In the last paragraph, Kate represented the thunderous voice of God in the First Age of Giambattista Vico’s cyclical history, the Theocratic Age of Gods & Giants. This short paragraph represents the Second Age, the Aristocratic Age of Heroes, which is characterized by social unrest between the ruling patricians and the rebellious plebeians.
This paragraph also sets the scene for Kate’s narration of the assault on HCE, which has already been repeated several times already: HCE’s roadside brush with royalty outside his tavern : HCE’s memorable encounter in the Phoenix Park with the Cad with a Pipe : HCE’s public humiliation in the King Street Theatre, when he is the butt of the farce A Royal Divorce : HCE’s national humiliation when he is lampooned by Hosty in The Ballad of Persse O’Reilly : the pegging of stones at HCE’s tavern. It is a tale that has been recounted down the ages by a series of gossips: by the Cad to three boardschool shirkers : by Jehu to the passengers of his Irish visavis : by an excivily to a namecousin of the late archdeacon F. X. Preserved Coppinger in a pullwoman of the transhibernian railway : by the witnesses in an obscure court case. We could also mention the Street Interview and Plebiscite, which also rehashed all the sordid details.
Truly has it been said that in Finnegans Wake Joyce tells the same story over and over again.
First-Draft Version
Usually we begin our analysis by examining the first draft of the paragraph we are studying, as recorded by David Hayman in A First-Draft Version of Finnegans Wake. But this is another paragraph that Joyce only later added to the first draft, which was written in November 1923. When an early version of this chapter was published in Issue 4 of Eugene Jolas’s literary journal transition in July 1927, this paragraph had still not been drafted. It was only around 1930–33, when Joyce was preparing copy of Book I for Faber and Faber’s printing of Finnegans Wake, that he finally created this paragraph. He carried out this work by revising the pages of transition 4:
Yes, the viability of vicinals if invisible is invincible. And we are not trespassing on his corns either. Look at all the plotsch! If this was Hannibal’s way it was Hercules’ work. The mausoleum lies behind us and there are milestones in their cheadmilyas faultering along the way, by Hermes! But the past has made us a present of this road. So more boher to O’Connell! And if he’s not a Romeo you may scallop your hat. ―James Joyce Digital Archive
There are a few hints here that the scene is the old one in the Phoenix Park: invincible reminds us that this was the setting for the Phoenix Park Murders by the Invincibles : the mausoleum once again stands in for the Magazine Fort : the Wellington Monument was earlier referred to as the overgrown milestone. In ancient Greece the equivalent of our milestone was the herm, a rectangular stone pillar surmounted with a bust of Hermes, which did duty as a protective ward, a boundary marker, or a milestone.
The published version has fleshed out these lines with some more details.
the viability of vicinals if invisible is invincible the road may be difficult to make out after such a long lapse of time, but it still exists. McHugh glosses vicinal way as local common way. He also cites Caesar’s Veni, Vidi, Vici. William Tindall heard an echo of Dublin’s motto: Obedientia civium urbis felicitas : An Obedient Citizenry Makes for a Happy City. In English viability only retains the literal meaning of being viable, but in French viabilité also refers to the suitable condition of a road, the condition of being traversable. The first meaning comes from the French vie (life), the second from the Latin viābilis (passable, traversable). vicinals echoes the opening lines of _Finnegans Wake**: by a vicus of recirculation.
And we are not trespassing on his corns either We are on the road. HCE is encoded here, as if we needed the hint. Joyce once noted trespass allowed when road bad (VI.B.8:103k).
Look at all the plotsch! Plots, but also the onomatopoeic German word platsch : splash! A reminder that the waters of the recent Deluge are still abating. ALP’s monogram is also hidden here.
Flaminian The Flaminian Way was an ancient road between Rome and Rimini lined with tombs. Our road may go round and round, but it still leads to the afterworld. Roman roads are famously straight―just like Chesterfield Avenue, the main road that runs through Phoenix Park. Constantine the Great had his vision of the Chi-Rho symbol on this road. In the 1939 edition of Finnegans Wake the word was printed as Fluminian, but Rose & O’Hanlon reverted to the original form. FWEET glosses Fluminian as the Latin adjective flumineus, riverine, fluvial, which is surely relevant after plotsch!
