HCE’s underwater grave is blasted out of the bedrock at the bottom of Lough Neagh, the reinforced concrete is lined with bricks and mortar, and the whole capped with a stone slab on which a less than flattering epitaph has been inscribed. The coffin begins to morph into a submarine.
First-Draft Version
We usually begin our analysis of a passage in Finnegans Wake by taking a look at the first draft of the relevant passage as recorded by David Hayman. But when Joyce drafted this chapter in November 1923, he followed the description of HCE’s coffin with the Heights of Abraham episode (RFW 062.28 ff), so Hayman’s A First-Draft Version of Finnegans Wake (Austin 1963) has no version of the present paragraph. On 1 July 1927, however, an early draft of this chapter was published by Eugene Jolas & Elliot Paul in issue 4 of their literary journal transition. This does include a version of the present paragraph:
This wastohavebeen underground heaven, first in the west, our misterbilder openly damned and blasted by means of a hydromine, system Sowan and Belting, exploded from a reinvented bombingpost up ahoy of eleven and thirty wingrests (circiter) to sternbooard out of his aerial thorpeto, Auton Dynamon, contacted with the expectant minefield by tins of improved ammonia lashed to her shieldplated gunwale, and fused into tripupcables, slipping through tholes and playing down from the conning tower into the ground battery fuseboxes, all differing as clocks from keys since nobody appeared to have the same time of beard, some saying by their Oorlog it was Sygstryggs to nine, more holding with t He afterwards carefully lined the ferroconcrete result with he Ryan wacht it was Dane to pfife.rotproof bricks and mortar, fassed to fossed, so encouraging additional useful councils public such as the Breeders’ Union, the Guild of Merchants of the Staple et, a. u. c, to present unto him over and above that a stone slab with the usual Mac Pelah address of velediction : We have done with you, Heer Herewhippit, skidoo! ―transition 4:47–48
As usual, Joyce greatly elaborated his first draft before he was quite done with it. Most of the changes he made consisted of additional details, which increased the length of this paragraph. Only in one or two places did he alter what he had already written. In The Revised Finnegans Wake, Danis Rose & John O’Hanlon have also altered a few things (I am ignoring minor changes, like the addition of a comma here or an apostrophe there):
Sowan and Belting became Sowan and Beltiny in Rose & O’Hanlon. The principal allusion is to the Celtic feasts of Samhain (Summer’s End = 1 November) and Bealtaine (Bale Fire = Summer’s Beginning = 1 May). In Irish, Bealtaine has three syllables, which supports Rose & O’Hanlon’s emendation. Both are associated with fire: Samhain coincides with Halloween and its bonfires and fireworks. Bealtaine coincides with May Day, which is also traditionally celebrated with bonfires. In Zurich, where Joyce lived for several years, the spring festival was Sechseläuten, which culminated with the burning of the Böögg, an effigy of Winter.
eleven and thirty wingrests became eleven hundred and thirtytwo wingrests in Rose & O’Hanlon. This makes sense, as there seems to be no good reason why Joyce would not invoke the familiar 1132 motif. John Gordon suggests that the two is represented by the two i’s (“pair of eyes”) in the Latin word circiter (about, near to). He also notes:
77.6: “wingrests:” the word is to be found in military texts of the late nineteenth century, having to do with ordnance and delivery of same. No engineer, I wasn’t able to figure out what they do or how they work.
- Ryan wacht became Ryan vogt in the first edition of 1939. Die Wacht am Rhein (The Watch on the Rhine) is a German patriotic anthem. The original poem was written by Max Schneckenburger during the Rhine crisis of 1840, when the French prime minister Adolphe Thiers attempted to extend French territory as far east as the Rhine. The crisis was eventually defused when Thiers resigned and a more conciliatory government took office. The anthem is generally sung to music written by Karl Wilhelm in 1854, seven years after Schneckenburger’s death. By altering Ryan wacht to Ryan vogt Joyce introduced a Danish element: vagt : watch, guard and vogte : to guard, to watch. There is also the German Vogt : steward, governor. Finally, there is the Irish ríoghan bhocht : poor queen, personifying Ireland. Ryan is a common Irish name.
