influential as any in
history, as it paved the way for the establishment of the Roman
Empire, which replaced the Roman Republic.

(Approached from its most influential account, that of Shakespeare in
_Julius Caesar_):

At the Senate, the conspirators murder Caesar. They cover themselves
in his blood and go to the streets crying, "Peace, freedom, and
liberty." Antony comes back and mourns Caesar's murder.

Antony forms a triumvirate with Octavius Caesar and Lepidus to rule
Rome. Brutus and Cassius raise an army to defy them. Brutus and
Cassius decide to confront Antony's army at Phillipi. At Brutus'
tent, the ghost of Caesar comes and tells Brutus he will see him at
Phillipi. The battle indeed ensues at Phillipi.

The battle turns again against Brutus' army. Antony and Octavius
prevail, while Cassius and Brutus both commit suicide.

-------------------------------------

<jinnies is jillous agincourting>
009.07

The Battle of Agincourt, 25 October 1415, is considered on of the
four most crucial in English history (along with Hastings, Waterloo,
and Normandy).

The key word for describing the battle of Agincourt is mud. The
battlefield was a freshly plowed field, and at the time of the
battle, it had been raining continuously for several days. Soon
after the battle started, it had thousands of English and French
soldiers and horses running through it. Anywhere near the
battlefield, the mud was at least ankle deep. Much of the time, it
was up to the combatants' knees. Occasionally, it reached their
waists. There are descriptions of horses floundering around in mud
up to their bellies.

Falling off of a horse in the kind of mud that was at Agincourt was
no joke, especially in armor. Indeed, many of the deaths (including
that of the Duke of York) were caused by drowning.

The mud was undoubtedly a major factor in the lopsided English
victory (the English being outnumbered five to one, and famished).
The barefoot and in many cases bare legged English foot soldiers were
vastly more mobile than the armored French.

---------------------------------------------------

<solphereens in action> 009.25

The Battle of Solferino (June 24, 1859) was the last engagement of
the second War of Italian Independence. It was fought in Lombardy
between an Austrian army and a Franco-Piedmontese army and resulted
in the annexation of most of Lombardy by Sardinia-Piedmont, thus
contributing to the unification of Italy.

The Battle of Solferino was important to Italy at the time, but today
it is primarily remembered as the battle which horrified a Swiss
businessman passing through the area, Henri Dunant, who was
galvanized to action by seeing the following day fields of deserted
wounded soldiers left to die unattended by their respective armies.
Dunant swiftly organized local nurses into ad hoc teams staffing
makeshift hospitals, and did not flag from his response until several
years later he was able to found and organize the International Red
Cross.

International Humanitarian Law, the Geneva conventions and its
protocols, now make it illegal for nations to mistreat and fail to
treat anyone who is suffering as a result of war and who is out of
combat. (The current administration of the United States is currently
attempting to set back, avoid, and virtually overturn these
conventions).

The battle of Solferino was the climatic battle of the war of 1859.
The Austrians had been forced onto the defensive, following the
battle of Magenta, and this day's bloody fighting would decide the
war. It saw the bulk of the two available Austrian armies take on the
combined allied armies of the French and Piedmontese. The main attack
of the French army was to wrestle the heavily defended area around
Solferino from the Austrians and win the day for the allies.

40,000 men were killed or wounded in a single day as the French and
Piedmontese drove the Austrians out of the north of Italy. Arriving
on this scene, Henri Dunant, the businessman from Geneva, was shocked
to find the wounded soldiers lying abandoned on the field. He
mobilized the local population and provided relief from the resources
available.

Year later, James Joyce and his family became wartime evacuees
several times, and found refuge in Switzerland. James Joyce was in
Zurich in 1941 because of the German occupation of France, and thus
he qualified, as a wartime evacuee, to be given hospice by the Red
Cross. Joyce died in a Red Cross hospital in Zurich on January 13
(January 1, Julian Time).

Yours, in her grace's watch, the
Riverend Sterling ----




Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2003 03:50:23 -0000
Subject: Re: goddessy Brighid a crone's gotta dew

Suzanne,

Be as batty as you wish!

The night does not keep secrets
from her friendly little gnarlybird,
that flying harmless mouse,
the local bat.

Yrs, etc, the ----




Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2003 08:29:44 -0000
Subject: Re: jinnies

Here the Riverend takes advantage of the late hour to run amok
through the streets shouting insincere gibberish to justify his
complete lack of decent protocol by sneaking in a little loo-key at a
paragraph to come in the wake, citing the circular motif as making
the future from our backpages to an extent; and Karl, who reminded us
that the watermark for validity in speculative joycean analysis is
the citation of supportive, or a least associative, areas of text
within the oeuvre =96 in this instance, a case is made that the
perhaps
seemingly thin evidence for calling the jinnies on pages eight and
nine to be the nuns of Kildare on 1132 January 01 is reinforced
significantly enough on pages 388 and 389 to justify our briefly
looking at them:

FW 388.10 =96 389.29

<Marcus. And after that, not forgetting, there was the Flemish
armada, all scattered, and all officially drowned, there and then, on>

already is made the association of the soldiers breeching the walls
at night with flood or defeat at sea

<a lovely morning, after the universal flood, at about aleven thirty-

two was it? off the coast of Cominghome and Saint Patrick, the>

again the flood that put the abbey underwater (underwetter), now
given out to be at 1132

<anabaptist, and Saint Kevin, the lacustrian, with toomuch of tolls
and lottance of beggars, after converting Porterscout and Dona,
our first marents, and Lapoleon, the equestrian, on his whuite
hourse of Hunover, rising Clunkthurf over Cabinhogan and all>

where suddenly are invoked indeed the very pages which we have just
studied, pages 008-0010, with a new version of Lipoleum now himself
seating his white arse on Copenhagen!

<they remembored and then there was the Frankish floot of Noahs-
dobahs, from Hedalgoland, round about the freebutter year of>

and yet again the flood, this time in the freebutter year =96 this
is surely a reference to the years in which Brighid herself was
present at the abbey she founded in Kildare in the 6th century,
because it is said that during the abbessy of Brighid, everyone had
all their dairy products for free and always

<Notre Dame 1132 P.P.O. or so, disumbunking from under
Motham General Bonaboche, (noo poopery!) in his half a grey
traditional hat, alevoila come alevilla, and after that there he
was, so terrestrial, like a Nailscissor, poghuing her scandalous and
very wrong, the maid, in single combat, under the sycamores, amid
the bludderings from the boom and all the gallowsbirds in Arrah-
na-Poghue, so silvestrious, neer the Queen's Colleges, in 1132>

Again is cited the year, 1132, of the rape of the Abbess of Kildare,
now referred to as Notre Dame, Our Lady, as she was a representative
of Brighid, and thus, of Mary

the word bunk appears in a heraldic manor in various areas about the
rape of the abbess, including in the messy room

<This is jinnies rinning away to their ousterlists dowan a
bunkersheels> 009.28-29

the passage cited above goes on to describe the improper kissing of a
maid in single combat, near the colleges (organized sisterhoods)
which were under the protection of a woman with the powers of a
queen, the Abbess of Kildare =96 and yet again the year of her rape
is given, 1132!

<Brian or Bride street, behind the century man on the door. And>

herein is given a name of Brighid herself, as Bride (pronounced
Breeda, important for associations with the hen, Breedabrooda, being
the Irish Brighid, Breeda, and the Brighid of the Orkneys, Brooda)

next follows a lot about the organization of her main abbey with its
outlying satellites throughout Ireland and its tentacles through time
back to the collapse of the Roman Empire and forward to the Hibernian
philosopher, Berkeley, and all the grand sermons, lectures, classes,
and art exhibits which were mounted by herself, the glorious
universal Old Mother Hubbard from sea to shining

<then again they used to give the grandest gloriaspanquost univer-
sal howldmoutherhibbert lectures on anarxaquy out of doxarch-
ology (hello, Hibernia!) from sea to sea (Matt speaking!) accord-
ing to the pictures postcard, with sexon grimmacticals, in the
Latimer Roman history, of Latimer repeating himself, from the
vicerine of Lord Hugh, the Lacytynant, till Bockleyshuts the rah-
jahn gerachknell and regnumrockery roundup, (Marcus Lyons
speaking!) to the oceanfuls of collegians green and high classes
and the poor scholars and all the old trinitarian senate and saints
and>

in the midst of which Mr Joyce will not neglect to invoke the little
Plymouth Rock Hens in nearly the same breath as the Mother of
Ireland, St Brighid of course, and her various churches, the Kills,
in all the Irish provinces, including Kildare, Church of the Oak, as
Killkelly-on-the-Flure, the Church on the Kildare River, whose Mother
Superior the MacMurrough sought to kill the spirit of in 1132 because
the country was in <abijance service>, in obeisant service to an
abbey:

<sages and the Plymouth brethren, droning along, peanzanzangan,
and nodding and sleeping away there, like forgetmenots, in her
abijance service, round their twelve tables, per pioja at pulga
bollas, in the four trinity colleges, for earnasyoulearning Erin-
growback, of Ulcer, Moonster, Leanstare and Cannought, the
four grandest colleges supper the matther of Erryn, of Killorcure
and Killthemall and Killeachother and Killkelly-on-the-Flure,
where their role was to rule the round roll that Rollo and Rullo>

and then the line on which I most specifically base my tenet that the
jinnies in the Museyroom are the nuns of Kildare in 1132:

<rolled round. Those were the grandest gynecollege histories>

we now know without doubt that we are reading about a powerful women
in 1132 associated with Brighid, and with the history and network
then of her Irish colleges and their churches

the Abbey of Kildare was so grand a college, which is to say a
community gathered as a religious fellowship for study and work, that
it escaped from myth and appears in his-story, the officially
established chronicles of male armed conquest, for in his generally
rather arrogant and psuedo-shocked accounts of the Irish immediately
in the wake of the Welsh-Norman invasion in 1169, the 12th century
nobleman and court annalist, Geoffrey of Wales, he is amazed,
respectful, and even humbled by the spectacular experience of
visiting what was left of the Abbey of Kildare, and viewing her
sacred harmony of the gospels which she had illustrated in a manner
which made the book seem to be a complex living web of subtle
changing patterns wrought by angels but hidden from minds too hasty
and casual

the word however on which I am zooming down is

<gynecollege> 389.09 as "jenney college"

which I suggest as meaning "society of women"

jennies are spinning wheels, symbols of Joyce's cyclic version of
Vico's ages, but more importantly for us,

jennies are female mammals, especially hooved ones, and more
especially asses, and in the US, mainly female mules

female mules have some association with vestal nuns, as they are a
separate breed which does not replicate itself by breeding, but are
culturally created (in truth, nunneries are a haven for young
unmarried women who are pregnant, and need a cloistered area in which
to give birth free from the eyes of the unclean =96 also, there are
always nuns who keep their observances of holy words primarily in
their hearts, and not as fully in their actions =96 in either case,
some of the girls who were born in monasteries (which can mean a
place for nuns, for "monas," meaning "single women,"
or "las solas") and nunneries, stayed there for life, and thus
nunneries did have some minor potential for modest self-replication,
see:

<the convent napkins, twelve, one baby's shawl. Good mother Jossiph
knows, she said. Whose head? Mutter snores? Deataceas! Wharnow are
alle her childer> FW 213.28-30

where it gives the washers at the ford a bit of gentle gossiping to
wonder about and to protect, as they spread out the convent napkins,
only to find a baby's shawl among them!

they trust the convent's leader, one Mother (Mary?) Joseph may
know more, but as for the ladies combing through the convent's dirty
laundry at the ford, they can only wonder where all her children are
while the Mother sleeps and the Bona Dea . . . what?

meanwhile <gynecollege> or religious community of jinnies

"gyne" is the greek word for woman =96 a gynecollege would
be a higher community for women, not what we think of now as a
convent, but a center of learning and art run by women who had
political power and religious respect =96

the greek "gyne" is descended from on older indo-european
root, "gwen" =96 the word "gwen" in ie is believed
to have given birth to the modern word English word "queen,' but
mostly currentlyto be seen in neologisms derived directly from the
greek, such as gynecology, on which Joyce's <gynecollege> makes play
but akashic bowlderization, if I may speak so clearly, has blunted
the otherwise obvious cognancy of "gwen" and "gyne"from other
obvious modern words, such as "cunt" and "jenny"

the obvious rootier meaning of the ie "gwen" is, in fact,
"vagina," with which it in fact may also have some cognancy

in _ulysses_, joyce lets us know he is well aware of the fact that
jennies are female asses, without mentioning anything about ones
being white and wide:

<No sir smile neighbour shall covet his ox or his wife or his
manservant or his maidservant or his jackass.

--Or his jennyass, Buck Mulligan antiphoned.> [from chapter nine]

a buck, being a male mammal, is the expert on these things =96 and
the juxtaposition here of jack and jenny makes my rather harebrained
contention that <jinnies is jillous> from page nine associates jack
and jill who went up the hill with the tumbling down of the nuns from
the high position of their holy well at Kildare, not to be quite as
insane as . . . well, as it is

<(Lucas calling, hold the line!) in the Janesdanes Lady Anders-
daughter Universary, for auld acquaintance sake (this unitarian
lady, breathtaking beauty, Bambam's bonniest, lived to a great
age at or in or about the late No. 1132 or No. 1169, bis, Fitzmary>

still on about 1132 in this page-plus paragraph

<Round where she was seen by many and widely liked) for teach-
ing the Fatima Woman history of Fatimiliafamilias, repeating her-
self, on which purposeth of the spirit of nature as difinely deve-
loped in time by psadatepholomy, the past and present (Johnny
MacDougall speaking, give me trunks, miss!) and present and
absent and past and present and perfect arma virumque romano.
Ah, dearo, dear! O weep for the hower when eve aleaves bower!>

the woman most prevalent in the history of the town of Fatima is
Mary, who appeared there seen by many in the sky, just as the abbess
of kildare was a living representative of both Mary and Brighid =96
but other grand mothers are cited, including Eve Alef, Eve the One,
in her primal role as the Verna Dea, the green guide-us of all leaves
(eve aleaves =96 Alef (all leaf, in her arabic pronunciation of
alif) is hebrew for "one" and in hebraic transliteration, is
spelled "ALP" =96 in proto-Qabala, Alef is both the first character of
the alphabet (alef-beyt, the house of alef), but is also the first of
the three holy mothers, alef, mem, and shin, who together are the
tresmater of the sefer yetzirah, which traces the origin of letters
and numbers to ya, an all-pa da

<How it did but all come eddaying back to them, if they did but
get gaze, gagagniagnian, to hear him there, kiddling and cuddling
her, after the gouty old galahat, with his peer of quinnyfears and
his troad of thirstuns, so nefarious, from his elevation of one
yard one handard and thartytwo lines, before the four of us, in
his Roman Catholic arms, while his deepseepeepers gazed and
sazed and dazecrazemazed into her dullokbloon rodolling olo-
sheen eyenbowls by the Cornelius Nepos, Mnepos. Anumque,
umque. Napoo.>

and at last, with one last gasp of 1132, now less clear and fading,
the mega-ma par ends with a seemingly distorted and truncated look
all the way back to the museyroom and that poo-poo head, napoleon,
the symbol to us all of the aggrandizing and powermad European
militarist, napoo, the infantile or perhaps beta version of the
conqueror and his grand army -- ga ga goo goo day

Yours, in her grace's watch, the
Riverend Sterling ---
2003 January 13 modern time
Jan 01 Julian,
the 871st anna-versary of the Rape of the Abbess of Kildare,
and the 62nd anna-versary of the death of James Joyce) ----





Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 07:50:28 -0000
Subject: Re: fw 11 interdij'd

<candlelittle houthse of a month>
010.27

candle = flaming arrow = Brighid

candle . . . of a month = february, the month of
Candlemas, February 02

Feb 02 = Brighid's Day

Feb 02 = birthday of James Joyce

Hence, <and nummered quaintlymine>
010.28-29

<(who goes cute goes siocur and shoos aroun)>
011.18

Gaelic: Suil, suil, suil a ruin
Suil go suchair

pronounced "Sool sool sool ah roon,
Sool go shooker"

meaning: walk, walk, walk your way,
walk in safety

From Ulysses [Random House 1961 page 688]:

<What fragments of verse from the ancient
Hebrew and ancient Irish languages were cited
with modulations of voice and translation of texts
by guest to host and by host to guest?

