Finnegans Wake Book1 Chapter 2
NOW
(p30) (to forebare for ever solittle of Iris Trees and Lili O’Rangans),
concerning the genesis
of Harold or Humphrey Chimpden’s occupational agnomen
(we are back in the pre-surnames prodromarith period,
of course just when enos chalked halltraps)
and discarding once for all those theories from older sources
which would link him back
with such pivotal ancestors as
the Glues,
the Gravys,
the Northeasts,
the Ankers
and the Earwickers of Sidlesham
in the Hundred of Manhood
or proclaim him offsprout of vikings
who had founded wapentake
and seddled hem in Herrick or Eric,
the best authenticated version,
the Dumlat,
read the Reading of Hofed-ben-Edar,
has it that it was this way.
We are told how in the beginning
it came to pass that
like cabbaging Cincinnatus
the grand old gardener was saving daylight
under his redwoodtree
one sultry sabbath afternoon,
Hag Chivychas Eve,
in prefall paradise peace
by following his plough for rootles
in the rere garden of mobhouse,
ye olde marine hotel,
when royalty was announced by runner
to have been pleased to have halted itself on the highroad
along which a leisureloving dogfox had cast
followed, also at walking pace,
by a lady pack of cocker spaniels.
Forgetful of all
save his vassal’s plain fealty to the ethnarch
Humphrey or Harold stayed not to yoke or saddle
but stumbled out hotface as he was
(his sweatful bandanna loose from his pocket-coat)
hasting to the forecourts of his public
in topee, surcingle, solascarf and plaid,
plus fours, puttees and bulldog boots
ruddled cinnabar with (p31) flagrant marl,
jingling his turnpike keys
and bearing aloft amid the fixed pikes of the hunting party
a high perch atop of which a flowerpot was fixed
earthside hoist with care.
On his majesty,
who was,
or often feigned to be,
noticeably long-sighted from green youth
and had been meaning to inquire
what, in effect, had caused yon causeway to be thus potholed,
asking substitutionally to be put wise
as to whether pater-noster and silver doctors
were not now more fancied bait
for lobster-trapping
honest blunt Haromphreyld answered
in no uncertain tones
very similarly
with a fearless forehead:
Naw, yer maggers, aw war jist a cotchin on thon bluggy earwuggers.
Our sailor king,
who was draining a gugglet of obvious adamale,
gift both and gorban,
upon this,
ceasing to swallow,
smiled most heartily beneath his walrus moustaches
and indulging that none too genial humour
which William the Conk
on the spindle side
had inherited with the hereditary whitelock
and some short-fingeredness from his greataunt Sophy,
turned towards two of his retinue of gallow-glasses,
Michael,
etheling lord of Leix and Offaly
and the jubilee mayor of Drogheda,
Elcock,
(the two scatter-guns being
Michael M. Manning,
protosyndic of Waterford
and an Italian excellency named Giubilei
according to a later version
cited by the learned scholarch
Canavan of Can-make-noise),
in either case a triptychal religious family
symbolising puritas of doctrina,
business per usuals
and the purchy-patch of hamlock
where the paddish preties grow
and remarked dilsy-dulsily:
Holybones of Saint Hubert
how our red brother of Pouring-rainia would audibly fume
did he know that we have for surtrusty bailiwick
a turnpiker
who is by turns a pike-bailer
no seldomer than an earwigger
For he kinned Jom Pill with his court so gray
and his haunts in his house in the mourning.
(One still hears that pebble crusted laughta,
japi-jap cheery-cherrily,
among the roadside tree the lady Holmpatrick planted
and still one feels the amossive silence of the cladstone alle-gibelling:
Ive mies outs ide Bourn.)
Comes the question
are these the facts of his nomini-gentilisation
as recorded and accolated
in both or either of the collateral andrew-paul-murphyc narratives.
Are those their fata
which we read in sibylline
between the fas and its nefas?
No dung (p32) on the road?
And shall Nohomiah be our place like?
Yea, Mulachy our kingable khan?
We shall perhaps not so soon see.
Pinck poncks that bail for seeks alicence
where cumsceptres with scentaurs stay.
Bear in mind, son of Hokmah,
if so be you have metheg in your midness,
this man is mountain
and unto changeth doth one ascend.
Heave we aside the fallacy,
as punical as finikin,
that it was not the king kingself
but his inseparable sisters,
uncontrollable night-talkers,
Skerts-i-raizde with Don-yah-zade,
who afterwards,
when the robberers shot up the socialights,
came down into the world as amusers
and were staged by Madame Sudlow
as Rosa and Lily Miskinguette
in the pantalime that two pitts paythronosed,
Miliodorus and Galathee.