- We have done with you became We have done ours gohellt with you in 1939. In its final form, this paragraph opens with an allusion to Heaven and closes with one to Hell. In Celtic mythology, the Otherworld was variously located beneath hills or at the bottom of lakes (like Lough Neagh, where HCE’s grave lies). One of Joyce’s notes reads:
heaven underground ―FW VI.B.14:213d
The source for this was Le culte des héros et ses conditions sociales: saint Patrick, héros nationale de l’Irlande [The Cult of Heroes and Its Social Conditions: St Patrick, Ireland’s National Hero] by the Polish folklorist Stefan Czarnowski:
L’Olympe de l’Irlande est souterrain. Les dieux habitent les sidhe, c’est-à-dire les tumulus funéraires; car ils sont morts ou se sont retirés chez les morts. Tout le monde spirituel de l’Irlande est rassemblé dans les tombeaux et les cimetières, autour desquels se concentre la vie religieuse des royaumes, des tribus, des clans et des fine. Héros et dieux se confondent dans la notion du « peuple des sidhe », qui comprend également les démons et qui est celle des fées. ―Czarnowski XIX
Ireland’s Olympus is underground. The gods inhabit the sidhe, that is to say, the funerary tumuli; for they are dead or have retired to the land of the dead. The whole spiritual world of Ireland is gathered in tombs and cemeteries, around which the religious life of kingdoms, tribes, clans, and fine is concentrated. Heroes and gods merge in the notion of the fairies. ―Czarnowski XIX
The following passage is also based on a French text:
an inversion of a phallopharos intended to foster wheat crops and to ginger up tourist trade
this phallus, to increase trade tourist ―FW VI.B.45:145d
The book in question is L’Expérience mystique et les symboles chez les Primitifs [The Mystic Experience and Primitive Symbolism] by the French antropologist Lucien Lévy-Bruhl.
Dans d’autres villages, le plus jeune fils, en succédant à son père dans sa maison, doit élever un monolithe pour ses parents défunts―ce qui correspond à ce que l’on fait dans d’autres villages, où des personnes particulièrement prospères érigent des monolithes de leur vivant, pour « intensifier » la prospérité de la communauté dans son ensemble. La signification de ces derniers monolithes est nettement phallique. ―Lévy-Bruhl, L’expérience mystique 209
In other villages [of India], the youngest son, succeeding his father in his house, must raise a monolith for his deceased parents―which corresponds to what one does in other villages, where particularly prosperous people erect monoliths during their lifetime, to “intensify” the prosperity of the community as a whole. The meaning of these latter monoliths is clearly phallic.
This book was published in 1938, just over a year before the publication of Finnegans Wake. Joyce took notes from it in January-February 1938 (MacArthur & Braslasu 2). In his writings Lévy-Bruhl contrasted a primitive way of thinking with our modern mindset. The primitive mind does not differentiate between the supernatural world and the natural world. For the modern mind, only the latter is truly real.
- phallopharos Ancient Greek Φάρος [pharos] : lighthouse. Joyce believed that St Patrick’s father Calpurnius was the keeper of the lighthouse at Boulogne, which had been founded by Caligula in 39 AD (Letters I 220, 243). The theory that St Patrick was born in Boulogne dates to the early 19th century, when it was first proposed by John Lanigan in An Ecclesiastical History of Ireland. Thomas Moore repeated it in his History of Ireland (1846). Joyce’s source, however, was William Canon Fleming’s Boulogne-sur-Mer: St Patrick’s Native Town, which included the tradition that St Patrick’s father was a Roman officer in charge of Caligula’s tower (Fleming 15). Fleming’s source for this tidbit was Hersart de la Villemarqué’s La légende celtique [Celtic Legend] of 1864 (Villemarqué 3 ff).
The phrase to foster wheat crops alludes to an event in Irish history. In 1784, just two years after Ireland had gained a measure of legislative independence, John Foster, 1st Baron Oriel, the Chancellor of the Exchequer of Ireland, introduced his Corn Law:
The most famous measure sponsored by him, his eponymous corn law of 1784, was another, slightly more delayed consequence of the constitution of 1782. Foster's corn law granted bounties on the export, and imposed duties on the import, of corn, on a sliding scale determined by the home price in Ireland, and therefore on a basis which was intrinsically favourable to Irish interests. ―Dictionary of Irish Biography
More Dutch
This paragraph continues the Dutch theme that coloured the first two paragraphs of this chapter:
best! : very well! all right!
oorlog : war and French horloge : clock and Danish orlog : naval service, military service at sea. Sygstrygg’s to nine ... Dane to pfife remind us that when HCE initially encountered the Cad in Phoenix Park, the latter asked HCE if he could tell him what time it was.