<By Stephen: suil, suil, suil arun, suil go siocair
agus suil go cuin (walk, walk, walk your way,
walk in safety, walk with care). By Bloom:
kifeloch, harimon rakatejch m'baad l'zamatejch
(thy temple amid thy hair is as a slice of
pomegranate).>


The Irish song Shule Aroon, or however you want
to spell it, is an antiwar lament

yrs, etc, the ----




Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 07:57:35 -0000
Subject: Re: fw 11 interdij'd

robert: <a contradiction in terms (a thing JJ loves to do, and which
I have no convenient word for)>

le riverend: it's coming up soon:

<the coincidance of their contraries>
049.36

it derives from a term used by the radical 15th century cardinal,
Nicholas of Cusa: coincidentia oppositorum = coincidence of opposites




Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2003 06:37:45 -0000
Subject: Re: fw 12 reformatted [plain text]

<every crowd has its several tones>
012.29-30

The crowd is a late-medieval Welsh stringed instrument somewhat like
a guitar-zither. It played a different song than the singer sang. Now
I believe that is called an accompaniment.

le riv ----




Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2003 17:12:43 -0000
Subject: Re: FW 12 berg viol

Having just had the pleasure of starting a west coast morning over
everyone's posts of the last several days, I say "thank you." Much
more edifying and good for one than any newspaper, that's for sure.
It's more like getting a paper covering the important news stories of
the last 4500 years.

With time still fleeting on my personal calendar, I can only add
sketchy notes. Still, anytime the Riverend can stoke the fires of the
stinking fog machine . . . .

The 12 century Irish books of Gerald of Wales (mistakenly "Geoffrey"
in a recent hasty dispatch of mine), ie, Giraldus Cambrensis, are
very key to the Wake. The are seminal descriptions of the Abbey of
Kildare, for example.

Most importantly, Cambrensis gives a description of Brighid's Book,
an illuminated harmony of the Gospels said to be in her own hand.
Brighid founded a co-educational art school at Kildare during her
lifetime, so it would be more likely a group project carried out
under Brighid's tutelage and supervision.

My opinion, and I hold it most seriously, is that the description by
Cambrensis of the Book of Brighid is Joyce's seminal and primary
template and goal and guide for Finnegans Wake. Period. They are the
only two books in the history of the world which are the way they are.
Brighid's book became lost. Joyce set out to recover as best he could
something like it, in a personal tip of his caubeen to his bona dea
and nativity saint.

<Unlike mapped rivers, the Wake's mainstream is a preternatural lady
whose well-worn bed describes a circular course. Her father is the
sea, and her daughter is the rain and its clouds. Her every drop
pulls two others along.

Viewed through cobwebs or too quickly, the text of the Wake is
idiosyncratic syntax, tantamount to the clever word salads muttered
by those frenetic sidewalk talkers who pass us with flapping hands
that gesture to unseen listeners. Yet no life is long enough, it
would seem, to find all the multifaceted allusions which flow by
metaphoric extension through the Wake's alluvial substrate.

Only one model for this otherwise completely unique book exists =96 The
Book of Saint Brighid's Abbey at Kildare, a one-of-a-kind illuminated
edition of Jerome's harmony of the Gospels. Its awe-inspired
description is recorded in Topographia Hiberniae, by Giraldus de
Barri Cambrensis, written ca 1185:

"[Entry No.] 71. A Book Miraculously Written.

"Among all the miracles of Kildare, nothing seems to me more
miraculous than that wonderful book they say was written during the
dictation of an angel during the lifetime of the virgin.

"The book contains . . . almost as many drawings as pages. If you
look at them carelessly and casually and not too closely, you may
judge them to be mere daubs rather than careful compositions. You
will see nothing subtle where everything is subtle. But if you take
the trouble to look very closely, and penetrate with your eyes to the
secrets of the artistry, you will notice such intricacies, so
delicate and subtle, so close together and well-knitted, so involved
and bound together, and so fresh still in their colourings that you
will not hesitate to declare that all these things must have been the
result of the work, not of men, but of angels(v)."

Is the Wake then a book of illuminations, a vast tapestry-like
painting, a tessellation whose tile fragments are each made of
smaller fragments ? Do the words "Portrait of the Artist . . ." mean
anything to you?>

[Excerpted from "Foriver For Allof -- The Ravisht Timing A'Bride"
by the Riverend Clarence R Sterling =96 (c) 2001. Here's the note:

(v) Gerald of Wales. The History and Topography of Ireland. Transl.
John J. O'Meara. Latin original, Topographia Hiberniae, by Giraldus
de Barri Cambrensis, written ca 1185. Text: Proceedings of the Royal
Irish Academy, 1949. Penguin Books: London, [1951] rev. 1982]

That's enough for one post, I'll put a few other notes in a separate
posting.

Yours, in her grace's watch, the
Riverend Sterling ----






Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2003 17:46:18 -0000
Subject: Re: FW 12 berg viol

<Make strake for minnas!>
012.25

The above line is followed in the Wake by a passage of a half dozen
lines which are thick with several obvious themes, stringed
instrument, various Irish areas, the Irish Viking kings . . . yet no
one has seemed to sift any narrative meaning with clarity, and it may
in fact be more a musical passage than a narrative one. But I believe
I can at least, once more, add to the stinking fog, for there seems
another interesting reference, beyond the Dano-Celtic string section.

There were several very remarkable women named "Mina" among the
Parisian literati during the decades of the writing of Ulysses and
Finnegans Wake. I am guessing that Joyce was thinking of both when he
wrote the plural <minnas>.

One would be Mina Loy, with whom Joyce had some passing aquaintance.
Mina Loy is one of the only figures considered to be influential in
the art/politics/literature/life-styles movements of Futurism, Dada,
and the post-WWI expatriate crowd. She was still an innovative artist
in her golden years in Aspen in the 1960's. There remains a portrait
she published of Joyce which she drew from life, and her wonderful
summation of Joyce as "the gentle giant." There is reference
elsewhere in the Wake to Mina Loy and her husband, a radical boxer-
poet named Lloyd who was a descendant of Oscar Wilde's family.

The other Mina is Mina Bergson, the sister of the Irish-Jewish-French
philosopher, Henri. Mina Bergson married MacGregor Mathers, one of
the founders of the influential group of occultists and mystical
ceremonialists, the Order of the Golden Dawn, which for awhile became
headed by Yeats. After the famous struggles over its leadership, most
of the literary lights drifted away, and the leadership of the Golden
Dawn eventually landed on Mina Bergson (aka Moina MacGregor). Mina
adopted the name and persona of Isis, and kept the order alive into
the 1920's, working for awhile with Paul Foster Case, who eventually
left the order himself. I believe that Mina Bergson is a source of
the five "bergs" associated with Irish places and stringed
instruments on page 012.

Yours, in her grace's watch, the
Riverend Sterling ----




Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2003 18:50:41 -0000
Subject: Re: FW 12

<Did ye save any tin? says he. Did I what? with a grin says she. And
we all like a marriedann>
012.05-06

Along with the other good meanings sifted from <marriedanne>, these
may be added:

1) the names of Mary of Nazareth, and her mother, Hannah (probably
from the village of Cana), given in English as Anne;

2) as Anne and Mary, the holy mother-daughter configuration,
<marriedanne> is a type of Anna Livia and Issy;

3) <marriedanne> as Mary and Dana/Danne, the Irish guide-us from
whence derives the description of the Irish as "Danic"

4) which gives us "marriedanne" as a Danic (Irish) Mary;

5) which gives us, you guessed it already -- Brighid, the Mary of the
Gael

But that's not all.

<Did ye save any tin? says he. Did I what? with a grin says she. And
we all like a marriedann>

What about that tin? Does that have any significance as regards the
Celts and Mary of Nazareth. Only about a ton!

Joseph of Arimithea, an uncle of Jesus of Nazareth, and hence
probably the brother of Mary, was a merchant who dealt in the
metallic alloy called "tin." His speciality was dealing with the
Celts in the British Isles, a fantastic voyage at the time from the
Levant across the Mediterranean, and up the Atlantic to the northern
sea.

Joseph of Arimithea was powerful and prosperous, and was able to
obtain permission to take the body of Jesus down from the cross
before sunset to comply with Jewish restrictions, since the Sabbath
began at sunset, and any labor, even cross removal on the Sabbath,
would have been regarded by the nitpickers who already despised Jesus
as proof of his unworthiness. He probably would have been left on the
cross another 24 hours, to spite his comment that the Sabbath was
made for man, and not man for the Sabbath -- the sort of humanist
reform rhetoric that had got the poor rebel where he was.

Apparently Joseph and Mary remained in the Levant for a period of
time afterwards, but things got hotter and hotter for them as the
teachings of Jesus spread in influence, and various cultistic
communities appeared in his name. Eventually Joseph of Arimithea
decided to take sister Mary out of harm's way, and used his skills
and resources to sail away with her to Celtic Britain, not yet a
Roman colony.

The story has it that they traveled around southern Britain looking
for a spot in which to settle. When Joseph of Arimithea rested his
staff at Glastonbury, an ancient site of Celtic ritual and ceremony,
his staff came to life, rooted, and flowered before his and Mary's
eyes. No contest, they settled in Glastonbury, where Mary of Nazareth
lived out the remainder of the days in which she listed earth as her
primary residence.

I would suppose that as Mary's midwives, Brighid and the Jinnis would
have dropped by Glastonbury from time to time, and bring Mary a
crater or two of Brighid's foamous wand-made ale. After all, Brighid
composed a poem in which she states that she would provide Jesus with
an entire lake of ale if he would like to drop by Kildare!

Interesting, btw, to note that Joseph of Arimithea's name has
the "thea" word -- latinate greek for "goddess." My read, highly
imaginative and personal, guide-us save me, is that Joe of A and Mary
of N get to Glastonbury broke, tired, feeling their age, and sick of
being pursued by the minions of the anti-thea.

Bang! Just as they're nodding off and questioning their faith (well
you know and don't you kinnet, just a tad), the old beat-up staff
flowers and scares the bejabbers out of them. Joseph is afraid he
angered the many buried druidic bigwigs at Glastonbury, and thinks he
will have to bribe them, which he and his sister have been getting
all to good at on their long flight. Joseph is out of his standard
offering, highclass tinwork, and asks Mary, "Did you save any tin?"
rather frantically.

Out steps from behind the flowering staff a rather glowing lady with
a faint scent of peat, and hair that seems to shimmer from auburn to
golden, who says smiling like a river, "Sure, and do ya ask me that,
now! Did I what?" And are Joe and Mary glad to see their old friend,
Danu's daughter, Brighid of the Danann, and or what . . . .

Answer: We all like a Mary of the Dan. Especially wi' a wee drap from
the craythur in hand. It's a bleezin' long walk from Golgotha ta
Glastonbury wi' yer gob dry, I'll have yous for to know!

Yours, in her grace's watch, the
Riverend Sterling ----




Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2003 19:55:00 -0000
Subject: Re: FW 12

<An auburn mayde, o'brine a'bride, to be desarted. Adear, adear>
013.26-27

Sorry, I can't resist. One more time, and I'll shut up for awhile. I
don't mean to imply that everything in the Wake is a reference to
Brighid, but

1) I do believe that Brighid's book of Kildare is Joyce's sole
original inspiration for writing the book which the Wake became; &,

2) One has to be a bit fanatic to march upstream, pardon the mixing
of my metaphors, against 60+ years of fierce ignorance and apathy
about Brighid from several generations of Joycean scholars, people
who otherwise tend to be mostly perceptive and beneficial (Ellmann
noted in the first paragraph of his first edition of James Joyce that
Joyce was born on St Brighid's day, and then removed it from the
second edition! -- so we're really up against it, a determined semi-
subconcious effort to erase the shining presence of someone who
represents so many things that the secular acadamies disdain: women
who are both powerful and kind, magic, the middle ages, the living
continuum of the remote pagan past, the supernatural, the empowerment
of the rural traditions, ecclesiatical computation, mystery, Celtic
Catholicism, and almost any positive Irish influence on their hero --
I mean, to name just a few).

Moving ahead. <An auburn mayde>. I agree with Suzanne, we rarely
expect any person or thing in the Wake to be exclusively one person
or one thing. Read again the description of Brighid's book --
intertwining complex subtleties which change even as you look. So why
would we expect one hair color? Brighid/Anna Livia -- they both
represent the eternal reappearance of the feminine spirit of the
kindest aspects of sacred empowerment, not any one person, god, or
woman. "Auburn streams of hair" is a phrase zipped into various 19th
century ballads, and flows in the Wake of course. It links Anna
Livia's auburn locks with her riverine persona. <mayde> has the word
known to all men, "ma." As Robert mentions, we encounter soon the
fires of early May on the Beltane, the second of the year's
midcardinal Celtic holy days, Brighid's rebirth day being the first,
and her annual descent into the earth for the winter at the end of
October being the fourth. We have noted "May," short for "Mary," as
the name of Joyce's real and fictional mothers. May Joyce was born
May 15th. All these resonations reinforce the importance of Joyce's
holy mother figures as being both personal and universal to him.

<o'brine a'bride> "Bride" is of course the short form of "Brighid."
Bride Street in Dublin is built on the site of a pre-Viking Church
dedicated to Saint Brighid, and the street in earlier times was
called "Synt Bryd." I mention this because to those unfamiliar with
the Brighid mythos, it might seem arbitrary always to derive Brighid
from Bride. It is not.