If this was Hannibal’s walk it was Hercules’ work The Carthaginian general famously crossed the Alps with his elephants in 218 BC. Hercules was renowned for completing Twelve Labours, though none of them involved road building. On the website Finnegans, Wake! I came across the following interesting tidbit:
The allusions to roads cluster especially on page 81 where we get this interesting line: “If this was Hannibal’s walk it was Hercules’ work." (FW 81.03) The many references to roads and particularly this conjunction of Hannibal and Hercules and a pathway (“Hannibal’s walk”) took on a new meaning for me when I read Graham Robb's groundbreaking book The Discovery of Middle Earth: Mapping the Lost World of the Celts (2013) which is essentially a prehistory of the Roman road system. Robb mainly focuses on what's known as the Via Heraklea, an ancient road originally constructed by the Gaulish Druids extending from the tip of present-day Portugal along the southern edge of the Iberian peninsula up through the Alps. The road was said to be in the footsteps of Herakles who was originally a sun god, and Robb thoroughly lays out a convincing argument that the Druids, who were masters of astronomy, laid out the road to be in perfect alignment with the rising of the sun at the summer solstice and the setting of the sun at the winter solstice (the reference to “middle earth” in the book's title has to do with the Druids attempting to align the earthly world or middle earth with the upper world of the sky). As for the connection between Hannibal and Hercules in that line from FW pg 81, Robb offers this (mind you, he makes no direct reference to anything from Finnegans Wake):
“Ancient writers who described the Carthaginian invasion knew that Hannibal saw himself and wanted to be seen as the successor to Herakles. He would march across the mountains in the footsteps of the sun god, shining with the aura of divine approval.” (The Discovery of Middle Earth, pp 18-19)
“When Hannibal stood at the Matrona in the early winter of 218 BC, watching his elephants stumble down to the plains of northern Italy, he knew that he was standing in the rocky footprints of Herakles. His strategists and astrologers, and their Celtic allies and informers, were certain that the sun god had shown them the way” (ibid, p 21).
Joyce is unlikely to have known anything about Robb’s alleged Druidic highway, though the Roman road that followed its course, the Via Augusta, was also known as the Via Herculea. Traditionally, it was the route Hercules followed during his 10th Labour, Retrieving the Cattle of Geryon from Erythreia (the most Irish of the labours, as it echoes themes from The Cattle Raid of Cooley and Hy Breasal (the Blood-Red Island). Hannibal may have taken the same route when he crossed the Alps, and comparisons between the two figures were implied by Livy and Polybius (DeWitt 60). Melkarth was the Carthaginian equivalent to Hercules. There don’t seem to be any explicit references to him here, but he is alluded to later in this chapter (RFW 072.35).
John Gordon reminds us that Hercules, like Katherine Strong, also shovelled shit―one of his Twelve Labours was to clean out the stables of King Augeas of Elis.
And a hungried thousand of the unemancipated slaved the way This is usually understood to be a reference to the Great Famine, when hungry (emaciated as well as unemancipated) folk were obliged to carry out pointless works of labour―eg building famine roads and famine walls―in return for food. The previous chapter mentioned HCE taking refuge from his attacker behind faminebuilt walls. Hundred thousand anticipates cheadmilias two lines below. slaved the way echoes not only slaved away and saved the day but also paved the way, which continues the road-motif that runs through this paragraph.
The mausoleum lies behind us This reinforces the circular aspect of Viconian history. The tomb always lies before us and behind us. The original Mausoleum, the tomb of Mausolus at Halicarnassus, was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. In Finnegans Wake it is associated with the Magazine Fort in the Phoenix Park, which symbolizes the Fall of HCE.
O Adgigasta, multipopulipater! In Phrygian mythology Agdistis was a hermaphroditic deity, often identified with Cybele, the mother goddess of fertility. HCE, who is buried in the mausoleum, is the giant (Greek: gigas) referred to. Although there is no such Latin word as multipopulipater, it can be translated literally as a father of many nations. In Genesis 17:4 Abraham is described by these very words (King James Version). In the Latin Vulgate the translation reads pater multarum gentium. John Gordon adds an interesting detail:
about Agdistes, the Phrygian deity noted by McHugh: Brewer says that he/she “sprang from the stone Agdus, parts of which were taken by Deucalion and Pyrrha to cast over their shoulders for repeopling the world after the flood” – hence “multipopulipater.” (Gordon 81.5)
and there are milestones in their cheadmilias faultering along the tramestrack As we have seen, the Wellington Monument was popularly known as the Overgrown Milestone. In Finnegans Wake it is an ithyphallic representation of HCE’s member. There are also actual milestones in the Phoenix Park―apparently these were installed by the engineers Delap & Waller for the 1929 Irish Grand Prix― and older milestones scattered across Dublin. The traditional Irish greeting is céad míle fáilte, which literally means a hundred thousand welcomes. tramestracks not only means tram tracks and train tracks but also includes the French trame, thread, as in the phrase la trame de nos destinées, the thread of our destinies, implying that the road we are on is the thread of life. There may also be an echoic reference to the English tread, meaning walk. In Latin, trames means footpath or track.
