Episode 025: Letter from Boston, Thunderword #5 (109:1-114:20)

July 2, 2026 Adam Seelig

JAMES JOYCE’S FINNEGANS WAKE
Episode 025:
Letter from boston, thunderword #5

PAGE 109:1-114:20 | CHAPTER 5 | 2026-07-02

PODCAST TRANSCRIPT

[Music: Instrumental of “The Alphabet Song (Variation On)” with Tyler Emond on bass, Jinu Isac on drums, Adam Seelig on piano, from the Finnegans Wake film series. Music fades out]

Adam Seelig: Welcome to James Joyce’s divine and delirious comedy, Finnegans Wake. In this episode, number 25, we’ll hear Irish-Canadian actor — and my good friend and colleague — Richard Harte performing pages 109 to 114 from Chapter 5 of Joyce’s last novel. I’m Adam Seelig, the director of the reading you’ll soon hear. This episode is releasing on July the 2nd of 2026, so I’d like to wish all the Canadian listeners out there a Happy belated Canada Day; and to the Americans, a Happy early Fourth of July.
[Music: “Breakfast,” instrumental with Tyler Emond on bass, Jinu Isac on drums, Adam Seelig on piano, from the Finnegans Wake film series.]

Adam Seelig: Finnegans Wake is a production of One Little Goat Theatre Company. One Little Goat is filming and recording all 17 chapters (roughly 30 hours) of Joyce’s Finnegans Wake before live audiences in various locations, screening and releasing them along the way, with the aim of completing the entire book for its 90th birthday, May 4, 2029. One Little Goat Theatre Company is an official charity in Canada and the United States. To help us produce this first-of-its-kind filmed reading series — of which we’ve filmed 8 chapters so far, with 9 more to go — please visit OneLittleGoat.org to make a charitable donation. Your donation enables us to bring this production to audiences and helps support the outstanding artists who make it possible. To be the first to hear about our live tapings, events, and screenings, please join our mailing list, also at OneLittleGoat.org. [Music fades out]

Adam Seelig: Boston, Massachusetts is the birthplace of the Irish American folk song that gives Finnegans Wake its title. It’s also the origin of the letter at the heart of Chapter 5 and of today’s excerpt — the letter written by ALP that will, she hopes, clear the name of her publicly maligned spouse, HCE. But was it in fact written by ALP? This mystery will continue to haunt Chapter 5 right up to the chapter’s very last line.

Today’s excerpt begins by focusing on The Envelope of The Letter, asking us if anyone has ever “looked sufficiently longly at a quite everydaylooking stamped addressed envelope?” Well if you haven’t, you’re about to, because, as the text tells us, an envelope is to a letter what underwear is to the naked body. It’s far more suggestive than you may have thought.

**Ardagh Chalice, 8th Century CE (National Museum of Ireland**)

We then return to our trusted hen, Belinda, who has pecked and picked out The Letter from a dump of litter; a littery letter that might even hold up as literature. Remember (and if you don’t, Finnegans Wake now reminds us), some of Ireland’s greatest treasures were discovered in even muckier contexts, like the Ardagh Chalice, the 1,100-year-old gold-silver-bronze-brass-and-pewter cup discovered accidentally in 1868 by two boys, Jim Quin and Paddy Flanagan, who were simply digging in the dirt for potatoes. So too the Book of Kells, Ireland’s extraordinary literary treasure, was discovered a thousand years ago hidden under — you guessed it — a pile of dirt. The Book of Kells will come up later in this chapter in more detail, and I’ve posted in the transcript for this podcast episode an image of the Ardagh Chalice; the real thing is on display at the National Museum of Ireland.