The great fact emerges that
after that historic date
all holographs so far exhumed initialled by Haromphrey
bear the sigla H.C.E.
and while he was only and long and always
good Dook Umphrey
for the hungerlean spalpeens of Lucalizod and Chimbers
to his cronies
it was equally certainly a pleasant turn of the populace
which gave him as sense of those normative letters the nickname
Here Comes Everybody.
An imposing everybody he always indeed looked,
constantly the same as and equal to himself
and magnificently well worthy of any and all such universalisation,
every time he continually surveyed,
amid vociferatings from in front of
Accept these few nutties!
and
Take off that white hat!,
relieved with
Stop his Grog
and
Put It in the Log
and
Loots in his (bassvoco) Boots,
from good start to happy finish
the truly catholic assemblage
gathered together in that king’s treat house
of satin alustre-like
above floats and footlights
from their ass-bawl-veldts and oxgangs
unanimously to clapplaud
(the inspiration of his lifetime and the hits of their careers)
Mr Wallenstein Washington Semperkelly’s immergreen tourers
in a command performance
by special request
with the courteous permission
for pious purposes
the homedromed and enliventh performance
of problem passion play of the millentury,
running strong since creation,
A Royal Divorce,
then near the approach towards the summit of its climax,
with ambitious interval band selections
from The Bo’ Girl
and The Lily
on all horserie show command nights
from his viceregal booth
(his bossaloner is (p33) ceilinged there
a cuckoo-spit less eminent
than the red-ritual-hoods of Maccabe and Cullen)
where,
a veritable Napoleon the Nth,
our worldstage’s practical jokepiece
and retired ce-celtico-commediant
in his own wise,
this folks-fore-father all of the time
sat, having the entirety of his house about him,
with the invariable broad-stretched kerchief
cooling his whole neck, nape and shoulder-blades
and in a wardrobe panelled tuxedo
completely thrown back from a shirt
well entitled a swallow-all,
on every point far outstarching the laundered claw-hammers
and marble-topped highboys
of the pit stalls and early amphitheatre.
The piece was this: look at the lamps.
The cast was thus: see under the clock.
Ladies circle: cloaks may be left.
Pit, prommer and parterre, standing room only.
Habituels conspicuously emergent.
———————————————————
A baser meaning has been read into these characters
the literal sense of which decency can safely scarcely hint.
It has been blurtingly bruited
by certain wisecrackers
(the stinks of Mohorat are in the night-plots of the morning),
that he suffered from a vile disease.
Athma, unmanner them!
To such a suggestion the one self-respecting answer
is to affirm that
there are certain statements which ought not to be,
and one should like to hope to be able to add,
ought not to be allowed to be made.
Nor have his detractors,
who, an imperfectly warm-blooded race,
apparently conceive him as a great white caterpillar
capable of any and every enormity in the calendar
recorded to the discredit of the Juke and Kellikek families,
mended their case
by insinuating that,
alternately,
he lay at one time under the ludicrous imputation
of annoying Welsh fusiliers in the people’s park.
Hay, hay, hay!
Hoq, hoq, hoq!
Faun and Flora on the lea love that little old joq.
To anyone who knew and loved
the christ-likeness of the big clean-minded giant H. C. Earwicker
throughout his excellency long vice-freegal existence
the mere suggestion of him
as a lust-sleuth nosing for trouble in a boobytrap
rings particularly preposterous.
Truth, beard on prophet,
compels one to add
that there is said to have been quondam
(pfuit! pfuit!)
some case of the kind
implicating,
it is interdum believed,
a quidam
(if he did not exist it would be necessary quoniam to invent him)
abhout that time
stambuling (p34) haround Dumbaling
in leaky sneakers
with his tarrk record
who has remained topantically anonymos
but (let us hue him Abdullah Gamell-ax-ark-sky) was,
it is stated,
posted at Mallon’s
at the instance of watch warriors of the vigilance committee
and years afterwards,
cries one even greater,
Ibid, a commender of the frightful,
seemingly,
unto such as were sulhan sated,
tropped head (pfiat! pfiat!)
waiting his first of the month froods turn
for thatt chopp pah kabbakks alicubi
on the old house for the chargehard,
Roche Haddocks off Hawkins Street.
Lowe, you blondy liar,
Gob scene you in the narked place
and she what’s edith ar home defileth these boyles!
There’s a cabful of bash indeed in the homeur of that meal.
