It was hard by the howe goes there
In the first edition of James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake, Kate’s account of the assault on HCE comprised a single unbroken paragraph more than four pages long. This is as it should be. Kate is a garrulous old woman, and once she gets going on any topic, it is hard to shut her up. But for some reason, Danis Rose & John O’Hanlon have broken her narration into digestible chunks in The Restored Finnegans Wake. As there is quite a lot to digest, we will follow their lead, though in this instance I do not agree with their emendation of the original text. In this article we will analyse the first thirty-four lines of the original (thirty-two lines in the restored edition).
First-Draft Version
As usual, we begin our analysis by examining the first draft of this passage, as recorded by David Hayman―barely three lines of transparent, wide-awake English:
There evidently the attacker, though under medium, with truly native pluck tackled him whom he took to be catching hold of a long bar he had & with which he broke furniture. The struggle went on for a considerable time and in the course of it the masked man said to the other: Let me go, Pat. ―Hayman 75–76
As we saw in the last article, the salient features of this struggle were taken from a newspaper account of a real assault that took place in Belmont, County Galway, on 20 November 1923:
About three o’clock on Tuesday morning [Patrick Byrne] awoke and saw a masked man standing near him. He jumped up and caught hold of the intruder, and both struggled for a considerable time between the room and the kitchen. The burglar said, “Let me out, Pat” ... The burglar then went to the door and Byrne caught hold of a long bar he had and with which he broke in the door ... ―The Connacht Tribune and Tuam News, Saturday 24 November 1923, Page 5, Column 7
The first draft was written in November 1923. By 1 July 1927, when an early draft of this chapter was published in Number 4 of Eugene Jolas’s literary journal transition, these three or four lines had grown to nineteen or twenty―a little more than half as long as the final, published version.
Yes, it was hard by the howe’s there, plainly on this disoluded spot, rupestric then, resurfaced that now is, in the saddle of the Brennan’s pass, versts and versts from true civilisation, where livland yontide meared with the wilde, saltlea with flood, that the attackler though under medium and between colours with truly native pluck, engaged the Adversary whom for plunder sake, he mistook in the heavy rain to be Oglethorpe or somebody else to whom he bore some Michelangiolesque resemblance, making use of sacrilegious languages to the effect that he would cannonise the b⸺y b⸺r’s life out of him and lay him out contritely as soon as the b⸺r had his b⸺y nightprayers said, at the same time catching holst of an oblong bar he had and with which he usually broke furnitures he rose the stick at him. They struggled for some considerable time around the booksafe, fighting like purple top and tipperuhry Swede, and in the course of their tussle the toller man said to the miner who was carrying the worm ; Let me go, Paudheen ! I hardly knew ye. ―Jolas & Paul 50–51
Despite all the added details, the original draft is still recognizable. The published version adds even more allusions, but the gist of the first draft can still be discerned. As Adaline Glasheen once summarized it:
The offensive of the starved and slaved takes place at the howe and is reduced to combat between a black attacker (Irish call black men, “blue men”) and one who may or mayn’t be HCE. (It is not easy to tell if this is another father-son battle or one of the brother-battles which become more important as we move from HCE to his children.) The men fight, make up, exchange kisses; the attacked gives the attacker money for drink and then reports him to the police. The fighting men’s talk has to do with a duty imposed on Irish spirits. ―Glasheen xxxv–xxxvi
Space and Time
The opening lines set the scene:
It was hard by the howe goes there Rose & O’Hanlon’s emended version of the original’s howe’s there gives us the sentinel’s Who goes there? to match his command that closed the previous paragraph: Halte! The Howe is also the Thingmote, or hill on which Dublin’s Scandinavian rulers held their parliament. And it is also the kitchen midden or dump behind HCE’s tavern―hard by the house here, as Campbell & Robinson interpret it (84). Note how it is immediately contradicted by plainly. This paragraph is replete with a plethora of similar pairs of opposites (see FWEET for details):
- hard ... disoluded
- howe ... plainly
- rupestric ... resurfaced
- saddle of Brennan’s ... pass ... Beneathere! Beneathere!
- saltlea ... flood
- Adversary ... michelangiolesque
- more in his eye ... less to his leg
- Parr, apparently [ie Old Parr and young salmon]
- Nippoluono ... Wei-Ling-Taou
- purple top ... tipperuhry Swede
- the toller man ... the miner
- the stiff ... the spirits
buchan cold spot A Buchan spell is a period of cold or warm weather that supposedly recurs at the same time every year. They are named for the 19th century Scottish meteorologist Alexander Buchan who first proposed the idea. Buchan defended his hypothesis with a statistical analysis of Scottish weather patterns, but modern meteorologists believe that his spells were simply random events. Adaline Glasheen also detects an allusion to Buckley, HCE’s assassin in II.3.