Now, on page 111, we get to hear The Letter itself. Like most letters, it was mailed from somewhere; in this case, “Boston (Mass.)”. Like most letters, it is dated; in this case, “the last of the first,” or the last day of the first month, i.e. the 31st of January. And like most letters, it begins with the word “Dear”. But who is the addressee? Here’s where the dream language of the Wake, true to form, becomes playfully elusive: “Dear whom it proceded to mention”. Based on these first words, the addressee appears to be nameless. But the very next word is the name “Maggy”. “Dear whom it proceded to mention Maggy”. So is the letter written to “Maggy”? Well, the very next words give us: “Dear whom it proceded to mention Maggy well & allathome's health well…” etc.

If The Letter had any commas, we could have determined to whom it’s addressed. But as it flows punctuationlessly, we can only guess at where its first comma might have gone. Was ALP’s intention — if indeed ALP wrote the letter — was her intention?:
“Dear whom it proceded to mention [COMMA,] Maggy well & allathome's health well…” etc.
Or was the intention?:
“Dear whom it proceded to mention Maggy [COMMA,] well & allathome's health well…” etc.

Without that vital comma, the Wake, always open to possibilities, ever rich in ambiguity, keeps its options open. Here’s a quick preview of Richard Harte setting up and reading The Letter in today’s excerpt:

…a goodish-sized sheet of letterpaper originating by transhipt from Boston (Mass.) of the last of the first to Dear whom it proceded to mention Maggy well & allathome's health well only the hate turned the mild on the van Houtens and the general's elections with a lovely face of some born gentleman with a beautiful present of wedding cakes for dear thankyou Chriesty and with grand funferall of poor Father Michael… (111:8-15)

I’ll save the rest so you can hear it all in context, but what you can probably already gather from this sample is that The Letter — perhaps reflecting the pile of litter in which Belinda the Hen found it — is a jumble of epistolary tropes, including news from home with reports on the weather, people’s health, current events, a wedding, a funeral (or in the language of the Wake, a “funferall”, echoing Tim Finnegan’s funeral in the Irish American folk song, “Lots of fun at Finnegan’s Wake”). For me, The Letter is an auditory equivalent of the cubist paintings and collages of Picasso and Braque, especially those that include scattered snippets of newspaper text (I’ll post some of these images in the podcast transcript). Picasso and Braque’s cubist works never give us a whole, autonomous story from Le Journal, but they certainly convey the experience of taking in the newspaper in bits and pieces. Similarly, The Letter of the Wake may not give us a whole, autonomous story from Boston, but it certainly conveys, through collage, the personal experience of writing and receiving news from Irish America. Collage, cubism, bricolage, composite — there are numerous ways to describe the style of The Letter, but perhaps pastiche comes closest, because Joyce felt it fitting once in his own personal correspondence (which, perhaps disappointingly, includes proper punctuation) to describe himself as a ‘cut-and-paste’ author: “I am quite content to go down to posterity as a scissors and paste man for that seems to me a harsh but not unjust description.” (Ellmann 626)

Pablo Picasso La bouteille de Suze (Bottle of Suze) 1912 lr.jpeg

Braque bottle glass newspaper 1914 lr.jpeg

Above, clockwise from top left: Pablo Picasso “La bouteille de Suze” (1912); “Siphon, Glass, Newspaper, and Violin (1912); Georges Braque, “Verres et bouteilles (Fourrures)” (1914); “Bottle, Glass, Newspaper” (1914).

And while Picasso and Braque’s works often picture a bottle of wine or beer near their newspapers, the Wake prefers tea, choosing to put it on the very letter itself — quite literally, the only punctuation mark in The Letter is at the end, where, in lieu of a conventional period, we find a big tea stain, or in the language of the Wake, a “largelooking tache of tch. The stain, and that a teastain…”

For all my comparisons of The Letter to cubism, the Wake itself, in the next paragraph, likens it to viewing a photograph of a horse whose negative melted while under development. Blurry, in other words, and hard to make out, likely because of the time The Letter spent buried under sod.