wanneer : when, another temporal term.
instappen, alstublieft! : get in, please!, take your seats, please!, all aboard, please!
als het u belieft : if it pleases you, I beg you
hoofdafdeeling : main department : hoofd : head : afdeeling_ : department
ik houd wel van : I am pleased with
houde van : to like and the Danish holde af : to like
houden : to hold, to keep
ledikant : bed, bedstead. John Gordon also suggests litigants.
te huur : for hire, to let
geheel : whole, entire : entirely, completely : a whole
geheeld : healed, cured
Heer : Sir, Lord
overgeven : give up, vomit, hand over, surrender
Mrs Patrick Campbell
The following passage draws upon My Life and Some Letters by the English actress Mrs Patrick Campbell, whose maiden name was Beatrice Rose Stella Tanner, incorporating the nicknames of both Dante’s beloved and one of Jonathan Swift’s beloveds.
out of his aerial thorpeto, Auton Dynamon, contacted with the expectant minefield by tins of improved ammonia lashed to her shieldplated gunwale and fused into tripup cables, slipping through tholes and playing down from the conning tower into the ground battery fuseboxes
Campbell had a lengthy relationship with George Bernard Shaw. Their correspondence covers a period of forty years (1899–1939), though they were only passionately involved from 1912 to 1913. Chapter XVIII of her autobiography opens with a brief summary of her son Alan “Beo” Urquhart Campbell’s military career from 1898 through 1917. This included service against the Turks at Gallipoli in 1915 (according to FWEET this summary was taken from an official report):
Gallipoli. ―Landed beginning of August, joined up with his old battalion, Anson, found himself in command practically two companies (including reinforcements) at the Cape Helles end in the trench, whilst the remainder of the battalion was at Suvla.
Transferred to Howe Battalion, became Trench-Mortar Officer, September, 1915.
In October, 1915, took part in operations carried out by the 52nd Division (Lowland) in taking Vineyard Trenches; employed protecting their left flank, with all available mortars of the division, relieving the French Division on the extreme right of the line. Was put in command of the Divisional Heavy Mortar Battery, 18 guns, afterwards reduced to 12 (Dumezils [ie La Demoiselle]), firing 130lb. shells, which the French handed over in December, 1915.
He was ordered by the 8th Corps to draw all enemy fire possible from the 52nd Division (on the left), who were taking some trenches near the “Vineyard,” which he very effectively did, firing on an average 30 heavy shells from each mortar and having the “Dumezil” gun positions and trenches nearly flattened out.
Prior to the “evacuation,” acting under orders of the Divisional General, he invented a means of converting the remainder of the large “Dumezil” torpedoes into electrical contact land mines, by means of tins of ammonal, lashed to the sides of the aerial torpedoes, and trip wires to contact pieces into electric batteries.
Using the personnel of the Mortar Battery, and with the help of N.C.O.’s from the Divisional Signal Company (R.E.’s), he laid out 13 mine fields in the divisional area, protecting the withdrawal of troops from the line.
The mine fields started from between the firing line and support line and, covering the whole front, continued down to the Eski line (or final reserve line). On the night of the evacuation he was placed in command of the last thirty-two men who remained up with Divisional Engineers (who were cutting wires or pulling down obstructions in the trenches), and when all troops had passed through, his party connected up all the trip wires, completely blocking the way, should the Turks attack.
Some of the mine fields had as many as 250 large aerial torpedoes lashed together (about 25,000lb. of “Melanite”), and from reports of aeroplanes, and news from the Athens papers during the next few days, they appear to have caused great havoc amongst the Turkish patrols (2,000 casualties being admitted by the Turks).
Evacuation. ―Proceeded with the division to Lemnos, given leave to England. Received the Croix de Guerre with palm from the French. ―Campbell 299–300
On 30 December 1917, Alan Campbell was killed by a shell while serving in the Royal Naval Division at La Vacquerie on the Western front near Cambrai.
Alaric’s Grave Again
In the previous article we saw how HCE’s underwater grave was partly inspired by Alaric the Goth’s grave in the bed of the River Busento. Similar stories alleged that Attila the Hun was also buried in a riverbed. In each account, the architects of the grave were executed to keep the grave’s location a secret.