Slander, let it lie its flattest,
has never been able to convict
our good and great and no ordinary Southron Earwicker,
that homogenius man,
as a pious author called him,
of any graver impropriety than that,
advanced by some woodwards or regarders,
who did not dare deny,
the shomers,
that they had,
chin Ted,
chin Tam,
chinchin Taffyd,
that day consumed their soul of the corn,
of having behaved with on-gentilmensky immodus
opposite a pair of dainty maid-servants
in the swoolth of the rushy hollow
whither,
or so the two gown and pinners pleaded,
dame nature
in all innocency
had spontaneously
and about the same hour of the eventide
sent them both
but whose published combinations of silkin-laine testimonies are,
where not dubiously pure,
visibly divergent,
as wapt from wept,
on minor points touching the intimate nature of this,
a first offence in vert or venison
which was admittedly an incautious
but, at its wildest,
a partial exposure
with such attenuating circumstances
(garthen gaddeth green hwere sokeman brideth girling)
as an abnormal Saint Swithin’s summer
and, (Jesses Rosasharon!)
a ripe occasion to provoke it.
——————————————————-
We can’t do without them.
Wives, rush to the restyours!
Ofman will toman while led is the lol.
Zessid’s our kadem, villa-pleach, volla-pluck.
Fikup, for flesh nelly, el mundo nov, zole flen!
If she’s a lilyth, pull early!
Pauline, allow!
And malers abushed, keep black, keep black!
Guiltless of much laid to him
he was clearly for once at least
he clearly expressed himself
as being
with still a trace of his erstwhile burr sod
hence it has been received of (p35) us
that it is true.
They tell the story
(an amalgam as absorbing
as calzium chloereydes and hydrophobe sponges could make it)
how one happy-go-gusty Ides-of-April morning
(the anniversary,
as it fell out,
of his first assumption of his mirthday suit
and rights in appurtenance to the confusioning of human races)
ages and ages after the alleged misdemeanour
when the tried friend of all creation,
tigerwood roadstaff to his stay,
was billowing across the wide expanse of our greatest park
in his caoutchouc kepi
and great belt
and hideinsacks
and his blaufunx fustian
and ironsides jackboots
and Bhagafat gaiters
and his rubberised inverness,
he met a cad with a pipe.
The latter,
the luciferant not the oriuolate
(who, the odds are, is still berting dagabout
in the same straw bamer,
carryin his overgoat under his schulder,
sheepside out,
so as to look more like a coumfry gentleman
and signing the pledge as gaily as you please)
hardily accosted him with:
Guinness thaw tool in jew me dinner ouzel fin?
(a nice how-do-you-do in Pool-black at the time
as some of our old-daisers may still tremblingly recall)
to ask could he tell him
how much a clock it was
that the clock struck
had he any idea by cock’s luck
as his watch was bradys.
Hesitency was clearly to be evitated.
Execration as cleverly to be honnisoid.
The Earwicker of that spurring instant,
realising on fundamental liberal principles
the supreme importance,
nexally and noxally,
of physical life
(the nearest help relay being ping-ping K. O. Sempatrick’s Day
and the fenian rising)
and unwishful as he felt of being hurled into eternity right then,
plugged by a soft-nosed bullet from the sap,
halted,
quick on the draw,
and replyin that he was feelin tipstaff,
cue,
prodooced from his gunpocket
his Jurgensen’s shrapnel waterbury,
ours by communionism,
his by usucapture,
but,
on the same stroke,
hearing above the skirling of harsh Mother East old Fox Goodman,
the bellmaster,
over the wastes to south,
at work upon the ten ton tonuant thunderous tenor toller
in the speckled church
(Couhounin’s call!)
told the inquiring kidder,
by Jehova,
it was twelve of em sidereal and tankard time,
adding, buttall,
as he bended deeply with smoked sardinish breath
to give more pondus to the copperstick he presented
(though this seems in some cumfusium
with the (p36) chapstuck ginger
which,
as being of sours, acids, salts, sweets and bitters com-pom-pounded,
we know him to have used
as chaw-chaw for bone, muscle, blood, flesh and vimvital,)
that whereas the hakusay accusation againstm had been made,
what was known in high quarters
as was stood stated in Morgans-post,
by a creature in youman form
who was quite beneath parr
and several degrees lower than yore triple-hydrad snake.
In greater support of his word
(it, quaint ’anticipation of a famous phrase,
has been reconstricted out of oral style
into the verbal for all time
with ritual rhythmics,
in quiritary quietude,
and too-sammen-stucked from successive accounts
by Noah Webster
in the redaction known as
the Sayings Attributive of H. C. Earwicker,
prize on schillings,
postlots free),
the flaxen Gygas tapped his chrono-metrum drumdrum
and, now standing full erect,
above the ambijacent flood-plain,
scene of its happening,
with one Berlin gauntlet chopstuck in the hough of his ellboge
(by ancientest signlore his gesture meaning: !)
pointed at an angle of thirty-two degrees
towards his duc de Fer’s overgrown milestone
as fellow to his gage
and after a rendy-present pause
averred with solemn emotion’s fire:
Shsh shake, co-comeraid!