Dramatis Personae
The scene set, we are now introduced to the persons of the drama:
that Luttrell sold if Lautrill bought Henry Luttrell (1655–1717) was the Irish Jacobite officer who conspired to betray Limerick City to the Williamite besiegers in 1691. Like HCE, he was lampooned in the streets of Dublin with scurrilous ballads. He was later shot and mortally wounded while riding in a sedan chair in Dublin. During the 1798 Rebellion (or in 1797) his grave was violated and his skull broken with a pickax. Luttrell was also suspected of treachery during the Battle of Aughrim earlier in the same year, an event that also seems to be alluded to in this passage:
Importantly for Joyce’s pessimistic view of Irish history, St Ruth’s defeat at Aughrim was usually put down to treachery, the guilty party in this case being the cowardly and fickle Jacobite cavalry officer, Henry Luttrell, who withdrew the troopers under his command from the left flank of St Ruth’s army at a crucial moment, allowing Williamite troops to pour through the line. The land held by Luttrell has since been known as Luttrell’s pass and is remembered by Joyce in Finnegans Wake: ‘Luttrell sold if Lautrill bought, in the saddle of the Brennan’s (now Malpasplace?) pass’ (81.14–15). Joyce’s hard feelings about defeat at Aughrim run, it is clear, from his earliest to his final published work, as is underlined by the Wake’s Thomas Moore-inspired lament: ‘Forget not the felled! For the lomondations of Oghrem!’ (340.8–9). ―Frank Shovlin, Journey Westward: Joyce, Dubliners and the Literary Revival 77
It should be noted, though, that the mention of Brennan’s pass goes back to 1927, whereas the first appearance of Luttrell occurred at a much later late stage.
James Atherton also suggested an allusion to the Luttrell Psalter, a 14th-century illuminated manuscript of the Book of Psalms, which the British Museum purchased in 1929. This is supported by the fact that Joyce only added the allusion to Luttrell in the late 1930’s (JJDA).
But who is Lautrill? Adaline Glasheen did not know, and neither do I. Helmut Bonheim noted that laut is German for loud, but I do not see how this helps us.
Brennan’s ... pass The Brenner Pass is a mountain pass in the Alps between Italy and Austria. Joyce’s source was Thomas George Bonney’s geomorphological book The Work of Rain and Rivers (1912). Willie Brennan was an 18th-century Irish highwayman, the subject of the ballad Brennan on the Moor. As a highwayman, he did have a saddle, which is also a perfectly good word for a col or mountain pass.
Malpasplace John Mapas (often referred to incorrectly as Malpas) erected the obelisk on Killiney Hill, with the inscription: LAST year being hard with the POOR the Walls about these HILLS and THIS etc. erected by JOHN MAPAS Esq. June 1742. He may be paired with Oglethorpe below, another philanthropist who tried to assist the poor.
attackler HCE’s attacker and tackler. In II.4 Tristan (the Oedipal Figure who supplants HCE) is depicted as a rugby player. All-In rules suggests that the assault is a wrestling match.
wilde Oscar Wilde, whose rise and fall are commonly compared to those of HCE. The following phrase under medium (meaning below medium height) also reminds us that one of the more bizarre sources Joyce used when writing Finnegans Wake was Hester Travers Smith’s Psychic Messages from Oscar Wilde. Smith was an Irish spiritualist and psychic medium, who claimed to have communed with the spirits of several dead writers, among whom were Shakespeare and Wilde. John Gordon also suggests an allusion to Henry Fielding’s highwayman Jonathan Wild. As he notes, there are several references to highway robbery in this paragraph.
cropatkin Peter Alexeyevich Kropotkin, the Russian anarchist and revolutionary. A verst is a Russian unit of length slightly more than 1 kilometre. Joyce took the word from Otto Jespersen’s Growth and Structure of the English Language (1905). Fred Atkins was a young sex worker who was acquainted with Oscar Wilde. He was compelled to testify in Wilde’s first criminal trial in 1895. There is also an allusion to Croagh Patrick, Ireland’s sacred mountain in County Mayo. St Patrick is said to have fasted for forty days on its summit. Unlike Jesus he was not tempted by the Adversary, but he was tormented by a flock of demonic birds or a demonic female serpent―depending on which legend you follow.