- (its architecht, Mgr Peurelachasse, having been obcaecated lest he should petrifake suchanevver while the contractors Messrs T. A. Birkett and L. O. Tuohalls were made invulnerably venerable)
The architect of HCE’s grave is blinded (obcaecate is an obsolete verb, meaning to blind) lest he should perpetrate another such masterpiece. Moles (first line) are also blind―allegedly. His name Peurelachasse alludes to Paris’s most famous cemetery Père Lachaise, where Oscar Wilde is buried. The French peur (fear) and la chasse (the hunt) cast HCE once again in the role of the hunted animal, finally driven to earth.
petrifake reminds us of the tradition that the waters of Lough Neagh had the ability to petrify wood into stone―possibly a reference to Ireland’s bog oak, which is sometimes as hard as stone. Significantly, in this paragraph HCE is at one point compared to a tree (see FWEET for details):
- whaanever his blaetther began to fail off him and his rough bark was wholly husky and, stoop by stoop, he neared it (wouldmanspare!)
The contractors Messrs T. A. Birkett and L. O. Tuohalls are Shem & Shaun disguised as London’s St Thomas à Becket and Dublin’s St Laurence O’Toole. Like Alaric’s gravediggers, these two were made invulnerably venerable―ie they were killed. In Catholic theology, being declared venerable is generally a prelude to full beatification, in which a deceased person is recognized as a saint. As FWEET points out, à Becket and O’Toole symbolize the Alpha and the Omega―the end gives rise to a new beginning in the endless Viconian cycle of Finnegans Wake. This concept also lies behind the allusions to Samhain and Bealtaine.
And that’s as good a place as any to beach the bark of our tale.
References
- Mrs Patrick Campbell, My Life and Some Letters, Hutchinson & Co, London (1922)
- Stefan Czarnowski, Le culte des héros et ses conditions sociales : Saint Patrick, héros national de l'Irlande, Félix Alcan, Paris (1919)
- William Canon Fleming, Boulogne-sur-Mer: St Patrick’s Native Town, R & T Washbourne, London (1907)
- Eugene Jolas & Elliot Paul (editors), transition, Number 3, 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)
- John Lanigan, An Ecclesiastical History of Ireland, Second Edition, Volumes 1–4, J Cumming, Dublin (1829)
- Lévy-Bruhl, Lucien, L’expérience mystique et les symboles chez les Primitifs, Félix Alcan, Paris (1938)
- Ian MacArthur and Viviana-Mirela Braslasu, Lucien Lévy-Brúhl: L’expérience mystique et les symboles chez les Primitifs in Remember G, Notebook VI.B.45, Genetic Joyce Studies, Issue 20, Centre for Manuscript Genetics, University of Antwerp, Antwerp (2020)
- 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)
- Hersart de la Villemarqué, La légende celtique et la poésie des cloitres en Irlande, en Cambrie et en Bretagne, Didier et Cie, Paris (1864)
Image Credits
- Père Lachaise Cemetery, Paris:
Jean François Lebelle (artist), Musée Carnavalet, Paris, Public Domain - Machpelah, Traditional Burial place of Abraham, Sarah, Rebekah, Isaac, Jacob, and Leah: Cave of the Patriarchs, Hebron, © Djampa (photographer), Creative Commons License
- Stefan Czarnowski: Anonymous Photograph, Społeczeństwo - Kultura, CBN Polona Digital Library, Public Domain
- Lucien Lévy-Bruhl: Georges Chevalier (photographer), © Estate of Georges Chevalier, Creative Commons License
- The Ruins of Caligula’s Lighthouse at Boulogne: ND Photographs, Postcard (1917–1919), Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, Public Domain
- George Bernard Shaw: LIFE Photo Archive, Public Domain
- Mrs Patrick Campbell: Mrs Pat Campbell in Pygmalion, George Grantham Bain Collection, Library of Congress, Public Domain
- A French 240mm Dumezil Trench Mortar (La Demoiselle): Anonymous Photograph, Public Domain
- Oscar Wilde’s Tomb at Père Lachaise Cemetery: Jacob Epstein (sculptor), ©Luke McKernan (photographer), Creative Commons License
- Bartins Bay, Lough Neagh: © N Chadwick (photographer), Geograph Ireland, Creative Commons License
Useful Resources
- FWEET
- Jorn Barger: Robotwisdom
- Joyce Tools
- The James Joyce Scholars’ Collection
- FinnegansWiki
- James Joyce Digital Archive
- John Gordon’s Finnegans Wake Blog