Me only, them five ones, he is equal combat.
I have won straight.
Hence my nonation wide hotel and creamery establishments
which for the honours of our mew-mew mutual daughters,
credit me,
I am woo-woo willing to take my stand, sir,
upon the monument,
that sign of our ru-ru redemption,
any hygienic day to this hour
and to make my hoath to my sinn-finners,
even if I get life for it,
upon the Open Bible
and before the Great Taskmaster’s
(I lift my hat!)
and in the presence of the Deity Itself
andwell of Bishop and Mrs Michan of High Church of England
as of all such of said my immediate with-dwellers
and of every living sohole
in every corner wheresoever of this globe in general
which useth of my British to my backbone tongue
and commutative justice
that there is not one tittle of truth,
allow me to tell you,
in that purest of fib-fib fabrications.
————————————————-
Gaping Gill,
swift to mate errthors,
stern to checkself,
(diagnosing through eustace-tube
that it was to make
with a markedly (p37) post-puberal hyperti-tuitary type
of Heidelberg mannleich cavern ethics)
lufted his sloping-forward,
bad Sweat-agore good murrough
and dublnotch on to it
as he was greedly obliged,
and like a sensible ham,
with infinite tact
in the delicate situation
seen the touchy nature of its perilous theme,
thanked um for guilders received and time of day
(not a little token abock all the same
that that was owl the God’s clock it was)
and, upon humble duty
to greet his Tyskminister
and he shall gild-the-gap Gaper
and thee his a mouldy voids,
went about his business,
whoever it was,
saluting corpses,
as a metter of corse
(one could hound him out
had one hart to
for the monticules of scalp and dandruff droppings blaze his trail)
accompanied by his trusty snorler
and his permanent reflection,
verbi-gracious;
I have met with you, bird, too late,
or if not, too worm and early:
and with tag for ildiot
repeated in his second-mouth language
as many of the bigtimer’s verbaten words
which he could balbly call to memory
that same kveldeve,
ere the hour of the twattering of bards
in the twitter-litter
between Druidia and the Deep-sleep Sea,
when suppertide and souvenir to Charlatan Mall jointly kem
gently and along the quiet darkenings of Grand and Royal,
ff, flit-mans-fluh,
and, kk, ‘t crept i’ hedge
whenas to many a softongue’s pawky-talk mude unswer
u sufter pogh-yogh,
Arvanda always aquiassent,
while,
studying castelles in the blowne
and studding cowshots over the noran,
he spat in careful convertedness
a musaic dispensation
about his hearthstone,
if you please,
(Irish saliva,
mawshe dho hole,
but would a respectable prominently connected fellow
of Iro-European ascendances
with well-dressed ideas
who knew the correct thing
such as Mr Shall-we-sigh or Mr Shall-we-laugh
expectorate after such a callous fashion,
no thank yous!
when he had his belcher spucker-tuck in his pucket, pthuck?)
musefed with his thockits
after having supped of the dish sot and pottage
which he snobbishly dabbed Peach Bombay
(it is rawly only Lukan-pukan pilzen-pie
which she knows which senaffed and pibered him),
a supreme of excelling peas,
balled under minnshogue’s milk
into white-malt wine-sour,
a proviant the little-bilker hoarsely relished,
chaff it,
in the snevel season,
being as fain o’t as your rat wi’fennel;
and on this celebrating (p38) occasion of the happy escape,
for a crowning of pot valiance,
this regional platter,
benjamin of bouillis,
with a spolish olive to middle-point its zaynith,
was marrying itself
(porko-graso!)
erebusqued very deluxiously
with a bottle of Phenice-Bruerie ’98,
followed for second nuptials
by a Piessporter, Grand Cur,
of both of which cherished table-lights
(though humble the bounquet ’tis a leaman’s farewell)
he obdurately sniffed the cobweb-crusted corks.