As for <o'brine>, the association of salt water, Brighid, and Brian
appears often in the Wake. Brian was Brighid's son. When Brian was
slain, Brighid was deeply grief-stricken beyond precedence for a
Celtic goddess. No doubt she cried many tears, salty as sea-brine. To
express and assuage her grief at Brian's death, Brighid invented
keening, the wailing lament for the dead which eventually evolved
into the stately poetic form of the Carolach, but also remained with
the people as the beginning of the ceremony called the wake.

As Ireland was invaded, occupied, and urbanized, the wake retreated
farther and farther into remote areas, eventually being kept alive
mostly in the northwest coastal and farm areas by sorts of hamble
creatures who still kept the old ways. As the ghost of Irish Home
Rule became more and more resurrect in the 19th century, the
traditional Irish wake began to be practiced again in Dublin, as a
quaint, enjoyable, and somehow proper-feeling thing.

<to be desarted> One of the reasons that the severe and anal
reformists of the church in the 12th century despised the Irish
Church, and its College of Jennies at Kildare, was that Malachi and
Anselm and Bernard could not tolerate its liberality. Kildare had a
co-educational school for the arts, for example -- the Roman Church
did indeed feel that the Irish Church had to be "desarted," that
is, "de-arted," and become stoic, cold, and boring.

<Adear, adear!> Not only do we hear the echoes of Brighid's keening
for her slain son, Brian -- in the usual Joycean manner, we see an
invocation of the goddess herself: a dea, a dea. This is not as
farfetched as it seems. The appearance later in the wake of "the deer
knows" is traced to the catchphrase, "the dear knows," which is
derived from "God (deo/dea) knows," while avoiding the curse -- that
is, casual invocation of the deity with saying the deity, so as not
to offend the deity.

<An auburn mayde, o'brine a'bride, to be desarted. Adear, adear!>

A virtuous young Irish lady, that is, a red-haired maiden, associated
with Brighid and with the tearful sadness at her son Brian's death,
from which all Irish wakes since derive, will be torn from the source
of her art. O Goddess, O Goddess!"

That's all for a while. More no more.

Yours, in her grace's watch, the
Riverend Sterling ----




Date: Sun, 19 Jan 2003 06:00:14 -0000
Subject: three pictures

Trying to keep quiet, but it's not easy with my lucky charms and all.
It is more enjoyable reading this list, than posting -- although
that's fun as well. Trying here just to address loose ends, though.

As a step toward my becoming

(Silent.)

[014.06],

I have timidly placed three pictures on our photo site. They seem to
be there, to my wonder and amazement.

1) a sample illustration from the 12 century topography of Ireland by
Giraldus Cambrensis;

2) a fairly recent photo of Brighid of Kildare; &,

3) a knotwork drawing of Brighid showing that, indeed, her hair is
parti-coloured in both auburn and brazen locks (I believe that Anna
is a redhead and Issy a blonde, but Brighid is what she wants).

I agree with Suzanne. Like any respectable dea, Brighid is not
beholden to be good, bad, or indifferent at our call. In her triple
aspect as a tresmater of poetry, healing, and iron craft, this is not
expecially in the foreground -- she seems mostly bona dea in all
those crafts. In her triple aspect in calendric mythos -- that is
quite another story.

In the tellings of that taling which I know (and they are not easy to
hear these days), Brighid One, so to speak, is the verna dea, a
goddess of spring and regeneration; Brighid Two and Three are deae of
winter and death. These appear in various stories of death in
Dubliners as the old Twa Sisters that herald death in Celtic story-
telling: Two Sisters, Clay, and most prominently, The Dead.

I am also in accord with Eric's point that Ellmann was correct in
removing St Brighid's day as Joyce's birthday, but I thought it was a
momentary lack of scholarly muscle that he did not follow up and
replace St Brighid simply with Brighid in his second edition of
_James Joyce_. It does not lessen the rest of the light Ellmann shed.

The passage which Eric cites as being from my paper (Foriver For
Allof -- The Ravisht Timing A'Bride by the Riverend Clarence R
Sterling =96 (c) 2001: Dates in Finnegans Wake (pages 013-014) re/ the
mainstream's confluency with an ecclesiastical sidedrain -- Part the
First) make some interesting observations, but a mistake has been
made. The excerpt cited as my writing is not my writing. It is not an
abridgement, either. And it's in quotes. ???? Maybe I am
misunderestimating something. I know Eric is compassionated, so not
to worry -- but I'm more confused than usual about it.

Which brings us back by the old commodius to my tip tip, old
chats . . . off to see the blizzard, and wishing you all my best, and
hoping to monitor your posts frequently enough not to fall too far
behind -- though as Bloom muses in the national museyroom . . . well,
no need to tell you more.

Yrs, etc, the ----




Date: Sun, 19 Jan 2003 06:13:31 -0000
Subject: Re: three pictures

Eric, sorry, I reread your post, and see you are clear about the
reference to the bloody wars annals of 013-014 being your own
writing, while graciously acknowledging my influence. For this, much
thanks.

I have instructed Yahoo only to include me on the list via the web
(and not on email) while I address other envelopes of less interest
but greater demand. Therefore, though I wanted to back up and read
your post before mine, I could not without losing the message I had
written (being too lazy to copy it into a processor). I know,
excuses . . . don't leave home without them, I always carry several
to mumble fast with profuse sincerity.

Damnivate it, it's hard to disengage from this cool conversation.
Fortunately, I know you'll do fine during my absence. We'll unpart
once more.

yrs, more etc, still the ----




Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 06:50:16 -0000
Subject: his cousin charmian 020.03

<under the ban of our infrarational senses
fore the last milch-camel,
the heartvein throbbing
between his eyebrowns,
has still to moor before the tomb
of his cousin charmian
where his date is tethered
by the palm that's hers>

Finnegans Wake 020.01-04

O, pull-ease . . . gag me with a sistrum.

Charmian and Iras are attendants on the queen in Shakespeare's Antony
and Cleopatra."

I love Charmian. Antony & Cleopatra itself is the most modern of
Shakespeare's plays. Charmian is its most modern character. Like
Flaubert's Temptation of St Anthony and Joyce's Circe, Antony &
Cleopatra comes off like a movie script. Its exploration of sex
scandals, among ruling class heroes is prime time material.

Charmian is perhaps the earliest portrayal of the character type, The
Valley Girl. The symptoms of this common problem, all
of which are displayed by Charmian, are:

1) A gushing verbal salad of rather casually crass observations;

2) a preoccupation with what are considered the shallower obsessions:
a)shopping;
b)conspicuous display of tokens of superiority;
c)overt mania about the silliest aspects of romance;

3) a lack of self-awareness which enables the Valley Girl to cause
all manner of havoc, while feeling herself roselike;

4) the repetition of stock phrases mixed with gauche syntax --

From her entrance, we are stamped with the amusing ineptness of
Charmian's thought-free discourse (note her typical interest in pop
occultism lite).

Enter CHARMIAN, IRAS, ALEXAS, and a Soothsayer

<CHARMIAN
Lord Alexas, sweet Alexas, most any thing Alexas,
almost most absolute Alexas, where's the soothsayer
that you praised so to the queen?>

See how later Charmian handles being informed of her mistress
Cleopatra's imminent death.

<Soothsayer
You shall outlive the lady whom you serve.

CHARMIAN
O excellent! I love long life better than figs.>

"Oh, my god," is the Valley girls' constant reactive motto.
Naturally, Charmian uses a deity's name with only the faintest of
sacrosanct implication as well.

<CHARMIAN
Like her! O Isis! 'tis impossible.> [In a nasal overexcited drawl].

Wonderfully, Charmian also uses "excellent" as a sentence,
just as do her modern counterparts.

<CHARMIAN
Excellent.>

It is Charmian, of course, who comes up with the airhead scheme for
Cleopatra to fake a suicide, which goes off about as well as it did
in Romeo and Juliet. After the false rumour causes Antony's reactive
but (slightly) more successful suicide, and Cleopatra's second and
successful one, Charmian is given her chance for an immortal
soliloquy over her queen's fresh corpse. She can only come up with a
hilarious, bungled, and inappropriate self-caricature, including her
characteristic obsessing on appearance, an "off" usage of "lass" --
and the usage of pseudo-profound, garbled, and off-target clich=E9s.
The ending speaks for itself.

<CHARMIAN
In this vile world? So, fare thee well.
Now boast thee, death, in thy possession lies
A lass unparallel'd. Downy windows, close;
And golden Phoebus never be beheld
Of eyes again so royal! Your crown's awry;
I'll mend it, and then play.>

Charmian is very much an Issy, and at one point, she calls upon the
sky to rain. Like Issy, she manages simultaneously to be eternal and
immature.

Notable certainly for Mr Joyce, Charmian is a devotee of Issy's
highest-ranking persona, Isis. I love Charmian.

Yours, with best wishes, the
Riverend Sterling.
2001 Jan 21




Date: Sat, 01 Feb 2003 03:57:30 -0000
Subject: top of the moon to you

2003 January 31 =96 circa 2000 hours PST

Pssssst . . . .

Still lurking, but enjoying reading all your thoughts, which I catch
up on whenever possible -- no, earlier than that.

Wanted to note that this is it, btw -- Brighid's Eve. It starts at
sunset on the last day of the first month. Rural Irish girls weave
their special crosses tonight, and so on. The festival varies of
course from here to there, and from now til then. In Finnegans Wake,
Mr Joyce as we know places great emphasis on the Eve which falls on
January 31st, the date of the letter pulled from the midden by the
little red hen.

As I have written to some considerable extent elsewhere, there is
only one specific "date of record" given anywhere in Finnegans Wake.
It is 1132 January 31. Other times may be implied, sifted, and seen
through crooked smokes . . . but only 1132 January 31 is actually
presented in the Wake, a specific day in earthly time.

It is worth adding, I believe, that the first draft of a scene for
Finnegans Wake does indeed take place in Ireland in the 1100's (the
King Rory Vignette). Joyce was there from the start. His "experts"
have yet even to set their sights in the correct direction. This list
is the notable exception.

This year, the three days with associations for "Brighid's Day" are
highlighted by low light (Jan 31 =96 Feb 02). There is a new moon, ie
there is no moon, with the center of its darkness peaking at 0340
hours Pacific Standard Time, February 01 (tonight). I suppose you
have to add one hour for each time zone which brings you closer to
Dublin from the west, or something like that -- new moon will be at
0640 hours on the US east coast, for example.

A new moon on Brighid's Eve would certainly have been very notably
noted in . . . well, hey, I am very duly noting it now (the name of
my town in Chumashan is "new moon"). Traditionally, the new moon is
the beginning of the month, when "month" still meant moon (ie,
lunation), and this period is considered a time for new beginnings, a
time of stress when certain holy sounds and noises are to be made,
and a contemplative moment when one is advised to check the wick on
one's internal lighting system. If your spiritual fires are out on
the night of the new moon, you all ain't got NO light! This is not
the case with those to whom at this moment I am writing, however =96
quite the opposite, and thank you for it.

May the blessings Brighid brings be

Yours, in her grace's watch, the
Riverend Sterling ----






Date: Sun, 02 Feb 2003 19:26:02 -0000
Subject: Re: fw 24 interdig finish (rich text)

<He dug in and dug out by the skill of his tilth for himself and all
belonging to him and he sweated his crew beneath his auspice for the
living and he urned his dread>
Finnegans Wake 024.03-05

Notes on Scylla & Charybdis:

The key figure is Socrates, as played by Stephen Dedalus. His problem
is to sail past the twin devouring monsters of dry dogmatic
reasoning, played by John Eglinton in the role of Aristotle, and
mystical faith, performed by George Russell as Plato.

The philosophy of Socrates was that each person should give birth to
his own soul. Thus one may avoid being sucked into the maelstrom of
cultism while dodging the multi-maws of academia.

In order not to be fodder for the mental machinery of other minds,
Socrates posited than a man must be as his own mother, and give birth
to his own logos, his own conceptual theory of life as she is sung.
Thus life comes to a person as something young, something fresh, and
need not mire itself running in the worn ruts of received theories
which stain the soul, and make it something old and dead which the
poor body must haul through its course of days like an ape who cannot
accept the death of its stillborn infant.

The Socratic method, which Socrates associated with his mother's art
of midwifery, is generally disdained by the larger camps who pitch
their tents by the whirlpool, which drags us downward into dim foggy
thoughtlessness, and the many-headed monster, which lifts us upward
into psuedo-intellectual cant. The way of Socrates is labeled
eisegetic, sophistic, and generally attacked within the "why can't
you be like everybody else" approach. Every generation, and indeed,
every village, campus, and family reunion, nevertheless, continues to
produce one or two of these egregious assholes without whom society
would stultify and die, at least in terms of cultural growth.

The problem which plagues Socratics, of course, is that after one has
given birth to one's own soul, then what . . . ? Dogma and faith have
much to offer. So does Socratics, especially when it is tempered with
an openmindedness about the values of other people's souls, and a
general feeling for proper navigation.

"Man always travels along precipices," according to Jose Ortega y
Gasset. "His truest obligation is to keep his balance."

The mature person, then, is not so much one who has given birth to
himself, but the one who continues to give birth to himself. Any
coffee house will provide us with good examples of those who gave
birth to something they consider to be themselves, and then have
given up on the process, accepting the partial advance in maturation
they'd made as final. In that case, their own buds become mystical
and dogmatic distortions as they infloresce.

Ma is the word know to all men. There is no other. Debate it, or quit
debating it. Nothing changes. The die was long cast before any of us
were born, including Mr Joyce. Ma is the word known to all men.

Ma-ture. It means what? It means remaining in a constant state of
giving birth to yourself. Who is considered to be mature in the
earlier grades? The person who speaks to himself in a motherly
thought pattern when the mama is away.

"It is cold outside. Take your jacket. Look both ways, there is
traffic. Don't speak in anger to your teacher." Etc and so on. We
speak to ourself as our mother would were she present. We are mature.

Scylla and Charybdis portray negative aspects of motherhood. They are
monsters which surface when a parent is unbalanced in its parenting.
Both are represented as oral forms of destruction by devouring =96 a
fierce sucking whirlpool when love is so blindly adhesive that it
destroys what it embraces; a ring of wombsprung predation facing all
directions when love is too wilfull and dry. Two aspects of one
problem which occurs when a mother does not encourage her child to
continue to be born according to internal dictates of the child's
soul.

As Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man indicates by its title, it
is a book about a soul giving birth to itself. As it closes, the
artist compares himself with a bird,

<symbols and portents, of the hawk-like man whose name he bore
soaring out>.

Soaring out from what? His nest, of course, for the nest, for all its
symbolism of comfort and security, is never designed to be a
permanent dwelling. It is something from which one must learn to fly,
or die in immaturity. If you don't leave the nest, you become
suffocated in the accumulating fecal material of yourself and your
family.