by Brahm and Anton Hermes! Hermes is certainly relevant here in his role of psychopomp, the god who leads the souls of the dead to the afterlife, as the road we are treading is the road of life. Later he became the god of roads and doorways, protector of travellers, and his image was used to mark boundary stones known as herms. Adaline Glasheen has much to say of him in her Third Census of Finnegans Wake:
Hermes―messenger of the Greek gods, anciently (and in FW) identified with Mercury, Thoth, Hermes Trismegistus. Hermes was represented as a stone or heap of stones, as a squared stone pillar or herm, as a beautiful young man, a beautiful singer, and a most eloquent speaker. Swift of foot and eloquent, Hermes was often said to be the wind, and a hound. Hermes is a principal role of Shaun the Post, singer, indefatigable preacher of prudence, cunning thief―see also Jaun. Homer’s “Hymn to Hermes” (see Shelley) tells how, moving backwards, Hermes stole the cattle of his brother Apollo; the “Hymn” is a principal narrative framework of FWIII.
Hermes was also god of dreams, to whom the last libation before sleep was made (see FW 399.36 [RFW 310.18]). He was Psychopompos, or Guide of Souls, coaxing them by his eloquence to go gently: paralleled in III,ii, by his preaching barrenness to a girl audience. St Michael performs the same happy task―soul guiding―in the Greek church. Hermes has many other attributes, all of them fitted neatly to Shaun ... herm = stone pillar with phallus and head of Hermes on it ... ―Glasheen 125–126
But who is Anton Hermes? Glasheen suggests a possible allusion to the French revolutionary Georges Jacques Danton, but I don’t see the relevance. Recent editions of Roland McHugh’s Annotations to Finnegans Wake include the annotation: Anton, son of Hermes, but no source is cited. Anton was the name of a mythological son of Hercules created by Mark Antony, and from whom he claimed descent.
Rose & O’Hanlon cite the following passage from André-Ferdinand Herold’s Life of Buddha for the presence here of the Hindu god of creation Brahma:
La reine raconta au roi le songe qu’elle avait eu. Elle ajouta:
«Seigneur, fais venir ici des brahmanes habiles à expliquer les songes. Ils sauront si le bien est entré dans le palais ou le mal, si nous devons nous réjouir ou nous lamenter.»The queen [Maya, Buddha’s mother] told the king of the dream she had had. She added:
―Lord, have the Brahmins skilled in explaining dreams brought here. They will know whether good or evil has entered the palace, whether we should rejoice or lament.―André-Ferdinand Herold, La vie du Bouddha 13
Is brougham in there as well, to go along with Fiacre in the last line? Glasheen suggests the composer Brahms, but again I fail to see the relevance. The name echoes Abraham, who was alluded to by multipopulipater. It also rhymes with tram.
Per omnibus secular seekalarum. Amain Latin: per omnia saecula saeculorum, amen : for ever and ever, amen. The omnibus continues the road-motif.
But the past has made us this present of a rhedarhoad Latin: rheda or raeda : a four-wheeled carriage or coach. German: Lederhaut : dermis (literally: leather-skin). Anticipates the rhinohide in the next line. Irish: Beann Édair : Howth. See the tram conductor’s Beneathere! Beneathere! on the next page. FWEET also detects the proverb: All roads lead to Rome, which is strengthened by the mention of Romeo two lines below.
So more boher to O’Connell! Irish: Seo mórbhóthar Uí Chonaill : This is O’Connell Street. Also, More power to you!, a Hiberno-English expression meaning Well done! or Good on you!
Though rainyhidden, you’re rhinohide Although you are wearing a raincoat, you’re thick-skinned.
And if he’s not a Romeo you may scallop your hat As John Gordon points out, this is a variation on the common saying: If [such and such] doesn’t happen, I’ll eat [scallop echoes swallow] my hat. Gordon adds:
81.10-11: “Romeo” and “scallop:” in close proximity, take us to the scene where Romeo and Juliet meet and go on about palmers and pilgrims. Scallop shells were tokens of pilgrimages to Compostela [the shrine of St James the Great in Spain].