the Adversary The uppercase A identifies HCE’s adversary as the Devil, Satan being the Hebrew for adversary. McHugh’s Annotations cite I Peter 5:8: your adversary the devil. But Wim van Mierlo identified the source as Margaret Maitland’s Life and Legends of St. Martin of Tours (316–397):
The devil, in human form, accosted him in a street one day and asked him where he was going. “I go where God calls me”, said Martin. “Know then”, said the Adversary, “that go where you may, do what you will, I will constantly oppose you”. ―Maitland 22 : Wim van Mierlo, A Finnegans Wake Circular 7:29–44
St Martin was allegedly related to St Patrick’s mother, which insured that he was well respected in the Emerald Isle. Also, he was a native of Szombathely, Hungary, Leopold Bloom’s ancestral home.
Oglethorpe Most sources identify this as James Edward Oglethorpe, the English philanthropist who founded the Province of Georgia for the settlement of Britain’s worthy poor. Dublin, by the stream Oconee, is in Georgia. Perhaps this do-gooder is introduced here as the opposite of the wicked characters.
some other ginkus The Williamite commander at Limerick was Godert de Ginkel. Genghis Khan, the founder of the Mongol Empire is also relevant. McHugh: gink is slang for fellow. FWEET also suggests genius. Also, dingus was around in Joyce’s day and has the merit of being of Dutch origin.
Parr aparrently HCE was first identified with the incontinent centenarian Old Parr on the opening page of Finnegans Wake.
michelangiolesque Renaissance artist Michelangelo. But the principal allusion appears to be to the archangel St Michael, in opposition to the Adversary, or fallen angel Lucifer. Italian: angiolo = angel. There is a picture of St Michael Slaying the Dragon above the mantle in the Porters’ bedroom in III.4.
Nippoluono engaging Wei-Ling-Taon Kate was our guide through the Museyroom, which commemorated the engagement between Napoleon and Wellington at Waterloo. There are also clear hints here of a conflict between Japan (Nippon) and China. FWEET mentions the Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895, as well as escalating skirmishes during the 1930s, when Joyce added these names.
In his notebooks, Joyce simply recorded Nipponean / Wei-Ling-Tung so it may be pointless to try and translate the Chinese words. Among its many possible significations, wēi (倭) can mean Japan (derogatory) and dwarf or pygmy. FWEET gives wei = awe, ling = honourable, ta-ou = Great Europe, and tau = way or path (but note that Rose & O’Hanlon emended Taou to Taon). Dozens of other meanings are also possible, but I don’t think any of them are relevant. Joyce was just trying to concoct a Chinese version of Wellington.
de Razzkias ... the general Boukeleff Jean de Reszke was a Polish dramatic tenor and operatic performer. General Nikolay Bobrikov was the Russian Governor-General of Finland. He was assassinated on 16 June 1904, the original Bloomsday―the event is mentioned in Ulysses. The allusion is obviously to the mock-epic tale How Buckley Shot the Russian General, which will be recounted in II.3. The presence of de Reszke may be due to his Polish nationality. In 1904, Poland was partitioned among three empires: Russia, Germany, and Austria-Hungary. In 1905, the Russian Partition played a significant role in the Russian Revolution of that year. A razzia is a raid or military incursion. The word was originally Arabic but entered English from the French, which perhaps explains why we have the Old French reconnoistre = to recognize in place of reconnoitre (ie to perform a reconnaissance).
the taller man James Toller (1798–1818), the Eynesbury giant. His height has been variously recorded between 7-foot-six and 8-foot-six. The 1939 edition actually reads the toller man, but Rose & O’Hanlon have restored the original version.
who had opened his bully bowl to beg Billy in the Bowl, a legless beggar and strangler in 18th-century Dublin. His real name was William Davis. Having no legs, he used a bowl for locomotion. Johnny (see below) also had a bowl for begging.
Pautheen Patrick Byrne was the name of the assaulted man in the newspaper story Joyce drew on for this section. The Irish for Patrick is Pádraig. Páidín is a diminutive form, corresponding to the English Paddy. There is also an allusion to potheen or poitín, illicitly distilled spirits―though Hester Travers Smith was interested in another type of spirit.
Trams Again
In the previous two paragraphs there were a number of allusions to Dublin’s trams and other forms of public transport:
Hatchettsbury Road! ... the pennyfares ... Issy-la-Chapelle! Any lucans, please! ... there are milestones ... faultering along the tramestrack ... omnibus ... boher to O’Connell ... Fiacre. Halte!
This theme is briefly taken up again in the present paragraph:
not where his dreams top their traums halt (Beneathere! Beneathere!)