As the above citation indicates, Joyce was also aware that birds are
key components of classical and celtic augury. One of the midwives to
the soul of James Joyce, Giambattista Vico, placed great emphasis
throughout The New Science on the role of the auspex. These auspices
were the augurs who used birds' appearances, especially in flight, as
their palimpsest for understanding the obscurities of the past, the
nature of the present, and the possibilities of the future.

Vico gives to the auspices of early Rome the roles of sacred poets,
and an importance which would later be awarded to . . . well, to
about everbody except poets. In understanding Joyce's choice of a
family name for his fictional counterpart, Dedalus, we must reflect
on several things, and one is that he encourages the associative
values of the man who is at ease in the world of the bird. Dedalus is
the hawk-man who, through the skills of his artistic mastery, is able
to fly away from the byzantine confines of mystical faith and soar
above the broken parapets of dogmatic reasoning.

The auspex, whether Latinate or Celtic, views the simplest received
movements of life in the present moment, that of the free birds, and
comes to an epiphanic understanding of how reality is unfolding
through a hierophantic process. Ulysses does not survive by ornate
systems of magic or philosophy. He survives by grabbing a nearby bush
and holding onto it like a bat. Ulysses understands that the world of
nature is always with us, and always vocal to unplugged ears.

How subtly yet clearly, for example, does Joyce cite the augury of
birds by the priests of Apollo in Hades. It simply is there: showing
it. Cease to strive. The example used by Jesus of Nazareth in his
parable to that effect: the birds in the field.

It is not that the little birds in the field do not strive. They
strive thoughout life to live, as do we all. Life is strife. Life is
good. Argal, striving is good, for by it we stay alive, and keep on
rocking with the free birds. What is in play is to cease to pit
various parts of the brain in self-destructive contention.

Cease to strive. We enable ourselves to strive to secure what counts
in life by ceasing to favor artificially-posited sides in our
internal struggles. We learn to think instead of worry. The mature
person does not beat his poor ass over whether or not God exists, or
which of the two sexes is better, or whether the circle or straight
line is a preferable metaphor. Cease to strive. It does not imply
limpness or amorality. It implies becoming oneself in order to be an
effective force in the real world by the light of one's own best
judgement and values.

This is possibly why Joyce is at pains throughout chapter nine to
keep the Quaker image in mind. Cease to strive is the Quaker's
methodology, but it is harnessed toward achieving activism in the
service of higher moral aims than those generally imposed by society
at large.

We certainly can learn more about freedom from the birds outside our
window than we can from the current administration. Will anyone wish
to argue with me that the average bird is not more truthful than the
average political leader?

Scylla and Charybdis is about succession. As Mulligan states through
a glass darkly, and as Haines expands, Stephen's theories about
Hamlet are to do with an apostolic-like succession of artists and
auspices which traces Stephen Dedalus, and thus James Joyce, back to
Shakespeare and Hamlet and Jesus and St Brighid and Pagan Brighid and
Dana and all the Tuatha De Danaan. This is the burden Stephen carries
within himself, the knowledge that he has been given the call to be
an auspex, and that he intends to answer in the affirmative. This is
what he cannot reveal to the group in the library. This is why like a
lapwing he must humiliate himself throughout his lecture by leading
his listeners away from what he knows, while simultaneously not
betraying the truth, which is being born in the nest which his
detours and acts of broken wings are designed to protect.

Crooked smokes can reveal straight truths if they rise from the
earth. According to Vico, the smoke from a house represents the
aggregate sum of its residents. Vico also states that fresh fertile
earth is the archetype and origin of all altars.

Fraidrine is Cymric for Brighidine. Shem was ffraidborn, according to
the Wake. Joyce was born on Brighid's day (not St Brighid's day,
which is one day earlier). You can't discuss these things in a
library literary discussion. Or anywhere. All true mysteries protect
themselves.

Yours, in her grace's watch, the
Riverend Sterling =96 2003 February 01 =96 sunset
-----------------------------------------------------
----- Original Message -----
From: trans-parent seas
To: Joyce-Ulysses@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Saturday, February 01, 2003 6:06 PM
Subject: [Joyce-Ulysses] Re: "Cease to Strive" Re: Darkened
Understanding
-----------------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------------------




Date: Sun, 02 Feb 2003 20:38:54 -0000
Subject: Re: fw 25 reformatted (rich text)

<That you could fell an elmstree twelve urchins couldn't ring round
and hoist high the stone that Liam failed.>
Finnegans Wake 025.30-31

Mr Joyce refers several times in Ulysses to the elm in a sacral
context. In conversation at Barney Kiernan's pub in "The Citizen,"

<--As treeless as Portugal we'll be soon, says John Wyse, or
Heligoland with its one tree if something is not done to reafforest
the land. Larches, firs, all the trees of the conifer family are
going fast. I was reading a report of lord Castletown's ....

--Save them, says the citizen, the giant ash of Galway and the
chieftain elm of Kildare with a fortyfoot bole and an acre of
foliage. Save the trees of Ireland for the future men of Ireland on
the fair hills of Eire, O.>
Ulysses 12.1258-64 (326:33-41)

serves as a segue into the arboreal wedding slight of fantasy, one of
whose attendants is in fact a

<Her shoes were the newest thing in footwear (Edy Boardman prided
herself that she was very petite but she never had a foot like Gerty
MacDowell, a five, and never would ash, oak or elm) with patent
toecaps and just one smart buckle over her higharched instep.>
Ib. 13.0164-68 (350:27-31)

<What considerations rendered departure desirable?

The attractive character of certain localities in Ireland and abroad,
as represented in general geographical maps of polychrome design or
in special ordnance survey charts by employment of scale numerals and
hachures.

In Ireland?

The cliffs of Moher, the windy wilds of Connemara, lough Neagh with
submerged petrified city, the Giant's Causeway, Fort Camden and Fort
Carlisle, the Golden Vale of Tipperary, the islands of Aran, the
pastures of royal Meath, Brigid's elm in Kildare, the Queen's Island
shipyard in Belfast, the Salmon Leap, the lakes of Killarney.>
Ib. 17.1968-78 (726:21-32)

<Wych Elm Ulmus glabra Wych Elm is the only species of Elm found in
Ireland. Unlike most of the other species found in Britain and
Europe, the Wych Elm does not reproduce by suckering (new trees
growing from roots of the original tree) and is only spread by seed.
Despite being one of Ireland's most common trees before the arrival
of man, Elm is rare in Ireland due to its tendency to occupy the most
fertile soils which are the most sought after for agriculture. The
species has also suffered from the effects of the infamous Dutch Elm
disease. Many different species of Elm are still very common in
hedgerows throughout Ireland, but truly native trees are probably
confined to rocky hillsides and remote valleys in the west of
Ireland.>

The Wych Elm is classified in Ireland as rare and endangered.

<http://www.nativewoodtrust.ie/international_redlist.html>







Date: Sun, 02 Feb 2003 21:08:59 -0000
Subject: Re: fw 25 reformatted (rich text)

My previous post mailed itself prematurely while I watched helplessly
aghast. My apologies, sorry -- here is the intended entirety:

<That you could fell an elmstree twelve urchins couldn't ring round
and hoist high the stone that Liam failed.>
Finnegans Wake 025.30-31

Mr Joyce refers several times in Ulysses to the elm in a sacral
context. In conversation at Barney Kiernan's pub in "The Citizen":

<--As treeless as Portugal we'll be soon, says John Wyse, or
Heligoland with its one tree if something is not done to reafforest
the land. Larches, firs, all the trees of the conifer family are
going fast. I was reading a report of lord Castletown's ....

--Save them, says the citizen, the giant ash of Galway and the
chieftain elm of Kildare with a fortyfoot bole and an acre of
foliage. Save the trees of Ireland for the future men of Ireland on
the fair hills of Eire, O.>
Ulysses 12.1258-64 (326:33-41)

serves as a segue into the arboreal wedding flight of fantasy, one of
whose attendants is in fact a "Lady Sylvester Elmshade."

Gifford implies in his annotations that Joyce has substituted,
perhaps unconciously by mistake, elm for oak in

<the chieftain elm of Kildare with a fortyfoot bole and an acre of
foliage>

because the oak is the namesake tree of Kildare. It seems unlikely
however that Joyce would make this mistake. Rather we would expect an
artistic intent which remains unclear but patent. Even in the fantasy
wedding, the oak is recognized for its high and holy regal position:

<Mrs Norma Holyoake of Oakholme Regis graced the ceremony>.

In the immediately subsequent chapter, "Nausicaa," Joyce subtitutes
elm again, but this time for "thorn," and by so doing, again places
the generally humble elm tree is a sacred light, as part of an
ancient druidic invocation in which it is placed in a tresmater
configuration with the ash and oak itself:

<Her shoes were the newest thing in footwear (Edy Boardman prided
herself that she was very petite but she never had a foot like Gerty
MacDowell, a five, and never would ash, oak or elm) with patent
toecaps and just one smart buckle over her higharched instep.>
Ib. 13.0164-68 (350:27-31)

And in "Ithaca," Joyce's mythopoeic albeit seemingly apocryphal elm
in Kildare is specifically tied with Brighid:

<What considerations rendered departure desirable?

The attractive character of certain localities in Ireland and abroad,
as represented in general geographical maps of polychrome design or
in special ordnance survey charts by employment of scale numerals and
hachures.

In Ireland?

The cliffs of Moher, the windy wilds of Connemara, lough Neagh with
submerged petrified city, the Giant's Causeway, Fort Camden and Fort
Carlisle, the Golden Vale of Tipperary, the islands of Aran, the
pastures of royal Meath, Brigid's elm in Kildare, the Queen's Island
shipyard in Belfast, the Salmon Leap, the lakes of Killarney.>
Ib. 17.1968-78 (726:21-32)

and again, Gifford "corrects" Mr Joyce with annotative tenacity.
Indeed, according to this following website excerpt, the native Irish
elm is uncommon anywhere:

<Wych Elm; Ulmus glabra. Wych Elm is the only species of Elm found in
Ireland. Unlike most of the other species found in Britain and
Europe, the Wych Elm does not reproduce by suckering (new trees
growing from roots of the original tree) and is only spread by seed.
Despite being one of Ireland's most common trees before the arrival
of man, Elm is rare in Ireland due to its tendency to occupy the most
fertile soils which are the most sought after for agriculture. The
species has also suffered from the effects of the infamous Dutch Elm
disease. Many different species of Elm are still very common in
hedgerows throughout Ireland, but truly native trees are probably
confined to rocky hillsides and remote valleys in the west of
Ireland.>

The Wych Elm is classified in Ireland as rare and endangered.

<http://www.nativewoodtrust.ie/international_redlist.html>

Brighid's mysterious holy elm of Kildare -- did Joyce invent it?

Yours, in her grace's watch, the
Riverend Sterling ----







Date: Mon, 03 Feb 2003 22:45:27 -0000
Subject: fell an elmstree 025.30

<From the resemblance of the name--which is indeed not infrequently
written "Witch"--the tree has been considered a preservative against
witchcraft, and in the midland counties a small piece of its wood
used accordingly to be let into the churns, under the belief that
without it the butter would not come.>

from: <http://www.2020site.org/trees/wychelm.html>

The above site is worth a visit. Its photograph of a wych elm does
indeed show a tree oak-like in size.

Yours, with best wishes, the
Riverend Sterling ----




Date: Mon, 03 Feb 2003 22:57:27 -0000
Subject: Re: fell an elmstree 025.30

Then there is the following:

Indo-European Roots

ENTRY: weik-2

DEFINITION: Also weig-. To bend, wind.

Derivatives include wicker, weak, and vicarious.

I. Form *weig-. 1a. wych elm, from Old English wice, wych elm (having
pliant branches); b. wicker, from Middle English wiker, wicker, from
a Scandinavian source akin to Swedish viker, willow twig, wand; c.
wicket, from Old North French wiket, wicket (< "door that turns"),
from a Scandinavian source probably akin to Old Norse vikja, to bend,
turn. a=96c all from Germanic *wik-. 2a. weak, from Old Norse veikr,
pliant; b. weakfish, from Middle Dutch weec, weak, soft. Both a and b
from Germanic *waikwaz. 3. week, from Old English wicu, wice, week,
from Germanic *wikn-, "a turning," series.

II. Form *weik-. Zero-grade form *wik-. a. vicar, vicarious, vice-;
vicissitude, from Latin *vix (genitive vicis), turn, situation,
change; b. vetch, from Latin vicia, vetch (< "twining plant").
(Pokorny 4. eik- 1130.)


The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth
Edition.

Yours, with even better wishes, the
Riverend Sterling ----




Date: Mon, 03 Feb 2003 23:57:42 -0000
Subject: Tell me, tell me, tell me, elm!

And this:

<The Domesday Book (1086-1195) recorded "salinae" or salt springs (in
order of importance) at Droitwich, Worcester (mentioned 25 times),
Norfolk, Lincolnshire, Kent, Devon, Sussex, Dorset, Hampshire and
Cornwall.

Salt was extracted from brine springs, the most famous of which were
in Droitwich, Worcestershire and in Cheshire towns with names ending
in "wich"; brine springs were called "wyches" probably after the
famous one at Droitwich.>

from: <http://www.pillagoda.freewire.co.uk/WYCH.htm>

yrs, etc, the ----









Date: Tue, 04 Feb 2003 00:33:07 -0000
Subject: Re: Tell me, tell me, tell me, elm!

<Tell me, tell me, tell me, elm!>
Finnegans Wake 216.03

The above citation again has Mr Joyce placing the within the context
of invocation. Later in the Wake, we read:

<Oakley Ashe's elm.>
503.32

which recapitulates the Joycean adaptation of the tresmaterial
druidic charm, "By Oak, Ash, and Thorn," rendered in Ulysses as <ash,
oak and elm> (from "Ithaca" =96 Gerty MacDowell realizes that even by
this invocatory spell, Edy Boardman never could have as delightfully
petite a foot as Gerty's).

<the wych elm of Manelagh is still flourishing in the open, because
its native of our nature and the seeds was sent by Fortune>
2253.19-21

shows that Mr Joyce

1) knew the wych elm as a particular type of elm;

2) and that the wych elm is native to Ireland;

3) and possibly that possibly he knew that, unlike the elms imported
to Ireland, the native wych elm reproduces by seed only, and thus is
not as appropriate for hedges as imported elms are, which sprout
weedlike from runners, and hence propagate rapidly, requiring a
gardner merely to pull out those suckers not desired, and leave those
to grow which already are doing so where one wishes =96 the Irish wych
elm, on the other hand, best flourishes <in the open>.

<the loftleaved elm Lefanunian>
265.04

demonstrates Joyce's knowledge of the wych elm's name in Irish,
leamhan (pron: "levan"), which he has merged with the name of Irish
writer, Le Fanu.

<Do you can their tantrist spellings? I can lese, skillmistress
aiding. Elm, bay, this way, cull dare, take a message>
571.06-08

This passage seems to feature the author making a little fun at his
own expense, posing the question "Do you understand (can =3D ken)
obscure magical (tantric) spellings (orthography and charms)?"