Wereupunder in the fane of Saint Fiacre Way up yonder ... and We’re up under ... Fiacre was an Irish saint of the 7th century whose desire for solitude took him to France. French hackney-coaches were called fiacres from the Hôtel St Fiacre, in the rue St. Martin in Paris, where Nicholas Sauvage, who was the first to provide cabs for hire, kept his vehicles. The sign above the inn carried an image of the saint. A fane is a temple, but in the fane of Saint Fiacre also echoes in the name of St Fiacre! There is no Church of St Fiacre in Dublin, though there is one in Kilkenny.
Halte! French: Halte! : Halt! Coming at the end of the paragraph, it sounds like the challenge of a sentry to those travelling along the road. In the next line we have the accompanying Who goes there?
Roads and Thoroughfares
The introduction of Kate as Katherine Strong, the 17th-century scavenger who was employed to keeps the streets of Dublin “viable”, initiated a train of allusions to roads and thoroughfares, which is still prominent in the present paragraph. Among these, we had:
- lane
- macadamised sidetracks
- footbatter
- Bryant’s Causeway
- left off, being beaten ― off the beaten track, off the beaten path
- hume sweet hume ― Hume Street, Dublin
- way up your path
- and go the way your old one went
- Hatchettsbury Street
The previous paragraph concluded with a tram ride through Dublin and its environs:
And, gish, how they gushed away, the pennyfares, a whole school for scamper, with their sashes flying sish behind them, all the little pirlypettes! Issy-la-Chapelle! Any lucans, please?
William Tindall interprets this passage thus:
These girls are “pennyfares” on the Dublin tramline from Lucan and Chapelizod to Ben Edar (Howth) with stops at O’Connell Street and Phoenix Park, haunt of Skin-the-Goat’s Invincibles. “The viability of vicinals” (Dublin's motto again), reinforced by references to “omnibus,” pilgrims to Compostela with scalloped hats, and St. Fiacre, constituting a vision of rapid transit, is all the transition we have between the sections on burial and the Cad. But since Joyce’s tram is a “traum” [German for dream] and Joyce is a traum-conductor here, this pseudo-transition, appropriate to dream, is all we can expect (80.34–81.17). ―Tindall 86
And that’s as good a place as any to beach the bark of our tale.
References
- Norman J DeWitt, Rome and the “Road of Hercules”, Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association, Volume 72, Pages 59–69, The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, Maryland (1941)
- Adaline Glasheen, Third Census of Finnegans Wake, University of California Press, Berkeley, California (1977)
- André-Ferdinand Herold, La vie du Bouddha, H Piazzi, Paris (1922)
- Eugene Jolas & Elliot Paul (editors), transition, Number 4, Shakespeare & Co, Paris (1927)
- James Joyce, Finnegans Wake, The Viking Press, New York (1958, 1966)
- James Joyce, James Joyce: The Complete Works, Pynch (editor), Online (2013)
- Roland McHugh, Annotations to Finnegans Wake, Third Edition, The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, Maryland (2006)
- Danis Rose, John O’Hanlon, The Restored Finnegans Wake, Penguin Classics, London (2012)
- William York Tindall, A Reader’s Guide to Finnegans Wake, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York (1969)
Image Credits
- Upper O’Connell Street: Anonymous Postcard (c 1910), Public Domain
- A Herm of Hermes Propylaeus: Anonymous Roman Marble (c 2nd Century AD), Public Domain
- Via Flaminia: The Via Flaminia at Carsulae (80 km north of Rome), © Carole Raddato (photographer), Creative Commons License
- Via Herculea (Via Augusta): © Sémhur / Wikimedia Commons / CC-BY-SA-3.0 (or Free Art License)
- The Magazine Fort, Phoenix Park: © Dronepicr (photographer), Creative Commons License
- A Milestone in the Phoenix Park: © Phoenix Park, Dublin, Fair Use
- Queen Maya’s Dream: Paw Oo Thet (artist), Wat Olak Madu, Kedah, Malaysia, © Anandajoti Bhikkhu (photographer), Creative Commons License
- St James the Great as Pilgrim: Juan de Flandes (artist), Museo del Prado, Madrid, Public Domain
- A Fiacre in Paris: Le Fiacre, avant les pneus, Eugène Atget (photographer), La Voiture à Paris (1910), Public Domain
- Symbols for Various Tram Routes in Dublin (1910): Dublin United Tramways Company, Courtesy of The Irish Railway Records Society, Public Domain
Useful Resources
- FWEET
- Jorn Barger: Robotwisdom
- Joyce Tools
- The James Joyce Scholars’ Collection
- FinnegansWiki
- James Joyce Digital Archive
- John Gordon’s Finnegans Wake Blog