We’re then treated to a brief cameo by the recurring character, Kate, who, as HCE and ALP’s charwoman, is well accustomed to dealing with muck. Kate made her first of many appearances back in Chapter 1 as the mock tour guide of the Museyroom (Ep003), and you’ll quickly recognize her in today’s excerpt when you hear her single-syllable signature, “Tip” (112:2), a word that also resonates with the pile of trash in which The Letter turned up.

**Barack Obama (right) endorsing Kamala Harris for President in 2024**

The following paragraph opens with a short, rousing sentence: “Lead, kindly fowl!” and goes on to champion womankind, reminding us that women have always led the way for men. Coincidentally, 10 days before we filmed and recorded this reading of Chapter 5 back in October of 2024, former American President Barack Obama, during the fierce presidential election between Donald Trump (a man) and Kamala Harris (a woman), urged black American males to vote for Harris in a way that meshed perfectly with this paragraph in the Wake. As Obama put it, “Women in our lives have been getting our backs this entire time. When we get in trouble and the system isn’t working for us, they’re the ones out there marching and protesting.” Sounds a lot like ALP coming to HCE’s defence.

The next paragraph focuses on ALP’s writing of her letter, telling us repeatedly about what “schwrites” (113), or ‘what she writes’. And this epistolary paragraph includes the fifth of the Wake’s 10 thunderwords — those extraordinary 100-letter words comprised of multilingual phonemes. But this thunderword differs from the others in two significant ways.

(1) Unlike the previous four thunderwords, this one occurs not at the end of the paragraph as an emphatic and dramatic exclamation, but in the middle as part of the paragraph’s ongoing flow. You almost wouldn’t notice it’s a thunderword, so little attention does it call to itself. In this sense, it draws more on ALP’s work behind-the-scenes than on HCE’s all too publicized activities. And by not ending the paragraph, as the previous thunderwords did, this very different thunderword draws on ALP’s continuously flowing nature, her riverrunning character.

(2) The previous thunderwords centred on one word or concept and mashed together various polylingual phonemes that related to it. Thunderwords 1 & 2 are comprised of words and phonemes meaning “thunder”. Thunderwords 3 & 4 mostly centre on words and phonemes for “shit” and “whore”, respectively. Today’s thunderword, on the other hand, Thunderword #5, seems more narrative than conceptual, more open to interpretation than singularly focused, more out-for-a-walk than rooted-in-place, more rolling, gentle, spread out thunder (if you will) than sharp, shocking crack.

Let’s take a look at it — but first, since my tongue gets too twisted, here’s a preview of Richard Harte reading it from today’s excerpt:

Thingcrooklyexineverypasturesixdixlikencehimaroundhersthemaggerbykinkinkankanwithdownmindlookingated. (113:9-11)

**“…downmindlookingated” — Hieronymus Bosch, left panel of “Haywain Triptych” (1515)**

As with everything in Finnegans Wake, there are many ways to interpret this thunderword. For example, Women and Literature are two themes that emerge here, especially in light of this paragraph’s recurring motif, she writes, or “schwrites”, i.e. She, for Women; and Writes, for Literature.

For women, we can tease out phonemes and words like “hin” for hen; “eve” for womankind’s Biblical forebear; “hers”; “magger” for Maggie; “kankan” for the energetic female dance.

For literature, we can tease out “ingcr” for ink; “crookly” for the Norwegian trykke, meaning print; “exi” for essay; “past” for post, i.e. mailing letters; “sthem” for Shem the Penman, ALP’s writer son, whom we’ll see more of as the Wake continues; “magger” for magazine; “inkink” for, well, ink and more ink; “loo” for lu, which is French for reading; “ated” for edit. (And I want to give a shoutout for these literary interpretations to The Role of Thunder in Finnegans Wake by son of Marshall McLuhan, Eric McLuhan, whose own son, incidentally, attended the reading you’re about to hear.)