The interesting answer is, "Yes, if I am allowed by the help of the
skill-mistress." Then in the next sentence, elm is again associated
with Kildare (cull dare), showing again that Mr Joyce is carrying elm
themata from Ulysses into the Wake, being

1) the sacred nature of leamhan, the Irish elm;

2) the invocatory usage of elm with oak and ash; and,

3) an association of the elm with Brighid and Kildare.

Knowing this does not resolve the enigmatic nature of the Joycean
introduction of the elm into the exalted status generally reserved
for other trees in Celtic mythos, but it underscores the existence of
these themes as real and of importance to Mr Joyce.

Yours, in her grace's watch, the
Riverend Sterling ----




Date: Thu, 06 Feb 2003 04:23:11 -0000
Subject: Re: trying something different

notes for Finnegans Wake 026.02-29

<you were the pale>

among many other things, no doubt, i believe a vampire or similar
ghoulish and predaceous revenant from the living dead is being here
addressed

"So may the priest . . . come never anear you"

vampires don't like them, & vice versa

<as your hair grows wheater>

entendre for two states: the dead continue to grow hair like the
living, or so its said; and the dead become soil amendment for the
new crop of grasses and grains

<jackboots incloted>

boots with dried blood on them

<Your heart is in the system of the Shewolf>

pretty well speaks for itself

<Be not unrested!>

the standard plea & prayer to the restless dead to cease their
nocturnal walkings, and sleep like a good corpse -- pray for the
dead, or the dead will prey on you, we used to sing at school

<Totumcalmum>

the mummy, here represented by Tutankamen, is another favorite
monster which returns from the grave

<thou abramanation>

contains the name of the creator of the novel, dracula: bram stoker

<who comest ever without being invoked, whose coming is unknown>

sounds like old drac to me

<concerning thee in the matter of the work of thy tombing>

always one of drac's concerns, and a particular affair he had
handled, initially by correspondence, with jonathan's harker's firm
prior to drac's move from transylvania to england

<of the shipmen>

drac's arrangements were for the coffins for himself and his three
brides to be delivered by ship along with boxes of earth for his
retombing -- he and the mrs's dracs ate the shipmen as part of the
bargain

<steep wall!>

harker only escaped a similar fate by making a horrific climb down
castle dracula's steep and precipitous exterior wall, and escaping
through the forest

<(sleep well)>

yea, right . . . .

<Coughings all over the sanctuary>

nothing like coffins to give the sanctuary that fuzzy feel

<the Diet of Man>

standard dietary plan for the mature vampire

good evening, yours, the
Riverend Sterling ----




Date: Thu, 06 Feb 2003 06:03:37 -0000
Subject: Re: O my !!! lerive________

i happen to like vampires
so it didn't occur to me
that their association
maligns bats ----

i do agree, however, that
people have an unfortunate
tendency to attach their
own evil to other species
other countries other
times anything other other
for obvious but not very
admirable reasons and
pretty innocent little guys
like snakes and bats get the
bad rap which makes them
under special care from the
bona dea on her power roll

but is it possible this has
been done to vampires as well

not one single vampire has ever
started a war or saved money to
give to oily ceos by scrimping on
safety measures for the shuttle

also vampires have the extreme
good taste only to exist in only
in fiction where they are romantic
exciting and suck away a whole lot
less blood than the average anybody
in the white harse's general
vicinity in my not so etc

bats are cool i was batswarmed once
by thousands during a solo exploration
of a vast stone tunnel built under
a deserted mayan city and i woke them
and they freaked out but not one bat
hurt me and that makes bats big in
my book also i like vampires

the riverend sterling




Date: Fri, 14 Feb 2003 02:35:27 -0000
Subject: Re: triple gee gee and servantry

1132 January 32 = 1132 February 01

I have just had the rather intoxicating experience of catching up on
a week or more's postings, so I am feeling either very Delphic or
not. Anyway, it was grand fun although it was frustrating not to have
more time really to enjoy the poetic aspects of this list.

A few quick notes of relevant alphanumerics:

"32" is the holiest number in Qabala. It forms the basis of the
seminal pre- & proto- document to Qabala, Sefer Yetzirah -- The Book
of Arrangement.

32 is awarded pole position because it is the number of letters in
the Semitic alphabet (there it is: "old Sem, pat as a-b-c-t'd"),
which is 22, plus the ten numbers. 22 letters + 10 numbers = 32. You
might well ask, "32 what?" 32 "threads" from which are woven the
universe, according to Sefer Yetzirah.

These are not arbitrary numeric elements. 22 yields the smallest
whole number for an accurate pi. That is, 22 divided by 7 = pi. As to
the ten basic numbers, they are of course derived from the fingers of
the hand. The fact that pi is an irrational number (cannot be
resolved but is real) has fascinated us for millennia. I have written
many hundreds of pages on this, and its interface in FW, which I will
spare you.

So, we have 32 as the queen of all numbers. The question on the table
at this point is how does it appear in Joycean calendrics. This is
how.

As Eric has recently posted, the only clear date in the Wake is 1132
January 31, the date of the first St Brighid's Eve following the rape
of the Abbess of Kildare on the night of 1132 January 01. (I should
mention at this point that for purposes of understanding Joyce's
mythopoesis in the Wake, I make no distinction between the pagan
tresmaterial goddess, Brighid, and the saint of Kildare, Brighid. In
other areas of scholarship, the distinction is real and important,
but is much less so in the world as she is sung in the Wake, or so I
perceive).

In viewing the date "1132 January 31," we have to realize that it
is "Old Style." McHugh mistakenly refers to this as Gregorian, when
he means Julian (if my memoremee serves), but it is not precisely
either. Julian, yes . . . Gregorian time was not recorded until 1582
in Catholic countries, and later in others (even as late as the 20th
century). But by Old Style, I believe Joyce means both Julian AND
Lunar calendric time.

Joyce's primary source for the record of the rape of the Abbess of
Kildare is probably the Annals of Loch Ce, a chronicle of the
MacMurrough clans in Ireland. The Annals of Loch Ce record time
simultaneously in both Julian and Lunar dating. Lunar time is
complex, and this is not the time to fully explain its mechanics and
various conventions.

What is germane at this juncture is that traditional Celtic lunar
time is very similar to the modern Islamic calendar. In fact, that is
calendar I find useful in fully understanding old Irish dates. I
believe that the Annals of Loch Ce describe the rape of the Abbess of
Kildare as being on the 10th day of the moon, by which is meant the
tenth day that the moon has been visible since the last new (no)
moon. This would be some three or four days prior to the next full
moon.

Old Irish days, like modern Jewish and Islamic days, do not start at
sunrise, as we now think; nor at midnight, as we now record; nor at
noon, as astronomers post. Old Style days, meaning Really Old Style
days, begin at sunset. So the moment of record for a given day in
lunar calendars is the previous sunset to our current mainstream
calendrical days.

What I am getting to in the Wake is this. As I am writing this post,
the sun has just set where I am. My post which I soon will send will
be dated on Feb 13, but in lunar time, it is now Feb 14 (Happy Saint
Valentine's!).

New Year's day in 1132 in the Irish Annals began at sunset on what we
would call December 31, 1131. 1132 January 31, viewed as we now do,
includes the first six or seven hours of what THEY called February
01.

This is why all the Eve's from the old holy day calendars. Christmas
Eve originally fell on December 25, which started at sunset on what
we now call December 24, and so on. The parish would gather at a
church to begin a holy day's celebration at sunset, after the day's
work was done. They would listen to homilies and celebrate a mass.
Then a feast would be held, or a fast begun. In either case, the
parish would party all night long in the streets and halls, whooping
it up, dancing, singing, a drop or two would flow from the crater,
and several new souls might even enjoy a sanctified conception among
the rigs or in the lofts. In the morning, the bleary-eyed parish
would lie about awhile, and then reconvene for another mass.

This was called a vigil, and vigils had become largely outlawed in
Europe and England by the 1100's, for the reasons stated above. There
was a conservative "reform" afoot in the church, and having fun while
worshipping was frowned upon more and more severely. The Irish
Catholic Church, being then Roman Catholic in name more than
practice, was a hold-out, and vigils were still in play. This was in
fact used as part of the excuse for the invasion of Ireland in 1169
by the Normans of Wales in cahoots with King Henry II of England Pope
and Adrian, the only British Pope.

BUT, in 1131, a vigil was no doubt held on Christmas Eve, and again,
on its "Octave," January 01 of 1132 -- New Year's Eve. The New Year's
vigil was an especially wild and beloved one, for it was organized by
the younger monks, the older ones and the priests being exhausted by
now from the earlier Christmastide vigils. It would also have been a
propitious moment to breech the security of the wealthy and
prestigious Abbey of Kildare, which literally would have had its
guard down.

What we wind up with is this. There was considerable death,
destruction, and depravity against the Abbey of Kildare and the
College of Brighid on the first night of January in 1132, and in
fact, Ireland is still recovering. At first, such repercussion is
hard to understand. To place it in proper perspective, we most
compare the razing of the Abbey of Kildare with the destruction of
the twin towers at the World Trade Center in New York. The purposes,
impacts, and resonations down through history are in fact notably
similar.

The next St Brighid's Eve, beginning her annual several days of
universal recognition throughout Ireland, would have been poignant
and sombre. It began at sunset on what is now recorded as 1132
January 31, but which at that time would have been called 1132
February 01. St Brighid's Day, in other words, began at St Brighid's
Eve by the lunar recording methods then being used.

St Brighid's day is the 32nd day of the year. The number of days in
the year then which is represented by 1132 January 31, both in terms
of the rape of the Abbess of Kildare and the lunar calendar in place
when it occurred is (since the Wake specifically associates the day
with its eve) 32.

Yours, in her grace's watch, the
Riverend Sterling ----





Date: Fri, 14 Feb 2003 05:07:52 -0000
Subject: Re: triple servantry

There are interesting elements, as always, in Eric's most recent post
which I would like to address. I may expand the elements beyond what
is in play currently, and even beyond the Wake in toto, but if so,
which I can't really say, the elements are interesting in general.

The African threads Karl follows are quite divergent from mainstream
Joyceanism, as are, perhaps even more strangely, mine, which often
derive from Irish Ecclesiastical history. It is easy to dismiss
anything divergent, and indeed, it is unusual not to do so. The
openmindedness of this particular list is unique and wonderful, and I
am quite grateful for it. Suzanne has established a creative haven
which has been bizarrely absent from Joyceanism.

The African influence on the Jazz Age seems to be fading from general
recognition, which certainly is as strange as the prevalent denial of
the influence of Irish mythos on Joyce. But paradox rules, as the
coincidance of contraries, and so shall it be. Robert recently
pointed out how established Joyceans rally to a supposed dismissal of
Celtic mythos by Joyce. In my opinion, Joyce was very assiduous in
his ability to remove babies before tossing bathwater, and this seems
overlooked.

Finnegans Wake is Joyce's contribution to the Jazz Age, and whatever
specific threads of African and Creole influence exists within it or
do not, its recognition of the centrality of sound and rhythm and
impulse to art owes as much in its freedom in innovation to Africa as
does the work of Picasso. As is often the case with major cultural
change, the wellsprings become hidden as commercial and
administrative forces steal the breakthroughs made by artistic
pioneers in order to make them commercial products available for a
fee to the masses. The Rolling Stones and the Beatles listened
religiously to Elmore James and Sam Lightnin' Hopkins, but while
everybody knows and loves the Beatles and the Stones, few to this day
are familiar with their seminal influences, and marketing image
makers have no plans to change that.

By the same tokens, the average tenured professor is unlikely to push
the Irish potato famine into the faces of the committee of editors to
whom his manuscripts and course outlines are presented. Titles such
as "Gender as Narrative: Joyce's Stylistic Structures" are much
safer.

Oh, I almost forgot . . . the elements in my reference earlier. The
Irish potato famine . . . grass . . . Irish sent to the New World as
slaves.

During the weird US invasion of the tiny Carribean island of Grenada,
a major TV network hooked up a symposium on the air of the governors
of five equally tiny adjacent islands. I was interested that all
spoke with the same lovely Carribean lilt I had associated with
Calypso singers, but were all middle aged men in suits and ties, some
of whom were black and some of whom were white. The white men in
suits talking like Calypso singers really took me aback, in a most
delighted way.

I read up on the thing a little, although not exhaustively. What was
fact and what only claimed to be was not entirely important for
Joycean studies. Joyce was a mythologist, and broadminded enough to
include the truth within the genre of mythos when constructing his
own.

What I read was that during the Potato Famine, boatloads of young
Irish girls otherwise fated for starvation were sold on order to
marry black men in the Carribean. The results were an quantum leap in
the Voodoo religion, which is a form of bootleg Catholicism with
African and Celtic elements, a beautiful way of speaking English, and
some awesome music.

I believe Irish brides were also purchased quite earlier by island
black men, beginning after the 1803 revolution in Haiti, where self-
liberated slaves beat in battle the combined forces of Europe, who
temporarily forgot the hatreds of the Pennisular Wars in a failed
attempt to win the slaves back by militarily defeating them in battle.

As to the grass . . . have you heard of "hungry grass." Sometimes in
Ireland, for many years after the famine, people lying on the grass
in certain spots would suddenly experience debilitating hunger until
they arose and got away from that particular grassy area. The spin
was that the so-called "hungry grass" is where someone starving had
died.

Yours, in her grace's watch, the
Riverend Sterling ----




Date: Sat, 15 Feb 2003 20:55:50 -0000
Subject: fw 029.14-15

<Creator he has created for his creatured ones a creation.>
Finnegans Wake 029.14-15>

For six years, I have been recording on list after list the neglected
significance and importance of this line. So far, I have never
received any response, so/yet, Once more into my breeches!

<Creator he has created for his creatured ones a creation> is a
precise and accurate replication of the conception of deity by the
9th century Irish heresiarch, linguist, and exegeticist, Ioannes
Eriugena (aka John Scotus).

Eriugena reintroduced literacy to the center of power on Continental
Europe, where it had become lost after the fall of the Roman Empire
several centuries earlier. As we all know, Ireland did not experience
a cultural decay when Rome fell, because Ireland had never been part
of the Empire.

Ioannes Eriugena not only could read, but could read the New
Testament in the original Koine Greek. He spent some years at the
court of Charles the Bald, where he was received as a scholar of high
rank and renown.

Eriugena was also spry of wit. It is said that when he was first
seated at the royal table of Charles, a jealous and mean-spirited
Continental courtier seated across from Eriugena haughtily asked
him, "Tell me, what is the difference between an Irishman and a
drunkard?"

"The width of this table," Eriugena answered. And that was that.

