Tag Archives: Gifford

Telemachus 0029

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Mulligan calls to Stephen from within the tower, pulling Stephen out of a series of flashback visions of his mother.

He tells Stephen to come on down like “a good Mosey.”  Gifford, in Ulysses Annotated, parses this as “one who moves slowly or shuffles.”  But I think there’s a strong overtone of “Moses” in it too.  Later in the day, Stephen will think of Moses and his view from Mt. Pisgah, as he writes a “parable of the plums” rooted in modern Dublin life.

The way Rob presents this moment, with an enormous, distant horizon, gives you a strong contrast to the claustrophobic visions of the past.   There’s a long view before Stephen, (a view towards Britain and beyond that, Europe), but he’s pulled away from it by his tie to Mulligan, as well as by the past that haunts him.

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Telemachus 0028

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Again here, an explanation of what’s going on in the comic beggars what the comic itself does on this page.  Stephen is caught up in his “brooding brain,” [another example of the Uncle Charles Principle, as the word “brooding,” which ostensibly comes from some kind of narrator, has been very much part of Stephen’s thoughts in this scene.]  Stephen does another deep dive into memories of his mother’s death, bringing up wonderfully precise images–the “shapely fingernails” (Q: what are shapely fingernails?) stained red with the blood of squashed lice, etc.

The question I’ve been asking myself about this moment is “If we look at Stephen as a writer struggling to come into his own, can we better understand his struggle with the memory of his mother?”  Certainly his command to her to leave him alone and let him live makes some sense.  I imagine Stephen here is struggling between  a writer’s impulse to record every detail of what he remembers of her (almost in the style of an epiphany), and his terror at bringing back the horror-movie-style guilt and terror of her death.

And about that Latin… Professor Gifford gives us a translation from the “Layman’s Missal”: May the glittering throng of confessors, bright as lilies, gather about you. May the glorious choir of virgins receive you.” It is a prayer for the dying, which can be said (according to the missal via Gifford) to commend the dying person to God if there is no priest present.  This is what Stephen should have prayed, if he had prayed.

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