————————————————-
Our cad’s bit of strife
(knee Bareniece Maxwelton)
with a quick ear for spittoons
(as the aftertale hath it)
glaned up as usual with dumbestic husbandry
(no persicks and armelians for thee, Pomeranzia!)
but, slipping the clav in her claw,
broke of the matter
among a hundred and eleven others
in her usual curtsey
(how faint these first vhespers womanly are,
a secret pis-pigliando,
amad the lavurdy den of their manfolker!)
the next night nudge one
as was Hegesippus
over a hup a ’chee,
her eys dry and small
and speech thicklish
because he appeared a funny colour
like he couldn’t stood they old hens no longer,
to her particular reverend,
the director,
whom she had been meaning in her mind primarily to speak with
(hosch, intra! jist a timble-spoon!)
trusting,
between cuppled lips and annie lawrie promises
(mighshe never have Esnekerry pudden come Hunanov
for her peck-la-pitschens!)
that the gossiple so delivered in his epistolear,
buried tea-toastally in their Irish stew
would go no further than his jesuit’s cloth,
yet (in vinars venitas! volatiles valetotum!)
it was this over-spoiled priest Mr Browne,
disguised as a vincentian,
who, when seized of the facts,
was overheard,
in his secondary personality as a Nolan
and under-reared,
poul soul,
by accident
—if, that is, the incident it was an accident
for here the ruah of Ecclectiastes of Hippo
outpuffs the writress of Havvah-ban-Annah
—to pianissime a slightly varied version
of Crooked-ribs confidentials,
(what Mere Aloyse said but for Jesuphine’s sake!)
hands between ha-hands,
in fealty sworn
(my bravor best! my fraur!)
and,
to the strains of The Secret of Her Birth,
hushly pierce the rubiend aurellum
of one Philly Thurnston,
a lay-teacher of rural science and ortho-phonethics
of a near-stout figure
and about the middle (p39) of his forties
during a priestly flutter
for safe and sane bets
at the hippic runfields of breezy Baldoyle
on a date (W. W. goes through the card)
easily capable of rememberance
by all pickers-up of events national and Dublin details,
the doubles of Perkin and Paullock,
peer and prole,
when the classic Encourage Hackney Plate
was captured by two noses
in a stablecloth finish,
ek and nek,
some and none,
evelo nevelo,
from the cream colt Bold Boy Cromwell
after a clever getaway
by Captain Chaplain Blount’s roe hinny
Saint Dalough,
Drummer Coxon,
nondepict third,
at breakneck odds,
thanks to you
great little,
bonny little,
portey little,
Winny Widger!
you’re all their nappies!
who in his neverrip mud and purpular cap
was surely leagues unlike any other phantom-weight
that ever toppitt our timber maggies.
——————————————————
Twas two pisononse Timcoves
(the wetter is pest,
the renns are overt and come
and the voax of the turfur is hurled on our lande)
of the name of Treacle Tom
as was just out of pop
following the theft
of a leg of Kehoe, Donnelly and Packenham’s Finnish pork
and his own blood and milk brother
Frisky Shorty,
(he was,
to be exquisitely punctilious about them,
both shorty and frisky)
a tipster,
come off the hulks,
both of them awful poor,
what was out on the bum-around
for an oofbird game for a jimmy o’goblin
or a small thick un as chanced,
while the Seaforths was making the colleen-bawl,
to ear the passon in the motor clobber
make use of his law language
(Edzo, Edzo on),
touchin the case of Mr Adams
what was in all the sundays about it
which he was rubbing noses with
and having a gurgle off his own
along of the butty bloke in the specs.
———————————————————————
This Treacle Tom
to whom reference has been made
had been absent from his usual wild and woolly haunts
in the land of counties capalleens
for some time previous to that
(he was, in fact,
in the habit of frequenting common lodging-houses
where he slept in a nude state,
hail-fellow with meth,
in strange men’s cots)
but on race-night,
blotto after divers tots
of hell fire, red biddy, bull dog, blue ruin and creeping jenny,
Eglandine’s choicest herbage,
supplied by the Duck and Doggies,
the Galopping Primrose,
Brigid Brewster’s,
the Cock,
the Postboy’s Horn, (p40)
the Little Old Man’s
and All Swell That Aimswell,
the Cup and the Stirrup,
he sought his well-warmed lea-babo-bed
in a housing-room
Abide With One-another
at Block W.W.,
(why didn’t he back it?)