<Creator he has created for his creatured ones a creation.>

In stating Eriugena's conception of the deity so directly and with so
little Wakean distortion, Mr Joyce shows the same desire to let the
philosopher speak for himself down the halls of history as we shall
soon see done with Nicholas of Cusa:

<the coincidance of their contraries reamalgamerge in that indentity>
049.36

and indeed, Eriugena is one of those syncopated but brilliant
philosophers on the road to Joyce, along with Cusae and Bruno and
Vico. Unlike those thinkers and writers, Eriugena goes largely
without recognition in (and by?) the Joycean pantheon. An important
exception is J. Mitchell Morse's _The Sympathetic Alien: James Joyce
and Catholicism_ (Washington Square: NY University Press, 1959 [&
Susan K: whatever we might say momentarily as we wear the robes of
the Gripes, without the academic community, we would have weak
threads from which to weave our coats of many colors]).

<Creator he has created for his creatured ones a creation.>

What does it mean? Hundreds of years after the death of Eriugena, the
Church got around to deciding it was pantheistic blasphemy, and in
one of those vicious acts of idiocy which so stain the Church's many
good works, they cursed the poor man's bones and anathematized him.
Modern scholars agree, however, that Eriugena was not a pantheist.

What is central to Eriugena's vision is this: the deity is a creative
process, a flow into existence which empowers the world also to be
creative, and eventually to ebb back into its sacred source. The
universe is a conversation between nature and time which is listened
to intently both by God and ourselves.

Peace.

Yours, in her grace's watch, the
Riverend Sterling ----




Date: Sun, 16 Feb 2003 04:03:31 -0000
Subject: Re: fw 029.14-15

Susan, I was aware of the intent of your comment, felt it just in its
parody, and basically am apologizing, since I felt I had initiated a
bit of steam-blowing at academia with an earlier parody of my own.

What I find most important about how to read Joyce is not whether he
is read linearly, or by a more spherical approach of full-text cross-
referencing, or aleatorically by simply scanning a few pages and
suddenly jumping into the thing. Ditto for left-brain vs right brain,
creative vs conservative, Mookse vs Gripes.

The most important thing about reading Joyce to me has been learning
how productive it is to read in a group, preferably one of
considerable although civil divergences. It takes a village. It takes
dialectic.

So I believe I was agreeing with your parody of my parody by the
usage of inverse logic gates ;-)

Yours, with best wishes, the
Riverend Sterling ----




Date: Sun, 16 Feb 2003 06:57:48 -0000
Subject: Re: fw 029.14-15

<Creator he has created for his creatured ones a creation.>
Finnegans Wake 029.14-15>

The following citation directly copied from the New Advent Catholic
Encylopedia will easily demonstrate that the refusal of the
mainstream Joycean community to acknowledge the reference to Ioannes
Eriugena in Finnegans Wake at 029.14-15 is not defensible:

<In the "De Divisione Naturae", his most important and systematic
work, Eriugena treats in the form of a dialogue the principal
problems of philosophy and theology. The meaning of the title is
evident from the opening sentences in which he outlines the plan of
the work. "Nature", he says, "is divided into four species":
(1) "Nature which creates and is not created" =97 this is God, the
Source and Principle of all things; (2) "Nature which is created and
creates" =97 this is the world of primordial causes or (Platonic)
ideas; (3) "Nature which is created and does not create" =97 this is
the world of phenomena, the world of contingent, sense-perceived
things; (4) "Nature which neither creates nor is created" =97 this is
God, the Term to which all things are returning.>

From: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05519a.htm

Although it is not the main point in my presenting this correlation
at this point in time, you can imagine my sense of hopeless
frustration after six years of presenting this information on
virtually every Joycean list to absolutely no response, including the
refusal by the list which used to archive new Wakean annotations to
record it. The prejudice against Irish influence on the Wake
continues to this day in mainstream Joyceanism, and keeps it from
being what it should.

Yours, in her grace's watch, the
Riverend Sterling ----




Date: Sun, 16 Feb 2003 18:08:47 -0000
Subject: Re: fw 029.14-15

In response to my:

<<Creator he has created for his creatured ones a creation.>
Finnegans Wake 029.14-15>

The following citation directly copied from the New Advent Catholic
Encylopedia will easily demonstrate that the refusal of the
mainstream Joycean community to acknowledge the reference to Ioannes
Eriugena in Finnegans Wake at 029.14-15 is not defensible:

<In the "De Divisione Naturae", his most important and systematic
work, Eriugena treats in the form of a dialogue the principal
problems of philosophy and theology. The meaning of the title is
evident from the opening sentences in which he outlines the plan of
the work. "Nature", he says, "is divided into four species":
(1) "Nature which creates and is not created" =97 this is God, the
Source and Principle of all things; (2) "Nature which is created and
creates" =97 this is the world of primordial causes or (Platonic)
ideas; (3) "Nature which is created and does not create" =97 this is
the world of phenomena, the world of contingent, sense-perceived
things; (4) "Nature which neither creates nor is created" =97 this is
God, the Term to which all things are returning.>

From: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05519a.htm>

Robert posted:

<Creator he has created
for his creatured ones
a creation.

< <<<note to the Riv:
I accept this notion
which you justified by the Catholic encyclopaedia
can we do more?>>> >

the Riverend gratefully answers:

No. That was it. A simple bingo from another Joycean makes it all
worthwhile, and gives my "No" the quality of Molly's "Yes!" Actually,
with the notice of a major undocumented Wakean reference such as this
one, it doesn't even hinge on acceptance, but just the knowing that
someone has been kind enough to read the thing patiently enough to
understand the point, with or without agreement. Now it is officially
in the Joycean community's equivalent of the Akashic Records, as it
were, since dialectics define that community as I perceive it. The
agreement is nice though. Thank you, Robert.

Yours, with best wishes, the Riverend ----









Date: Sun, 16 Feb 2003 20:34:34 -0000
Subject: 098.36-099.01 Howforhim chirrupeth evereachbird!

<Howforhim chirrupeth evereachbird!>
Finnegans Wake 098.36-099.01

from Eric's amazing and essential Wakean cyberspace:

http://www.kirbymountain.com/rosenlake/fw/

<First up are books from the riverend that introduce the reader to
some of the more obscure bases of Finnegans Wake that most exegesis
ignores but nonetheless are essential keys to the spirit behind the
book. The numbered entries are quoted from riverend Sterling's
original list, "Ten Handy 'Volumes' To Have At The Wake."

1. The Tarot: A Key to the Wisdom of the Ages, by Paul Foster Case. A
benign and well organized introduction to Qabala in general, and the
correspondences of the Golden Dawn specifically. Free of creepy cant
and obnoxious proselytizing, a student is exposed to the basic
vocabulary of Qabala, and its roots in the Semitic alphabet.>

[ http://www.kirbymountain.com/rosenlake/fw/ALPdrucken.html ]

It is said that in his early adulthood in Dublin, Joyce was invited
by George Russell into the Order of the Golden Dawn, a mystical
organization of Irish and British glitterati litterati presided over
at one point by Yeats, who had found the esoteric branch of the
Theosophists insufficient for his gnostic needs. The influence of the
Golden Dawn's syncretic blend of Celtic mythos and Qabalistic
elements on the occult trends of the 20th century is huge, ignored,
and still with us.

Joyce naturally declined to join, asking Russell instead to help him
with his early literary career. Russell indeed engineered the first
publications of Joyce's fiction, placing three short stories in his
Irish Homestead, a newspaper-formatted journal, but rejecting Joyce's
fourth submission. After a turbulent struggle for its control, the
glitterati litterati began drifting away from the Golden Dawn, and
its leadership eventually fell to Moina Mathers, the sister of Henri
Bergson and wife of one of the order's founders. Moina (nee Mina
Bergson, the daughter of Dublin Jews) adopted the name Isis, and kept
the order together in Paris into the 1920's. For awhile she was
assisted by Paul Foster Case, but eventually Case also left the order
to work and publish on his own, founding the Builders Of The Adytum.

The original form of Case's work mentioned above was published in
1922, and it is my personal guess that it came into Joyce's
possession, and was read, sifted, and utilized. Unlike the reference
on p. 029 of the Wake to Eriugena, the Case case is not easily or
conclusively demonstrable. At any rate, readers of Case familiar with
the Wake will easily make cross-references, whether Joyce did or not.

Two other basic works on Qabala were easily available to Joyce in his
youth, as they were translated and published by the Golden Dawn:

Wynn Westcott's translation of Sefer [Sepher] Yetzirah; and

MacGregor Mather's translation of the Zohar.

Both works are seminal to studies of either the Qabala or Joyce.

Joyce himself recommended Madame Blavatsky's Isis Unveiled.

There is only one correct transliteration from the Hebrew, btw, and
that is "Qabala." Other spellings are acceptable and more common, but
they are adaptations, and not accurate transliterations. In Hebrew,
the word begins with Qof (Q), and not Kof (K/C). There are not two
B's, only one. The first A is short, the second and third are long.
The accent is on the last syllable: qabaLA. It means "[what is]
received."

The usage of Q (Qof) in the spelling is especially important. Each
Hebrew letter is or was a common word, a noun. Qof means "back of the
head." It explains the little tail which both Q and Qof have. The
oval represents the head itself, and the tail is the area of the
spinal cord which enters through the foramen magnum where it swells
into the medulla oblongata, and connects with the brain in general.

Yours, in her grace's watch, the
Riverend Sterling ----





Date: Mon, 17 Feb 2003 19:11:20 -0000
Subject: 030.01-04

To continue along the pathway established by Suzanne . . . .

<Iris Trees and Lili O'Rangans>
030.01-02

The association of Irish Trees/Irish Histories is well met. In
keeping as well with Suzanne's recognition that there is more woven
into the text from the distaff than generally acknowledged, this:

1) Although mainstream exegetics states that the second chapter of
the Wake is given to addressing the name of HCE, the chapter begins
with the name of two women, names with both floral and bona dea
associations.

"Iris" is easily linked both to ALP and to Brighid. Iris, the Greek
messenger goddess, was like Anna Livia, the daughter of the wide sea,
Oceanus. The daughters of Oceanus were all river goddesses, like Anna
Livia, but Iris was unique in that her river flowed not upon the
earth, but through the sky, uniting heaven and earth. For this was
she given the role of a messenger between the two worlds above and
below. Thus does Iris also suggest Issy, the rainbow girl, and in
fact, Issy is throughout the Wake the link between Anna Livia, her
mother, and Brighid, her prototypical holier half.

A well-told tale about Brighid tells how she obtained the large tract
of land held by the Abbey of Kildare. In her usual bold manner, she
asked a lord to donate land on which to build her nunnery, and was
snidely informed that she might have as much land as her cloak could
cover. When Brighid unrolled her mantle in response, it rolled from
her feet all the way to the far horizon, much to the poor lord's
chagrin, who was bound to honor his word.

Contemporary tellings of the tale have lost sight of the important
subtext that Brighid's cloak was the rainbow. In another frequently
retold Brighidine story, after being caught in a drenching storm,
Brighid dried her cloak by hanging it in the air, suspended upon
drops of sunlight. Again, in modern times the story has lost its
concomitant context that Brighid's cloak is the rainbow, but it is
obvious by inference. The prismatic effect of ambient moisture in the
air following a rain cause the sunlight's photons to refract into the
colors and arc of a rainbow. It is really a pretty hip little parable.

The Lily is of course a major emblem both in Catholicism, where it is
associated both with Mary and the Resurrection, and Joyceanism, where
Lily first walks onstage opening the door in _Dubliners_ for The Dead
(and most especially, for Gabriel, who makes the Announcement to Mary
in the Christian mythos, and who will blow the messenger's trumpet
from the sky to aWAKEn the dead on the great judgment morning).

In the Wake, Joyce identifies the lily as another flower emblematic
of Issy in her role as the young Eve:

<Lillabil Issabil maideve>
513.25

So all in all, the second chapter seems to begin with a citation of
Issy more than any other character. As Suzanne has mentioned, this
iterates the opening of the first chapter with its citation of Eve.

As to

<the genesis of Harold or Humphrey Chimpden's occupational agnomen>
030.02-03

there is an interesting and largely overlooked tie as well to the
Wake's opening paragraph. In the

<commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs>
003.02-03

we first see reference to HCE, to whom we are brought by the river
ALP's circulation along a <commodius vicus>.

The Latin word <vicus>, meaning a suburb or street, is
pronounced "WICK-us." The English verb "wick" means to convey by
capillary action, which reinforces the blood-stream connotations
of "recirculation." It also gives a premonition, as it were, that
the "E" of HCE (<Howth Castle and Environs>) will be remet soon as one

<big cleanminded giant H. C. Earwicker>
033.29-30

by recirculating the word <vicus> (WICK-us) in "EarWICKer."

However that may be, we are quickly reminded that

<we are back in the presurnames prodromarith period>
030.03-04

that is, we are in the primeval period in which people were given
only one name. They did not have family names, because during a
Viconian ricorso, the chaotic period of social disorganization
following the collapse of a fully evolved society which has run its
course (signaled, by the way, by tired democracies allowing
themselves to be run by kings who pretend to be presidents, and who
enact suppressive policies in the false name of liberty) and which
PRECEEDS, not follows, the thunderwords, there is no longer marriage,
and women bear their children alone, and the children do not know
their father's names.

Joyce has here characterized this time as the <prodomarith period>,
the "proto-ma" or "first marian" time, because women and children are
on their own, while the men run about amok like mad beasts in a
jungle.

By the way . . . how are things in your town?

Yours, in her grace's watch, the
Riverend Sterling ----




Date: Mon, 17 Feb 2003 23:47:20 -0000
Subject: 029.14-15 the Erigena quote

Thanks, Suzanne, that is a good site on Eriugena (which is how his
name was spelled during his life -- for some reason, the "u" has
since been dropped in common usage). Two phrases especially caught my
eye as suggestive of his influence within the Wake's deep backwash:

<The Meaning of "Nature." This term is employed by Erigena to mean
everything that is and everything that is not.

Erigena gives a view of reality as rhythmic movement>.

Anna Livia is the Plurabelle, the beauty of nature's fullness as
exemplified and sustained by her lovely daughter, the rain; but Anna
also is our Zeroine, the brave being which emanates to us from the
nothingness which gives birth to all existence.

It is this rhythmic movement between being and nonbeing which is at
the heart of all Qabala. In the words of Khayyam and Fitzgerald, it
is the Dawn of Nothing.

Yours, in her grace's watch, the
Riverend Sterling ----






Date: Tue, 18 Feb 2003 03:14:51 -0000
Subject: Re: 029.14-15 erigena two places 4.36 and 431.35

Suzanne,

Your "bingo" has been reviewed by the exegetical hierarchy committee,
and I am happy to announce that it has been upgraded to an official
BINGO!!!!!!!!

You may cash in your winnings, and retire temporarily to the verandah
for tea, crumpets, and a quiet civil discussion of Jane Austen's
usage of satin laces fretted with silk on her heroines' straw
bonnets, or . . . you can toss your chips back on the macool table,
and let the spinning wheel spin.

Naturally, we all hope you will choose the latter, but you have
earned the conversation lozenges of your choice due to your
excellence in surfing the Wake [148.12]. Enjoy!