**“…downmindlookingated” — Masaccio, from “The Expulsion from the Garden of Eden” fresco (1425)**

In this female epistolary thunderword I also see elements of Eve and Adam, whom we met in the opening line of Finnegans Wake, and the sneaky serpent, to whom we owe humanity’s loss of paradise, our fall, our original sin of sex. Through this lens of ALP and HCE as our imperfect Biblical ancestors Eve and Adam, we can tease out “Thingcrooklyex” for the crooked, sexual snake; “eve” for Eve, naturally; “rypast” for Eve’s first repast, i.e. the forbidden fruit commonly depicted as an apple; “pasture” for the Garden of Eden; and “downmindlookingated” for Eve and Adam, having fallen, now locked out of Paradise, looking down — perhaps as painted by Renaissance artists Masaccio or Hieronymus Bosch (whose images I’ll include in the transcript). This suggestion of humanity’s sexual fall also helps account for the “dix” in this 100-letter word. So Chapter 5 of Finnegans Wake isn’t all hen, it’s also cock.

Now it’s time for Richard’s performance of James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake, page 109 line 1 to page 114 line 20 of Chapter 5. The performance was filmed and recorded at the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, University of Toronto on October 21st, 2024 with a live audience. And since today’s excerpt could easily be titled “The Letter,” the brief opening music you’ll hear, which I wrote for piano trio with Tyler Emond on bass and Jinu Isac on drums, loosely quotes Joe Cocker’s 1970 hit “The Letter”.

[Music: “Boston, Tea, Letter (Ch05),” instrumental with Tyler Emond on bass, Jinu Isac on drums, Adam Seelig on piano, from the Finnegans Wake film series.] [Richard Harte reads Finnegans Wake 109:1-114:20]

[109] Luckily there is another cant to the questy. Has any fellow, of
the dime a dozen type, it might with some profit some dull even-
ing quietly be hinted — has any usual sort of ornery josser, flat-
chested fortyish, faintly flatulent and given to ratiocination by
syncopation in the elucidation of complications, of his greatest
Fung Yang dynasdescendanced, only another the son of, in fact,
ever looked sufficiently longly at a quite everydaylooking stamped
addressed envelope? Admittedly it is an outer husk: its face, in
all its featureful perfection of imperfection, is its fortune: it ex-
hibits only the civil or military clothing of whatever passion-
pallid nudity or plaguepurple nakedness may happen to tuck it-
self under its flap. Yet to concentrate solely on the literal sense or
even the psychological content of any document to the sore
neglect of the enveloping facts themselves circumstantiating it is
just as hurtful to sound sense (and let it be added to the truest
taste) as were some fellow in the act of perhaps getting an intro
from another fellow turning out to be a friend in need of his, say,
to a lady of the latter's acquaintance, engaged in performing the
elaborative antecistral ceremony of upstheres, straightaway to run
off and vision her plump and plain in her natural altogether, pre-
ferring to close his blinkhard's eyes to the ethiquethical fact that
she was, after all, wearing for the space of the time being some
definite articles of evolutionary clothing, inharmonious creations,
a captious critic might describe them as, or not strictly necessary
or a trifle irritating here and there, but for all that suddenly full
of local colour and personal perfume and suggestive, too, of so
very much more and capable of being stretched, filled out, if need
or wish were, of having their surprisingly like coincidental parts
separated don't they now, for better survey by the deft hand of
an expert, don't you know? Who in his heart doubts either that
the facts of feminine clothiering are there all the time or that the
feminine fiction, stranger than the facts, is there also at the same
time, only a little to the rere? Or that one may be separated from
the other? Or that both may then be contemplated simultaneously?
Or that each may be taken up and considered in turn apart from
the other?