The parenthetical words are spoken by the conductor, announcing that the tram has reached Howth―Benn Étair in Middle Irish. Between 1901 and 1959 the Sutton & Howth Electric Tramway ran to the summit of the Hill of Howth
traums halt Not just a tram stop, but also the German: Trauminhalt = dream content. This is a technical term much used by Freud in Die Traumdeutung (The Interpretation of Dreams)―at least 91 times in the original edition. Whatever misgivings Joyce may have had concerning the validity of psychoanalysis, it cannot be denied that Freud’s work was crucial to Finnegans Wake (Atherton 37 ff).
Loose Ends
the headandheelless chickenestegg ... I hardly knew ye An allusion to the popular song Johnny, I Hardly knew Ye, about an Irishman who ran off and became a soldier, but was so disfigured by the wars he fought for the British that his lover scarcely recognized him when he returned home. It includes the lyrics:
Ye haven’t an arm, ye haven’t a leg, hurroo, hurroo
Ye haven’t an arm, ye haven’t a leg, hurroo, hurroo
Ye haven’t an arm, ye haven’t a leg
Ye’re an armless, boneless, chickenless egg
Ye’ll have to put with a bowl out to beg
Oh Johnny I hardly knew you.
The song is often regarded as an Irish traditional song, but it was actually written in 1867 by Joseph Bryan Geoghegan, an Englishman whose father came from Dublin. It is usually sung to the same melody as the American Civil War Song When Johnny Comes Marching Home. The lyrics of that song were written by the Irish bandmaster Patrick Gilmore, but the origin of the music is still keenly debated.
three patrecknocksters and a couplet of hellmuirries ... three vats, two jars The familiar 3+2 motif, which represents HCE and ALP’s children: the three are Shem, Shaun, & the Oedipal Figure who embodies them both : the two are the twin personalities of Issy. Adaline Glasheen believed that all three children were implicated in the oedipal assaults on their father (Glasheen liv).
oblong bar Latin: oblongus = rather long, longish. As usual, the phallic overtones are too obvious for further comment.
as stuck as that cat to that mouse in that tube of that christchurch organ (did the imirage of Girl Cloud Pensive float above them, light young charm, in ribbons and pigtail?), In the original edition these lines occurred later in this passage. In the crypt of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, are the mummified skeletons of a cat and the rat it chased behind the organ pipes. Both got stuck in the tubes and died of thirst.
But why do the pair struggle round the booksafe (a large fire-proof and thief-proof safe for holding books and documents (especially a business’s account books)? FWEET points to the strongbox below.
And that’s as good a place as any to beach the bark of our tale.
References
- James S Atherton The Books at the Wake: A Study of the Literary Allusions in James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake, The Viking Press, New York (1960)
- Helmut Bonheim, A Lexicon of the German in Finnegans Wake, University of California Press, Berkeley, California (1967)
- Thomas George Bonney, The Work of Rain and Rivers, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (1912)
- Joseph Campbell, Henry Morton Robinson, A Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake, Harcourt, Brace and Company, New York (1944)
- Adaline Glasheen, Third Census of Finnegans Wake, University of California Press, Berkeley, California (1977)
- David Hayman, A First-Draft Version of Finnegans Wake, University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas (1963)
- Otto Jespersen, Growth and Structure of the English Language, B G Teubner, Leipzig (1905)
- 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)
- Margaret Maitland, Life and Legends of Saint Martin of Tours (316–397), Catholic Truth Society, London (1908)
- 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)
Image Credits
- Andrew Buchan: Anonymous Photograph, National Library of Norway, Public Domain
- Henry Luttrell: The Irish Magazine, and Monthly Asylum for Neglected Biography, Wolter Cox, Dublin (1807–1815), Public Domain
- The Siege of Limerick: John Ferrar, The History of Limerick, Ecclesiastical, Civil and Military, A Watson & Company, Limerick (1787)
- Brenner Pass: Alpine School, Private Collection, Public Domain
- St Michael Slaying the Dragon: Albrecht Dürer (artist), Typ Inc 2121A, Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Public Domain
- Hill of Howth Tram: Valentine & Sons, Postcard, No JV 57146, Dundee, Scotland (1907), Public Domain
- The Mummified Carcasses of the Christ-Church Cat and Rat: © Adrian Grycuk (photographer), Creative Commons License
Useful Resources
- FWEET
- Jorn Barger: Robotwisdom
- Joyce Tools (includes A Finnegans Wake Circular)
- The James Joyce Scholars’ Collection
- James Joyce Digital Archive
- John Gordon’s Finnegans Wake Blog
- Joyce Genetic Studies