Pump Court,
The Liberties,
and, what with moltapuke on voltapuke,
resnored alcoh alcoho alcoherently
to the burden of
I come, my horse delayed, nom num,
the substance of the tale
of the evangelical bussy-bozzy and the rus-in-urbean
(the ‘girls’ he would keep calling them
for the collarette and skirt, the sun-bonnet and carnation)
in parts
(it seemed he was before the eyots of martas
or other-wales the thirds of fossil-years,
he having beham with katya
when lavinias had her mens lease
to sea in a psump-ship doodly show
whereat he was looking for fight niggers with whilde roarses)
oft in the chilly night
(the met-agonistic! the epick-thal-amorous!)
during uneasy slumber
in their hearings of a small and stony-broke cash-draper’s executive,
Peter Cloran (discharged),
O’Mara,
an ex-private secretary of no fixed abode
(locally known as Mildew Lisa),
who had passed several nights,
funnish enough,
in a doorway
under the blankets of homelessness
on the bunk of iceland,
pillowed upon the stone of destiny
colder than man’s knee or woman’s breast,
and Hosty,
(no slouch of a name),
an illstarred beach-busker,
who, sans rootie and sans scrapie,
suspicioning as how he was setting on a twoodstool
on the verge of self-abyss,
most starved,
with melancholia over everything in general,
(night birman, you served him with natigal’s nano!)
had been towhead tossing on his shake-down,
devising ways and manners of means,
of what he loved to if-i’d-a-licence
somehow or other in the nation
getting a hold of some chap’s parabellum
in the hope of taking a wing sociable
and lighting upon a side-wheel dive
somewhere off the Dullkey Down-lairy and Bleak-rooky tram-aline
where he could throw true
and go and blow the sibicidal napper off himself
for two bits to boldy-well baltitude
in the peace and quitybus of a one sure shot bottle,
he after having being trying all he knew
with the lady’s help of Madam Gristle
for upwards of eighteen calanders
to get out of Sir Patrick Dun’s,
through Sir Humphrey Jervis’s
and into the Saint Kevin’s bed
in the Adelaide’s hosspittles
(from (p41) these incurable welleslays
among those uncarable wellasdays
through Sant Iago
by his cocklehat,
goot Lazar, deliver us!)
without after having been able to jerry-wangle it anysides.
Lisa O’Deavis and Roche Mongan
(who had so much incommon, epi-psychidically;
if the phrase be permitted
hostis et odor insuper petro-per-fractus)
as an understood thing
slept their sleep of the swimborne
in the one sweet undulant mother of tumbler-bunks
with Hosty
just how the shavers in the shaw
the yokels in the yoats
or, well, the wasters in the wilde,
and the bustling tweeny-dawn-of-all-works
(meed of anthems here we pant!)
had not been many jiffies
furbishing pot-lids, door-brasses,
scholars’ apple-cheeks and link-boy’s metals
when,
ash-hopper-minded like no fella
he go make baken-begg-fuss longa white man,
the rejuvenated busker
(for after a good-night’s rave and rumble
and a shink-hams top-morning
with his coexes he was not the same man)
and his broad-awake bedroom suite
(our boys, as our Byron called them)
were up and ashuffle
from the hogs-home they lovenaned The Barrel,
cross Ebblinn’s chilled hamlet
(thrie routes and restings
on their then superficies
curiously correspondant with those linea and puncta
where our tubenny habenny metro mani-plumbs
below the ober-flake under-rails and stations
at this time of riding)
to the thrummings of a crewth fiddle
which, cremoaning and cronauning,
levey grevey,
witty and wevey,
appy, leppy and playable,
caressed the ears of the subjects
of King Saint Finnerty the Festive
who, in brick homes of their own
and in their flavory fraise-berry beds,
heeding hardly cry of honeyman,
soed lavender or foyne-boyne salmon alive,
with their priggish mouths all open
for the larger appraisiatiOn
of this long-awaited Messiagh of roar-atorios,
were only half-past atsweeeep
and after a brisk pause at a pawn-broking establishment
for the prothetic purpose
of redeeming the songster’s truly admirable false teeth
and a prolonged visit to a house of call
at Cujas Place,
fizz,
the Old Sots’ Hole in the parish of Saint Cecily
within the liberty of Ceolmore
not a thousand or one national leagues,
that was,
by Griffith’s valuation,
from the site of the statue of Primewer Glasstone
setting a match to the march of a maker
(last of the stewards peut-être),
where, the tale rambles (p42) along,
the trio of whack-fol-the-diddlers was joined
by a further-intentions-apply-tomorrow casual
and a decent sort of the had-been variety
who had just been touching the weekly insult,
phewit,
and all fig-blabbers
(who saith of noun?)
had stimulants in the shape of gee and gees
stood by the damn decent sort
after which stag luncheon
and a few ones more just to celebrate yesterday,
flushed with their fire-stuff-fortered friendship,
the rascals came out of the licensed premises,
(Browne’s first,
the small p.s. ex-ex-executive capahand
in their sad rear
like a lady’s postscript:
I want money.
Pleasend),
wiping their laugh-leaking lipes on their sleeves,
how the bouckaleens shout their roscan generally
(seinn fion, seinn fion’s araun.)
and the rhymers’ world was with reason the richer
for a would-be ballad,
to the balledder of which
the world of cumannity singing owes a tribute
for having placed on the planet’s melomap
his lay of the vilest bogeyer
but most attractionable avatar the world has ever had to explain for.