[110] Here let a few artifacts fend in their own favour. The river felt
she wanted salt. That was just where Brien came in. The country
asked for bearspaw for dindin! And boundin aboundin it got it
surly. We who live under heaven, we of the clovery kingdom,
we middlesins people have often watched the sky overreaching
the land. We suddenly have. Our isle is Sainge. The place. That
stern chuckler Mayhappy Mayhapnot, once said to repeation
in that lutran conservatory way of his that Isitachapel-Asitalukin
was the one place, ult aut nult, in this madh vaal of tares (whose
verdhure's yellowed therever Phaiton parks his car while its
tamelised tay is the drame of Drainophilias) where the possible
was the improbable and the improbable the inevitable. If the pro-
verbial bishop of our holy and undivided with this me ken or no
me ken Zot is the Quiztune havvermashed had his twoe nails
on the head we are in for a sequentiality of improbable possibles
though possibly nobody after having grubbed up a lock of cwold
cworn aboove his subject probably in Harrystotalies or the vivle
will go out of his way to applaud him on the onboiassed back of
his remark for utterly impossible as are all these events they are
probably as like those which may have taken place as any others
which never took person at all are ever likely to be. Ahahn!
About that original hen. Midwinter (fruur or kuur?) was in the
offing and Premver a promise of a pril when, as kischabrigies sang
life's old sahatsong, an iceclad shiverer, merest of bantlings ob-
served a cold fowl behaviourising strangely on that fatal midden
or chip factory or comicalbottomed copsjute (dump for short)
afterwards changed into the orangery when in the course of
deeper demolition unexpectedly one bushman's holiday its limon
threw up a few spontaneous fragments of orangepeel, the last
remains of an outdoor meal by some unknown sunseeker or place-
hider illico way back in his mistridden past. What child of a strand-
looper but keepy little Kevin in the despondful surrounding of
such sneezing cold would ever have trouved up on a strate that
was called strete a motive for future saintity by euchring the
finding of the Ardagh chalice by another heily innocent and
beachwalker whilst trying with pious clamour to wheedle Tip-

[111] peraw raw raw reeraw puteters out of Now Sealand in spignt
of the patchpurple of the massacre, a dual a duel to die to
day, goddam and biggod, sticks and stanks, of most of the
Jacobiters.
    The bird in the case was Belinda of the Dorans, a more than
quinquegintarian (Terziis prize with Serni medal, Cheepalizzy's
Hane Exposition) and what she was scratching at the hour of
klokking twelve looked for all this zogzag world like a goodish-
sized sheet of letterpaper originating by transhipt from Boston
(Mass.) of the last of the first to Dear whom it proceded to
mention Maggy well & allathome's health well only the hate
turned the mild on the van Houtens and the general's elections
with a lovely face of some born gentleman with a beautiful present
of wedding cakes for dear thankyou Chriesty and with grand
funferall of poor Father Michael don't forget unto life's & Muggy
well how are you Maggy & hopes soon to hear well & must now
close it with fondest to the twoinns with four crosskisses for holy
paul holey comer holipoli whollyisland pee ess from (locust may
eat all but this sign shall they never) affectionate largelooking
tache of tch. The stain, and that a teastain (the overcautelousness
of the masterbilker here, as usual, signing the page away), marked
it off on the spout of the moment as a genuine relique of ancient
Irish pleasant pottery of that lydialike languishing class known as
a hurry-me-o'er-the-hazy.
    Why then how?
    Well, almost any photoist worth his chemicots will tip anyone
asking him the teaser that if a negative of a horse happens to melt
enough while drying, well, what you do get is, well, a positively
grotesquely distorted macromass of all sorts of horsehappy values
and masses of meltwhile horse. Tip. Well, this freely is what
must have occurred to our missive (there's a sod of a turb for
you! please wisp off the grass!) unfilthed from the boucher by
the sagacity of a lookmelittle likemelong hen. Heated residence
in the heart of the orangeflavoured mudmound had partly ob-
literated the negative to start with, causing some features pal-
pably nearer your pecker to be swollen up most grossly while