Seriously, though (folks) . . . those are really nice finds Suzanne
made regarding Ioannes Eriugena and his work (see above in the
subject heading). Sometimes the Wake is like running your fingers
through the cask of treasure in a dragon's cave . . . and of course,
we all know what that is like.

Yours, in her grace's watch, the
Riverend Sterling ----




Date: Tue, 18 Feb 2003 18:44:45 -0000

<pleased to have halted itself on the highroad along which a
leisureloving dogfox had cast followed, also at walking pace, by a
lady pack>
030.17-19

An interesting footnote to the charming account of the story of
Brighid and the fox as related by Alice Curtayne, and forwarded to us
by Suzanna . . . .

Also by Alice Curtayne (along with her lovely and Catholic young
person's biography of St Brighid):

"Portrait of the Artsist as a Brother: an Interview with James
Joyce's Sister." _Critic_ 21 (1963): 43-47.

Yours, etc, the . . . . ----




Date: Wed, 19 Feb 2003 17:44:28 -0000
Subject: Re: the Curtayne article, lerive

<suzannasirenic@e...> wrote:
> > Also by Alice Curtayne (along with her lovely and Catholic young
> > person's biography of St Brighid):
> >
> > "Portrait of the Artist as a Brother: an Interview with James
> > Joyce's Sister." _Critic_ 21 (1963): 43-47.
>
>
> Is this on the web someplace?
> Could you guidduss. There.

le riv': sorrry to say I have never seen the actual interview . . .
it is listed at the back of _Joyce A-Z_ . . . because Curtayne writes
as a Catholic, not a Joycean, I assume she interviewed "Poppie," the
late Margaret Joyce, who became a Sister of Mercy in New Zealand. An
author who's a friend of Charles Cave has also written a wonderful
interview with her (I apologize, I cannot remember Margaret Joyce's
sequestered name).

I believe I gave a brief accounting from that interview during the
posting on page 005.

the etc ----




Date: Wed, 19 Feb 2003 17:58:14 -0000
Subject: Re: the Curtayne article, lerive

<suzannasirenic@e...> wrote:

'Also by Alice Curtayne (along with her lovely and Catholic young
person's biography of St Brighid):

' "Portrait of the Artist as a Brother: an Interview with James
Joyce's Sister." _Critic_ 21 (1963): 43-47.

'Is this on the web someplace?
Could you guidduss. There.'

le rive' -- I regret that I have never read Curtayne's interview. It
is listed in the back of _Joyce: A-Z_. My guess, being that Curtayne
writes as a Catholic, not a Joycean, is that the interview is with
the sister of Joyce who joined the Sisters of Mercy, and moved to a
convent in New Zealand for the rest of her life. Her pre-sequestered
name, before she took orders, was Margaret Joyce, called "Poppie."

She was Joyce's closest sister in age, and apparently as well in
friendship during their youths. I suspect her nickname of "Poppie"
influenced her brother to name the nuns of St Brighid's Abbey ("St
Bride's Finishing Establishment" in Finnegans Wake) as "The Floras."

During our reading of page 005, I posted about a wonderful interview
of Margaret Joyce by a friend of Charles Cave. My reference, btw, to
<Portrait of the Artsist> was a nice example that even left-brain
control freaks such as the Riverend cannot completely restrain their
right-brains from some occasional creative work a la Wake . . . but
according to my left-brain, now that it is back in control, <Artsist>
was a completely unintentional slip of the mouse (the artistic little
bastard).

the etc . . . ----






Date: Thu, 20 Feb 2003 18:36:31 -0000
Subject: 029.19 & 003.10

<worthy of the naym> 029.19 & <thuartpeatrick> 003.10

majoun posted

<note that in Latin 'poeta' is an androgynous word - female suffix,
but a-scribed to a male>

This leads to several interesting examples of the show-must-go-on
identification of the priest with the carnival prestidigitator (cf
the opening of _Ulysses_ with Mulligan's vaudeville version of
Transubstantiation: <Slow music, please. Shut your eyes> [003.22
(003:23)].

1) Not from Joyce, but relevant and dramatic, is the long refusal of
anyone to use the literal meaning of "elohim" when translating the
Bible: "goddessmen." Instead, we receive "lord," or its equivalent in
other languages. "Eloe," if I recall correctly, is the implied
root; "-him" is a suffix indicating male plurality. The "e" in "eloe"
has been dropped, along standard conventions of contraction, to
adhere to the plural suffix.

What is unusual in "elohim" is that "Eloe" was a well-know Levantine
goddess in the first half of the second millennium BC (cf "Ella")
both among Semites and Hittites. Priests and exegeticists of the
various religions using the Bible assure us that some unknown
grammatical precedent is in play, and that the Bible does not quite
mean what it says. If translated literally, however, the Bible opens
thusly:

"In a beginning, the goddessmen made the land and the two skies."

Goodness. Without the superior ineluctablilty of our priesthoods,
then Genesis opens like the Wake, with an implication of cyclicity,
because there is not a definite article before "beginning" in the
actual Hebrew. There is no written or spoken indefinite article in
Hebrew, but by conventions conveniently herein ignored by Biblical
scholars, the indefinite article is understood as implied if the
definite article is not present. Therefore, using normal translative
procedure, the first word in the Bible is "in-a-beginning." This
allows for the possibility of other beginnings, a la Joycean-Viconism.

This focus on grammatical articles might seem as sophistic quibbling,
and I suppose it is to some extent. I remind us, however, of the last
word in Finnegans Wake, a dangling and unpunctuated <the>. This has
two applications to this present posting:

a) <the> implies cyclicity to the Wake, since it carries the reader
and exegeticist back from the book's last word to the book's first
word, <riverrun>, and from thence to an evocation of Genesis itself,
<past Eve and Adam's>.

b) <the> is the Greek root for deity, seen in many related English
words, such as "theology," the study of deity. (Similarly, "El," the
male deity who was Eloe's consort, appears as the male singular
definite article in Spanish, and in slightly distorted form, in
French as well. Go figure. If you really want to feel your wheels
roll faster than you can steer, contemplate as well into the equation
the Irish definite article: "an."

2) Their is a very Joycean usage of priest=prestidigitator in the
Wake at 003.10: <thuartpeatrick>.

a) -- you are a pea trick -- a reference to the common carnival scam
where people bet on where a pea will appear under three walnut shells
rapidly switched by a fast-talking huckster. Thanks to sleight-of-
hand, the pea is rarely present under any of the shells at all.

b) -- thou art Peter -- this New Testament saying, ascribed to Jesus
in reference to his right-hand disciple, Peter Simon, is a pun, held
present in English translations, since "Peter" is cognate
to "petrify," ie, to make like stone. The conceit is that Jesus tells
Peter "You are the stone upon which I will build my church." In the
7th century in Britain, the Synod of Whitby was held to reconcile the
Irish Catholic Church and the Roman Catholic Church. The Irish
bishops supposedly caved-in when English bishops cited "thou art
Peter" as proof that the authority of Jesus had directly passed to
Peter Simon, and from him through the unbroken succession of Roman
popes. In reality, much of the obeisance of the Irish Church was
tokenistic lip service, if that, with the biggest changes being only
the reconciliation of the date for Easter each year, and that Irish
monks would change their haircuts. Irish priests were still marrying
hundreds of years later, for example, with their wives assisting (and
sometimes being the primary celebrants) in the mass. And then there
was the flagrantly patent powers of a bishop assigned to the Abbess
of Kildare. In truth, the Irish Church did not fully begin adapting
to Roman conservatism until the razing of Brighid's Abbey in 1132,
and the Cambro-Norman occupation of Wexford and Dublin almost forty
years later.

c) -- you are Pa-trick -- When Patrick came to Ireland for the second
time, and his first as a missionary, he allegedly converted the Irish
by several rather tricky means. One was by using the shamrock to
demonstrate the reality of the Trinity. "Sham-rock" thus is a
portmanteau word which Joyce did not have to invent, but only
receive. Not only does it lend itself to the spin of "Pa-trick" in
the received name "Patrick" . . . it also suggests, without much
coaxing, that the citation of "Peter" as the foundation stone of the
Christian Church, a claim which many consider a "pa-trick"
(distortion of facts by the Roman patriarchy) involves a "sham rock,"
ie, they do not accept that Jesus intended a succession of
authoritarian and exclusive rulers of his Church to derive from Peter
Simon as a foundation stone.

Myself . . . majoun posted

<note that in Latin 'poeta' is an androgynous word - female suffix,
but a-scribed to a male>

This leads to several interesting examples of the show-must-go-on
identification of the priest with the carnival prestidigitator (cf
the opening of _Ulysses_ with Mulligan's vaudeville version of
Transubstantiation: <Slow music, please. Shut your eyes> [003.22
(003:23)].

1) Not from Joyce, but relevant and dramatic, is the long refusal of
anyone to use the true meaning of "elohim" when translating the
Bible: "goddessmen." Instead, we receive "lord," or its equivalent in
other languages. "Ha," of course, is simply a Hebraic definite
article. Eloe, if I recall correctly, is the root; -him is a suffix
indicating male plurality. The "e" in "eloe" has been dropped, along
standard conventions of contraction to adhere to the plural suffix.

What is unusual in "elohim" is that "eloe" was a well-know Levantine
goddess in the first half of the second millennium BC, both among
Semites and Hittites. Priests and exegeticists of the various
religions using the Bible assure us that some unknown grammatical
precedent is in play, and that the Bible does not quite mean what it
says. If translated literally, the Bible opens thusly:

"In a beginning, the goddessmen made the land and the two skies."

Goodness. Without the superior position of our priesthoods, then
Genesis opens like the Wake, with an implication of cyclicity,
because there is not a definite article before "beginning" in the
actual Hebrew. There is no written indefinite article in Hebrew, but
by conventions ignored by Biblical scholars, the indefinite article
is understood as implied if the definite article is not present.
Therefore, using normal translative procedure, the first word in the
Bible is "in-a-beginning." This allows for the possibility of other
beginnings, a la Joycean-Viconism.

This focus on grammatical articles might seem as sophistic quibbling,
and I suppose it is to some extent. I remind us, however, of the last
word in Finnegans Wake, a dangling and unpunctuated <the>. This has
two applications to this present posting:

a) <the> implies cyclicity to the Wake, since it carries the reader
and exegeticist back from the book's last word to the book's first
word, <riverrun>, and from thence to an evocation of Genesis itself,
<past Eve and Adam's>.

b) <the> is the Greek root for deity, seen in many related English
words, such as "theology," the study of deity. (Similarly, "el," the
male deity who was eloe's consort, appears as the male singular
definite article in Spanish, and in slightly distorted form, in
French as well. Go figure. If you really want to feel your wheels
roll faster than you can steer, contemplate the Irish definite
article: "an."

2) Their is a very Joycean usage of priest=prestidigitator in the
Wake at 003.10: <thuartpeatrick>.

a) -- you are a pea trick -- a reference to the common carnival scam
where people bet on where a pea will appear under three walnut shells
rapidly switched by a fast-talking huckster. Thanks to sleight-of-
hand, the pea is rarely present under any of the shells at all.

b) -- thou art Peter -- this New Testament saying, ascribed to Jesus
in reference to his right-hand disciple, Peter Simon, is a pun, held
present in English translations, since Peter is cognate to petrify,
ie, to make like stone. The conceit is that Jesus tells Peter "You
are the stone upon which I will build my church." In the 7th century
in Britain, the Synod of Whitby was held to reconcile the Irish
Catholic Church and the Roman Catholic Church. The Irish bishops
supposedly caved-in when English bishops cited "thou art Peter" as
proof that the authority of Jesus had directly passed to Peter Simon,
and from him through the unbroken succession of Roman popes. In
reality, much of the obeisance of the Irish Church was tokenistic lip
service, if that, the biggest changes being only the reconciliation
of the date for Easter each year, and that Irish monks would change
their haircuts. Irish priests were still marrying hundreds of years
later, for example, with their wives assisting, and sometimes being
the primary celebrants, in the mass. And then there was the
flagrantly patent powers of a bishop assigned to the Abbess of
Kildare. In truth, the Irish Church did not fully begin adapting to
Roman conservatism until the razing of Brighid's Abbey in 1132, and
the Cambro-Norman occupation of
Wexford and Dublin almost forty years later.

c) -- you are Pa-trick -- When Patrick came to Ireland for the second
time, and his first as a missionary, he allegedly converted the Irish
by several rather tricky means. One was by using the shamrock to
demonstrate the reality of the Trinity. "Sham-rock" thus is a
portmanteau word which Joyce did not have to invent, but only
receive. Not only does it lend itself to the spin of "Pa-trick" in
the received name "Patrick" . . . it also suggests without much
coaxing the citation of "Peter" as the foundation stone of the
Christian Church, a claim which many consider a "pa-trick"
(distortion of facts by the Roman patriarchy) regarding a "sham
rock," ie, they do not accept that Jesus intended a succession of
authoritarian and exclusive rulers of his Church to derive from Peter
Simon.

I try to stay out of it, although, as you see, I am not adverse to
shouting a few confusing signals into the fray from my own rock,
behind which I try both to hide and observe. On the other hand, my
keen sense of self respect prevents me from yielding to the
temptation (thank the goddessmen) to end this diatribe by writing
anything as facile and puerile as

"Rock on!"

Yours, in her grace's watch, the
Riverend Sterling ----






Date: Thu, 20 Feb 2003 18:49:56 -0000
Subject: 029.19 & 003.10

This is a corrective post to my immediately preceding one. I
apologize. A coincidence of cyber-tricks have resulted in several
reposts by me recently. I will spare you the details, but I don't
think it all my own doing. In this case, Yahoo seemed to retain
elements which I had deleted and repasted. One more, into my breeches!

majoun posted

<note that in Latin 'poeta' is an androgynous word - female suffix,
but a-scribed to a male>

This leads to several interesting examples of the show-must-go-on
identification of the priest with the carnival prestidigitator (cf
the opening of _Ulysses_ with Mulligan's vaudeville version of
Transubstantiation: <Slow music, please. Shut your eyes> [003.22
(003:23)].

1) Not from Joyce, but relevant and dramatic, is the long refusal of
anyone to use the literal meaning of "elohim" when translating the
Bible: "goddessmen." Instead, we receive "lord," or its equivalent in
other languages. "Eloe," if I recall correctly, is the implied
root; "-him" is a suffix indicating male plurality. The "e" in "eloe"
has been dropped, along standard conventions of contraction, to
adhere to the plural suffix.

What is unusual in "elohim" is that "Eloe" was a well-know Levantine
goddess in the first half of the second millennium BC (cf "Ella")
both among Semites and Hittites. Priests and exegeticists of the
various religions using the Bible assure us that some unknown
grammatical precedent is in play, and that the Bible does not quite
mean what it says. If translated literally, however, the Bible opens
thusly:

"In a beginning, the goddessmen made the land and the two skies."