—————————————————
This, more krectly lubeen
or fellow—me—lieder was first poured forth
where Riau Liviau riots
and col de Houdo humps,
under the shadow of the monument of the should-have-been legislator
(Eleutherio-dendron! Spare, woodmann, spare!)
to an overflow meeting of all the nations
in Lenster
fully-filling the visional area
and, as a single-minded super-crowd,
easily representative,
what with masks,
whet with faces,
of all sections and cross sections
(wine-shop and cocoa-house poured out to brim up the broaching)
of our liffey-side people
(to omit to mention of the mainland minority
and such as had wayfared
via Watling, Ernin, Icknild and Stane,
in chief a halted cockney car
with its quotal of Hardmuth’s hacks,
a northern tory,
a southern whig,
an east-anglian chronicler
and a land-wester guardian)
ranging from slips of young dublinos
from Cutpurse Row
having nothing better to do than walk about
with their hands in their kneepants,
sucking air-whackers, weed-u-licet, jumbo-bricks,
side by side with truant officers,
three woollen balls and poplin
in search of a croust of pawn to busy professional gentlemen,
a brace of palesmen with dundrearies,
nooning toward Daly’s,
fresh from snipe-hitting and mallard-missing on Rutland heath,
exchanging cold sneers,
massgoing (p43) ladies from Hume Street in their chairs,
the bearers baited,
some wandering hamalags
out of the adjacent clover-fields of Mosse’s Gardens,
an oblate father from Skinner’s Alley,
bricklayers,
a fleming, in tabinet fumant, with spouse and dog,
an aged hammer-smith who had some chisellers by the hand,
a bout of cudgel players,
not a few sheep with the braxy,
two blue-coat scholars,
four broke gents out of Simpson’s on the Rocks,
a portly and a pert
still tassing Turkey Coffee and orange shrub in tick-eyes door,
Peter Pim and Paul Fry
and then Elliot
and, O, Atkinson,
suffering hell’s delights from the blains of their annuitants’ acorns
not forgetting a deuce of dianas ridy for the hunt,
a particularist prebendary pondering on the roman easter,
the ton-sure question and greek uniates, plunk em,
a lace lappet head or two or three or four from a window,
and so on
down to a few good old souls,
who,
as they were juiced after taking their pledge
over at the uncle’s place,
were evidently under the spell of liquor,
from the wake of Tarry the Tailor
a fair girl,
a jolly postoboy thinking off three flagons and one,
a plumodrole,
a half sir from the weaver’s alms-house
who clings and clings and chat-chat-chat clings to her,
a whole-dam’s cloud-hued pittycoat,
as child,
as curio-later,
as Caoch O’Leary.
The wararrow went round,
so it did, (a nation wants a gaze)
and the ballad,
in the felibrine trancoped metre
affectioned by Taiocebo in his Casudas de Pouli-chinello Artahut,
stump-stampaded on to a slip of blanco-vide
and headed by an excessively rough and red woodcut,
privately printed at the rimepress of Delville,
soon fluttered its secret
on white highway and brown byway
to the rose of the winds and the blew of the gaels,
from archway to lattice
and from black hand to pink ear,
village crying to village,
through the five pussy-fours green
of the united states of Scotia Picta
—and he who denays it,
may his hairs be rubbed in dirt!
To the added strains
(so peacifold)
of his majesty the flute,
that one-crooned king of inscrewments,
Piggott’s purest,
ciello alsoliuto,
which Mr Delaney (Mr Delacey?), horn,
anticipating a perfect downpour of plaudits among the rapsods,
piped out of his decent-soort hat,
looking still more like his purseyful namesake
as men of Gaul noted,
but before of to sput-about,
the (p44) snowy-crested curl amoist the leader’s wild and moulting hair,
‘Ductor’ Hitchcock hoisted his fezzy fuzz
at bludgeon’s height
signum to his companions of the chalice
for the Loud Fellow, boys’
and silentium in curia!
(our maypole once more where he rose of old)
and the canto was chantied there chorussed and christened
where by the old tollgate,
Saint Annona’s Street and Church.
And around the lawn the rann it rann
and this is the rann that Hosty made.
Spoken.
Boyles and Cahills, Skerretts and Pritchards,
viersified and piersified may the treeth we tale of live in stoney.
Here line the refrains of.
Some vote him Vike, some mote him Mike,
some dub him Llyn and Phin
while others hail him Lug Bug Dan Lop,
Lex, Lax, Gunne or Guinn.