[112] the farther back we manage to wiggle the more we need the loan
of a lens to see as much as the hen saw. Tip.
    You is feeling like you was lost in the bush, boy? You says:
It is a puling sample jungle of woods. You most shouts out:
Bethicket me for a stump of a beech if I have the poultriest no-
tions what the farest he all means. Gee up, girly! The quad gos-
pellers may own the targum but any of the Zingari shoolerim
may pick a peck of kindlings yet from the sack of auld hensyne.
    Lead, kindly fowl! They always did: ask the ages. What bird
has done yesterday man may do next year, be it fly, be it moult,
be it hatch, be it agreement in the nest. For her socioscientific
sense is sound as a bell, sir, her volucrine automutativeness right
on normalcy: she knows, she just feels she was kind of born to
lay and love eggs (trust her to propagate the species and hoosh
her fluffballs safe through din and danger!); lastly but mostly, in
her genesic field it is all game and no gammon; she is ladylike in
everything she does and plays the gentleman's part every time.
Let us auspice it! Yes, before all this has time to end the golden
age must return with its vengeance. Man will become dirigible,
Ague will be rejuvenated, woman with her ridiculous white bur-
den will reach by one step sublime incubation, the manewanting
human lioness with her dishorned discipular manram will lie
down together publicly flank upon fleece. No, assuredly, they are
not justified, those gloompourers who grouse that letters have
never been quite their old selves again since that weird weekday
in bleak Janiveer (yet how palmy date in a waste's oasis!) when
to the shock of both, Biddy Doran looked at literature.
    And. She may be a mere marcella, this midget madgetcy,
Misthress of Arths. But. It is not a hear or say of some anomo-
rous letter, signed Toga Girilis, (teasy dear). We have a cop of
her fist right against our nosibos. We note the paper with her
jotty young watermark: Notre Dame du Bon Marché. And she
has a heart of Arin! What lumililts as she fols with her falli-
mineers and her nadianods. As a strow will shaw she does the
wind blague, recting to show the rudess of a robur curling and
shewing the fansaties of a frizette. But how many of her readers

[113] realise that she is not out to dizzledazzle with a graith uncouthre-
ment of postmantuam glasseries from the lapins and the grigs.
Nuttings on her wilelife! Grabar gooden grandy for old almea-
nium adamologists like Dariaumaurius and Zovotrimaserov-
meravmerouvian; (dmzn!); she feel plain plate one flat fact thing
and if, lastways firdstwise, a man alones sine anyon anyons
utharas has no rates to done a kik at with anyon anakars about
tutus milking fores and the rereres on the outerrand asikin the
tutus to be forrarder. Thingcrooklyexineverypasturesixdix-
likencehimaroundhersthemaggerbykinkinkankanwithdownmind-
lookingated. Mesdaims, Marmouselles, Mescerfs! Silvapais! All
schwants (schwrites) ischt tell the cock's trootabout him. Ka-
pak kapuk. No minzies matter. He had to see life foully the
plak and the smut, (schwrites). There were three men in him
(schwrites). Dancings (schwrites) was his only ttoo feebles.
With apple harlottes. And a little mollvogels. Spissially (schwrites)
when they peaches. Honeys wore camelia paints. Yours very
truthful. Add dapple inn. Yet is it but an old story, the tale of
a Treestone with one Ysold, of a Mons held by tentpegs and his
pal whatholoosed on the run, what Cadman could but Badman
wouldn't, any Genoaman against any Venis, and why Kate takes
charge of the waxworks.
Let us now, weather, health, dangers, public orders and other
circumstances permitting, of perfectly convenient, if you police,
after you, policepolice, pardoning mein, ich beam so fresch, bey?
drop this jiggerypokery and talk straight turkey meet to mate, for
while the ear, be we mikealls or nicholists, may sometimes be in-
clined to believe others the eye, whether browned or nolensed,
find it devilish hard now and again even to believe itself. Habes
aures et num videbis? Habes oculos ac mannepalpabuat? Tip! Draw-
ing nearer to take our slant at it (since after all it has met with
misfortune while all underground), let us see all there may remain
to be seen.
I am a worker, a tombstone mason, anxious to pleace avery-
buries and jully glad when Christmas comes his once ayear. You
are a poorjoist, unctuous to polise nopebobbies and tunnibelly