Goodness. Without the superior ineluctablilty of our priesthoods,
then Genesis opens like the Wake, with an implication of cyclicity,
because there is not a definite article before "beginning" in the
actual Hebrew. There is no written or spoken indefinite article in
Hebrew, but by conventions conveniently herein ignored by Biblical
scholars, the indefinite article is understood as implied if the
definite article is not present. Therefore, using normal translative
procedure, the first word in the Bible is "in-a-beginning." This
allows for the possibility of other beginnings, a la Joycean-Viconism.

This focus on grammatical articles might seem as sophistic quibbling,
and I suppose it is to some extent. I remind us, however, of the last
word in Finnegans Wake, a dangling and unpunctuated <the>. This has
two applications to this present posting:

a) <the> implies cyclicity to the Wake, since it carries the reader
and exegeticist back from the book's last word to the book's first
word, <riverrun>, and from thence to an evocation of Genesis itself,
<past Eve and Adam's>.

b) <the> is the Greek root for deity, seen in many related English
words, such as "theology," the study of deity. (Similarly, "El," the
male deity who was Eloe's consort, appears as the male singular
definite article in Spanish, and in slightly distorted form, in
French as well. Go figure. If you really want to feel your wheels
roll faster than you can steer, contemplate as well into the equation
the Irish definite article: "an."

2) Their is a very Joycean usage of priest=prestidigitator in the
Wake at 003.10: <thuartpeatrick>.

a) -- you are a pea trick -- a reference to the common carnival scam
where people bet on where a pea will appear under three walnut shells
rapidly switched by a fast-talking huckster. Thanks to sleight-of-
hand, the pea is rarely present under any of the shells at all.

b) -- thou art Peter -- this New Testament saying, ascribed to Jesus
in reference to his right-hand disciple, Peter Simon, is a pun, held
present in English translations, since "Peter" is cognate
to "petrify," ie, to make like stone. The conceit is that Jesus tells
Peter "You are the stone upon which I will build my church." In the
7th century in Britain, the Synod of Whitby was held to reconcile the
Irish Catholic Church and the Roman Catholic Church. The Irish
bishops supposedly caved-in when English bishops cited "thou art
Peter" as proof that the authority of Jesus had directly passed to
Peter Simon, and from him through the unbroken succession of Roman
popes. In reality, much of the obeisance of the Irish Church was
tokenistic lip service, if that, with the biggest changes being only
the reconciliation of the date for Easter each year, and that Irish
monks would change their haircuts. Irish priests were still marrying
hundreds of years later, for example, with their wives assisting (and
sometimes being the primary celebrants) in the mass. And then there
was the flagrantly patent powers of a bishop assigned to the Abbess
of Kildare. In truth, the Irish Church did not fully begin adapting
to Roman conservatism until the razing of Brighid's Abbey in 1132,
and the Cambro-Norman occupation of Wexford and Dublin almost forty
years later.

c) -- you are Pa-trick -- When Patrick came to Ireland for the second
time, and his first as a missionary, he allegedly converted the Irish
by several rather tricky means. One was by using the shamrock to
demonstrate the reality of the Trinity. "Sham-rock" thus is a
portmanteau word which Joyce did not have to invent, but only
receive. Not only does it lend itself to the spin of "Pa-trick" in
the received name "Patrick" . . . it also suggests, without much
coaxing, that the citation of "Peter" as the foundation stone of the
Christian Church, a claim which many consider a "pa-trick"
(distortion of facts by the Roman patriarchy) involves a "sham rock,"
ie, they do not accept that Jesus intended a succession of
authoritarian and exclusive rulers of his Church to derive from Peter
Simon as a foundation stone.

Myself . . . majoun posted

<note that in Latin 'poeta' is an androgynous word - female suffix,
but a-scribed to a male>

This leads to several interesting examples of the show-must-go-on
identification of the priest with the carnival prestidigitator (cf
the opening of _Ulysses_ with Mulligan's vaudeville version of
Transubstantiation: <Slow music, please. Shut your eyes> [003.22
(003:23)].

1) Not from Joyce, but relevant and dramatic, is the long refusal of
anyone to use the true meaning of "elohim" when translating the
Bible: "goddessmen." Instead, we receive "lord," or its equivalent in
other languages. "Ha," of course, is simply a Hebraic definite
article. Eloe, if I recall correctly, is the root; -him is a suffix
indicating male plurality. The "e" in "eloe" has been dropped, along
standard conventions of contraction to adhere to the plural suffix.

What is unusual in "elohim" is that "eloe" was a well-know Levantine
goddess in the first half of the second millennium BC, both among
Semites and Hittites. Priests and exegeticists of the various
religions using the Bible assure us that some unknown grammatical
precedent is in play, and that the Bible does not quite mean what it
says. If translated literally, the Bible opens thusly:

"In a beginning, the goddessmen made the land and the two skies."

Goodness. Without the superior position of our priesthoods, then
Genesis opens like the Wake, with an implication of cyclicity,
because there is not a definite article before "beginning" in the
actual Hebrew. There is no written indefinite article in Hebrew, but
by conventions ignored by Biblical scholars, the indefinite article
is understood as implied if the definite article is not present.
Therefore, using normal translative procedure, the first word in the
Bible is "in-a-beginning." This allows for the possibility of other
beginnings, a la Joycean-Viconism.

This focus on grammatical articles might seem as sophistic quibbling,
and I suppose it is to some extent. I remind us, however, of the last
word in Finnegans Wake, a dangling and unpunctuated <the>. This has
two applications to this present posting:

a) <the> implies cyclicity to the Wake, since it carries the reader
and exegeticist back from the book's last word to the book's first
word, <riverrun>, and from thence to an evocation of Genesis itself,
<past Eve and Adam's>.

b) <the> is the Greek root for deity, seen in many related English
words, such as "theology," the study of deity. (Similarly, "el," the
male deity who was eloe's consort, appears as the male singular
definite article in Spanish, and in slightly distorted form, in
French as well. Go figure. If you really want to feel your wheels
roll faster than you can steer, contemplate the Irish definite
article: "an."

2) Their is a very Joycean usage of priest=prestidigitator in the
Wake at 003.10: <thuartpeatrick>.

a) -- you are a pea trick -- a reference to the common carnival scam
where people bet on where a pea will appear under three walnut shells
rapidly switched by a fast-talking huckster. Thanks to sleight-of-
hand, the pea is rarely present under any of the shells at all.

b) -- thou art Peter -- this New Testament saying, ascribed to Jesus
in reference to his right-hand disciple, Peter Simon, is a pun, held
present in English translations, since Peter is cognate to petrify,
ie, to make like stone. The conceit is that Jesus tells Peter "You
are the stone upon which I will build my church." In the 7th century
in Britain, the Synod of Whitby was held to reconcile the Irish
Catholic Church and the Roman Catholic Church. The Irish bishops
supposedly caved-in when English bishops cited "thou art Peter" as
proof that the authority of Jesus had directly passed to Peter Simon,
and from him through the unbroken succession of Roman popes. In
reality, much of the obeisance of the Irish Church was tokenistic lip
service, if that, the biggest changes being only the reconciliation
of the date for Easter each year, and that Irish monks would change
their haircuts. Irish priests were still marrying hundreds of years
later, for example, with their wives assisting, and sometimes being
the primary celebrants, in the mass. And then there was the
flagrantly patent powers of a bishop assigned to the Abbess of
Kildare. In truth, the Irish Church did not fully begin adapting to
Roman conservatism until the razing of Brighid's Abbey in 1132, and
the Cambro-Norman occupation of
Wexford and Dublin almost forty years later.

c) -- you are Pa-trick -- When Patrick came to Ireland for the second
time, and his first as a missionary, he allegedly converted the Irish
by several rather tricky means. One was by using the shamrock to
demonstrate the reality of the Trinity. "Sham-rock" thus is a
portmanteau word which Joyce did not have to invent, but only
receive. Not only does it lend itself to the spin of "Pa-trick" in
the received name "Patrick" . . . it also suggests without much
coaxing the citation of "Peter" as the foundation stone of the
Christian Church, a claim which many consider a "pa-trick"
(distortion of facts by the Roman patriarchy) regarding a "sham
rock," ie, they do not accept that Jesus intended a succession of
authoritarian and exclusive rulers of his Church to derive from Peter
Simon.

I try to stay out of it, although, as you see, I am not adverse to
shouting a few confusing signals into the fray from my own rock,
behind which I try both to hide and observe. On the other hand, my
keen sense of self respect prevents me from yielding to the
temptation (thank the goddessmen) to end this diatribe by writing
anything as facile and puerile as

"Rock on!"

Yours, in her grace's watch, the
Riverend Sterling ----




Date: Thu, 20 Feb 2003 18:59:18 -0000
Subject: 029.19 & 003.10 recorrection

Third and last attempt to send correct posting. The fault was in my
own text. Sorry. If this doesn't get it, I will give it up.

<worthy of the naym> 029.19 & <thuartpeatrick> 003.10

majoun posted

<note that in Latin 'poeta' is an androgynous word - female suffix,
but a-scribed to a male>

This leads to several interesting examples of the show-must-go-on
identification of the priest with the carnival prestidigitator (cf
the opening of _Ulysses_ with Mulligan's vaudeville version of
Transubstantiation: <Slow music, please. Shut your eyes> [003.22
(003:23)].

1) Not from Joyce, but relevant and dramatic, is the long refusal of
anyone to use the literal meaning of "elohim" when translating the
Bible: "goddessmen." Instead, we receive "lord," or its equivalent in
other languages. "Eloe," if I recall correctly, is the implied
root; "-him" is a suffix indicating male plurality. The "e" in "eloe"
has been dropped, along standard conventions of contraction, to
adhere to the plural suffix.

What is unusual in "elohim" is that "Eloe" was a well-know Levantine
goddess in the first half of the second millennium BC (cf "Ella")
both among Semites and Hittites. Priests and exegeticists of the
various religions using the Bible assure us that some unknown
grammatical precedent is in play, and that the Bible does not quite
mean what it says. If translated literally, however, the Bible opens
thusly:

"In a beginning, the goddessmen made the land and the two skies."

Goodness. Without the superior ineluctablilty of our priesthoods,
then Genesis opens like the Wake, with an implication of cyclicity,
because there is not a definite article before "beginning" in the
actual Hebrew. There is no written or spoken indefinite article in
Hebrew, but by conventions conveniently herein ignored by Biblical
scholars, the indefinite article is understood as implied if the
definite article is not present. Therefore, using normal translative
procedure, the first word in the Bible is "in-a-beginning." This
allows for the possibility of other beginnings, a la Joycean-Viconism.

This focus on grammatical articles might seem as sophistic quibbling,
and I suppose it is to some extent. I remind us, however, of the last
word in Finnegans Wake, a dangling and unpunctuated <the>. This has
two applications to this present posting:

a) <the> implies cyclicity to the Wake, since it carries the reader
and exegeticist back from the book's last word to the book's first
word, <riverrun>, and from thence to an evocation of Genesis itself,
<past Eve and Adam's>.

b) <the> is the Greek root for deity, seen in many related English
words, such as "theology," the study of deity. (Similarly, "El," the
male deity who was Eloe's consort, appears as the male singular
definite article in Spanish, and in slightly distorted form, in
French as well. Go figure. If you really want to feel your wheels
roll faster than you can steer, contemplate as well into the equation
the Irish definite article: "an."

2) Their is a very Joycean usage of priest=prestidigitator in the
Wake at 003.10: <thuartpeatrick>.

a) -- you are a pea trick -- a reference to the common carnival scam
where people bet on where a pea will appear under three walnut shells
rapidly switched by a fast-talking huckster. Thanks to sleight-of-
hand, the pea is rarely present under any of the shells at all.

b) -- thou art Peter -- this New Testament saying, ascribed to Jesus
in reference to his right-hand disciple, Peter Simon, is a pun, held
present in English translations, since "Peter" is cognate
to "petrify," ie, to make like stone. The conceit is that Jesus tells
Peter "You are the stone upon which I will build my church." In the
7th century in Britain, the Synod of Whitby was held to reconcile the
Irish Catholic Church and the Roman Catholic Church. The Irish
bishops supposedly caved-in when English bishops cited "thou art
Peter" as proof that the authority of Jesus had directly passed to
Peter Simon, and from him through the unbroken succession of Roman
popes. In reality, much of the obeisance of the Irish Church was
tokenistic lip service, if that, with the biggest changes being only
the reconciliation of the date for Easter each year, and that Irish
monks would change their haircuts. Irish priests were still marrying
hundreds of years later, for example, with their wives assisting (and
sometimes being the primary celebrants) in the mass. And then there
was the flagrantly patent powers of a bishop assigned to the Abbess
of Kildare. In truth, the Irish Church did not fully begin adapting
to Roman conservatism until the razing of Brighid's Abbey in 1132,
and the Cambro-Norman occupation of Wexford and Dublin almost forty
years later.

c) -- you are Pa-trick -- When Patrick came to Ireland for the second
time, and his first as a missionary, he allegedly converted the Irish
by several rather tricky means. One was by using the shamrock to
demonstrate the reality of the Trinity. "Sham-rock" thus is a
portmanteau word which Joyce did not have to invent, but only
receive. Not only does it lend itself to the spin of "Pa-trick" in
the received name "Patrick" . . . it also suggests, without much
coaxing, that the citation of "Peter" as the foundation stone of the
Christian Church, a claim which many consider a "pa-trick"
(distortion of facts by the Roman patriarchy) involves a "sham rock,"
ie, they do not accept that Jesus intended a succession of
authoritarian and exclusive rulers of his Church to derive from Peter
Simon as a foundation stone.

I try to stay out of it, although, as you see, I am not adverse to
shouting a few confusing signals into the fray from my own rock,
behind which I try both to hide and observe. On the other hand, my
keen sense of self respect prevents me from yielding to the
temptation (thank the goddessmen) to end this diatribe by writing
anything as facile and puerile as

"Rock on!"

Yours, in her grace's watch, the
Riverend Sterling ----






Date: Thu, 20 Feb 2003 19:20:18 -0000
Subject: Re: p. 29.15 red and white

robert posted:

463.21: making friends with everybody red in Rossya, white in Alba
and touching every distinguished Ourishman he could ever
distinguish...

Possibly worth noting: Russia <russet <reddish-brown and Alba <albino
<white

On the transubstantial theme, red blood with white corpuscles . . . .

Usual viconian (re)circulation <mother's roses> [463.09] = blood

etc the etc ----




Date: Fri, 21 Feb 2003 18:40:38 -0000
Subject: 031 Q & A re message 473

--- In prankquean@yahoogroups.com, "Claus" <claus@i...> wrote:

a particularly outstanding post. More "Bingos" than a senior citizen
center's recreation hall!

Anytime we can find Irish political threads, we are a step ahead of
the game, and when they are combined with music and foxes, we can
assume that we are bellied up to the bar! Thanks majoun.

Yours, with best wishes, the
Riverend Sterling ----