Some apt him Arth,
some bapt him Barth,
Coll, Noll, Soll, Will, Weel, Wall
but I parse him Persse O’Reilly
else he’s called no name at all.
Together.
Arrah, leave it to Hosty, frosty Hosty,
leave it to Hosty
for he’s the mann to rhyme the rann,
the rann, the rann, the king of all ranns.
Have you here?
(Some ha)
Have we where?
(Some hant)
Have you hered?
(Others do)
Have we whered?
(Others dont)
It’s cumming, it’s brumming!
The clip, the clop!
(All cla)
Glass crash.
The
(klik-kak-lak-kak-laskak-lopatz-
klatsch-a-batta-creppy-crotty-
graddagh-semmi-hsammi-hnouit-
happ-luddy-appladdy-pkon-pkot!).
Ardite, ardite.
Music cue (p45)
The Ballad of Perce O’Reilly
Have you heard of one Humpty Dumpty
How he fell with a roll and a rumble
And curled up like Lord Olofa Crumple
By the butt of the Magazine Wall,
(Chorus) Of the Magazine Wall,
Hump, helmet and all?
He was one time our King of the Castle
Now he's kicked about like a rotten old parsnip.
And from Green street he'll be sent by order of His Worship
To the penal jail of Mountjoy
(Chorus) To the jail of Mountjoy!
Jail him and joy.
He was fa-fa-father of all schemes for to bother us
Slow coaches and immaculate contraceptives for the populace,
Mare’s milk for the sick, seven dry Sundays a week,
Openair love and religion’s reform,
(Chorus) And religious reform,
Hideous in form.
Arrah, why, says you, couldn’t he manage it?
I’ll go bail, my fine dairyman darling,
Like the bumping bull of the Cassidys
All your butter is in your horns.
(Chorus) His butter is in his horns.
Butter his horns!
(Repeat) Hurrah there, Hosty, frosty Hosty, change that shirt on ye,
Rhyme the rann, the king of all ranns!
Balbaccio, balbuccio!
We had chaw chaw chops, chairs, chewing gum, the chicken-pox and china chambers
Universally provided by this soff-soaping salesman.
Small wonder He’ll Cheat E’erawan our local lads nicknamed him
When Chimpden first took the floor
(Chorus) With his bucket-shop store
Down Bargainweg, Lower.
So snug he was in his hotel premises sumptuous
But soon we’ll bonfire all his trash, tricks and trumpery
And ’tis short till sheriff Clancy’ll be winding up his unlimited company
With the bailiff’s bom at the door,
(Chorus) Bimbam at the door.
Then he’ll bum no more.
Sweet bad luck on the waves washed to our island
The hooker of that hammer-fast viking
And Gall’s curse on the day when Eblana bay
Saw his black and tan man-o’-war.
(Chorus) Saw his man-o’-war.
On the harbour bar.
he bawls Donnez-moi scampitle, wick an wipin’fampiny
Fingal Mac Oscar Onesine Barge-arse Boniface
Thok’s min gammelhole Norveegickers moniker
Og as ay are at gammel-hore Norveegickers cod.
(Chorus) A Norwegian camel old cod.
He is, begod.
Lift it, Hosty, lift it, ye devil ye! up with the rann, the rhyming rann!
It was during some fresh water garden pumping
Or, according to the Nursing Mirror, while admiring the mon keys
That our heavyweight heathen Humpharey
Made bold a maid to woo
(Chorus) Woohoo, what’ll she doo!
The general lost her maidenloo!
He ought to blush for himself, the old hay-headed philosopher,
For to go and shove himself that way on top of her.
Begob, he’s the crux of the catalogue
Of our antediluvial zoo,
(Chorus) Messrs. Billing and Coo.
Noah’s larks, good as noo.
He was joulting by Wellinton’s monument
Our rotorious hippo-po-potamuns
When some bugger let down the backtrap of the omnibus
And he caught his death of fusiliers,
(Chorus) With his rent in his rears.
Give him six years.
’Tis sore pity for his innocent poor children
But look out for his missus legitimate!
When that frew gets a grip of old Earwicker
Won’t there be earwigs on the green?
The largest ever you seen.
Suffoclose! Shikespower! Seudo-danto! Anonymoses!
Then we’ll have a free trade Gaels’ band and mass meeting
For to sod the brave son of Scandi-knavery.
And we’ll bury him down in Oxmanstown
Along with the devil and Danes,
(Chorus) With the deaf and dumb Danes,
And all their remains.
And not all the king’s men nor his horses
Will resurrect his corpus
For there’s no true spell in Connacht or hell
(bis) That’s able to raise a Cain.
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