[114] soully when 'tis thime took o'er home, gin. We cannot say aye
to aye. We cannot smile noes from noes. Still. One cannot help
noticing that rather more than half of the lines run north-south
in the Nemzes and Bukarahast directions while the others go
west-east in search from Maliziies with Bulgarad for, tiny tot
though it looks when schtschupnistling alongside other incuna-
bula, it has its cardinal points for all that. These ruled barriers
along which the traced words, run, march, halt, walk, stumble
at doubtful points, stumble up again in comparative safety seem
to have been drawn first of all in a pretty checker with lamp-
black and blackthorn. Such crossing is antechristian of course,
but the use of the homeborn shillelagh as an aid to calligraphy
shows a distinct advance from savagery to barbarism. It is
seriously believed by some that the intention may have been
geodetic, or, in the view of the cannier, domestic economical.
But by writing thithaways end to end and turning, turning and
end to end hithaways writing and with lines of litters slittering
up and louds of latters slettering down, the old semetomyplace
and jupetbackagain from tham Let Rise till Hum Lit. Sleep,
where in the waste is the wisdom?
[End of excerpt]

Adam Seelig: That was Richard Harte reading pages 109 to 114 from Chapter 5 of Finnegans Wake, recorded live at the Fisher Rare Book Library in Toronto on October 21st, 2024. Join us for Episode 26 in a fortnight for Richard Harte’s continuation of Chapter 5. In the meantime, to be sure you don’t miss the episode, why not follow or subscribe to this podcast?

[Music: “Closing Credits (Ch05),” instrumental with Tyler Emond on bass, Jinu Isac on drums, Adam Seelig on piano, from the Finnegans Wake film series.]

For more on One Little Goat’s Finnegans Wake project, including transcripts of this podcast and the complete films of Chapters 1, 2 and 3 visit our website at OneLittleGoat.org. And to hear about upcoming performances and screenings, join our mailing list, also on our website. One Little Goat Theatre Company is a nonprofit, artist-driven, registered charity in the United States and Canada that depends on donations from individuals to make our productions, including this one, possible. If you’re able, please make a tax-deductible donation through our website, www.OneLittleGoat.org

Finnegans Wake is made possible by Friends of One Little Goat Theatre Company and the Emigrant Support Programme of the government of Ireland. Thank you for your support! And thank you to the artists for this episode: Richard Harte; Sound by William Bembridge; Stage Management by Sandi Becker; Directed by yours truly, Adam Seelig; Music arranged and performed on the piano by me, with Tyler Emond on bass and Jinu Isac on drums, recorded at Ghost Town Studio in Toronto. A big thanks to John Shoesmith, Special Collections Librarian, to David Fernández, Head of Rare Books and Special Collections, and to their colleagues at the Fisher Rare Book Library at the University of Toronto, as well as to our wonderful live audience. Thank you to the team at the Irish Consulate in Toronto. And thank you to Production Consultants Cathy Murphy and Andrew Moodie. Thank you for listening! [Music fades out]

[End of Ep025]

Mentioned: Boston, Massachusetts, ALP, The Letter, suggestive envelope, Belinda the Hen, The Letter and treasure found in muck, Ardagh Chalice, Book of Kells, punctuationless letter, epistolary tropes, Picasso and Braque’s cubism, tea stain, blurry photography, Kate, “Lead, kindly fowl!”, championing womankind, Obama cheers on Harris, she writes, thunderword #5, Women and Literature, Eve and Adam and snake, synopsis.

