In the interim, betwixt having started and having finised anything- I am reading Ulysses. Expect delays. But it is all intended to be grist for the mill, my mill. And here I thought I could share some quotes from up to where I have gotten to, sigh, (Up to the Lotus Eaters, which I am re-reading, now armed with an annotated text, have mercy)
Woodshadows floated silently by through the morning peace from the stairhead seaward whence he gazed. Inshore and farther out the mirror of the water whitened, spurned by lightshod hurrying feet. White breast of the dim sea. The twining stresses, two by two. A hand plucking the harpstrings merging their twining chords. Wavewhite wedded words shimmering on the dim tide.
Fergus’ song- I sang it alone in the house. Holding down the long dark chords. Her door was open: she wanted to hear my music. Silent with awe and pity I went to her bedside. She was crying in her wretched bed. For those words, Stephen: love’s bitter mystery
And I should explain ‘love’s bitter mystery’ (o ho) but here is a song by WB Yeats that Joyce quotes just before these two paragraphs . It is from The Countess Cathleen (1982) which is actually a play. And this song is meant to be accompanied by the harp. So I think someone ought to arrange it. I offer my services if anyone comes up a tune…
Who will go drive with Fergus now,/And pierce the deep wood’s woven shade/And dance upon the level shore?/Young man, lift up your russet brow/And lift your tender eyelids, maid,/ And brood on hopes and fears no more./ And no more turn aside and brood/ Upon love’s bitter mystery;/For Fergus rules the shadow of the wood/ And the white brest of the dim sea/And all dishevelled wandering stars.
I shall stagger my posts on this subject. I don’t want to appear to be writing out the whole thing. Which I seem to be doing in the name of note-taking. One more though, in the library
Fed and feeding brains about me: under glowlamps, impaled, with faintly beating feelers and in my mind’s darkness a sloth of the underworld reluctant, shy of brightness, shifting her dragon scaly folds.