Resources: Transcript for this episode, including the text of Finnegans Wake.
Finnegans Wake (1939) by James Joyce: there are many free copies of FW to read online or download, e.g. finwake.com
James Joyce Digital Archive, “Chicken Guide” to Finnegans Wake provides a ‘plain English’ paraphrase of each chapter by Danis Rose.
Richard Ellmann’s biography of James Joyce. Oxford University Press, 1982.
Edmund Epstein, A Guide through Finnegans Wake. University Press of Florida, 2009.
Adaline Glasheen, Third Census of Finnegans Wake: An Index of the Characters and Their Roles, University of California Press, 1977.
John Gordon’s annotations on his Finnegans Wake blog.
Roland McHugh, Annotations to Finnegans Wake (4th edition). Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016.
Raphael Slepon, fweet.org
William York Tindall, A Reader’s Guide to Finnegans Wake. Syracuse University Press, 1996.

Cited: “Obama, in blunt terms, tells Black men to get over their reluctance to support Harris,” NPR, 2024-10-10.
Eric McLuhan. The Role of Thunder in Finnegans Wake. . University of Toronto Press, 1997.

Episode 024: Special: Interview with Nina Beguš on Finnegans Wake in AI

June 18, 2026 Adam Seelig

JAMES JOYCE’S FINNEGANS WAKE
SPECIAL: INTERVIEW WITH NINA BEGUŠ ON FINNEGANS WAKE IN AI

2026-06-18

PODCAST TRANSCRIPT

[Music: Instrumental of “The Alphabet Song (Variation On)” with Tyler Emond on bass, Jinu Isac on drums, Adam Seelig on piano, from the Finnegans Wake film series. Music fades out]

Adam Seelig: Welcome to James Joyce’s divine and delirious comedy, Finnegans Wake. This episode, number 24, is a special one because joining us from Berkeley, California will be scholar Nina Beguš, who is using Finnegans Wake to shape an unusual AI named “FinneGAN.” Hi, I’m Adam Seelig, and I’m the director of the Finnegans Wake film series produced by One Little Goat Theatre Company.

**Digital Humanities Scholar Nina Beguš, University of California Berkeley**

Thank you to those of you who joined us in Hudson, New York, recently on June 11th at Time and Space Limited for “Joyce / Cage,” an evening featuring excerpts from One Little Goat’s Finnegans Wake film series paired with Wake-inspired songs by John Cage. And thank you to those of you in Dublin who attended our all day screening of Finnegans Wake Chapter 4 at the James Joyce Centre for the Bloomsday Film Festival on Bloomsday, June 16th.

[Music: “Breakfast,” instrumental with Tyler Emond on bass, Jinu Isac on drums, Adam Seelig on piano, from the Finnegans Wake film series.]
Adam Seelig: Finnegans Wake is a production of One Little Goat Theatre Company. One Little Goat is filming and recording all 17 chapters (roughly 30 hours) of Joyce’s Finnegans Wake before live audiences in various locations, screening and releasing them along the way, with the aim of completing the entire book for its 90th birthday, May 4, 2029. One Little Goat Theatre Company is an official charity in Canada and the United States. To help us produce this first-of-its-kind filmed reading series — of which we’ve filmed 8 chapters so far, with 9 more to go — please visit OneLittleGoat.org to make a charitable donation. Your donation enables us to bring this production to audiences and helps support the outstanding artists who make it possible. To be the first to hear about our live tapings, events, and screenings, please join our mailing list, also at OneLittleGoat.org.
[Music fades out]

Adam Seelig: Earlier this year, several people sent me an online article published by Harvard’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences titled “What Finnegans Wake Teaches Us about AI“ (Paul Massari, February 26, 2026). This was my introduction to the fascinating work of scholar Nina Beguš and the special AI she helped train named FinneGAN. Nina’s research focuses on the oft overlooked innerworkings of Artificial Intelligence, known as “latent spaces,” which she compares to the unusual dream language of Joyce’s last novel. In the process, she’s also coined a term that combines imagination with imitation through a creative process she calls “imagitation.” Brilliant.

Nina is the author most recently of Artificial Humanities: A Fictional Perspective on Language in AI, published by University of Michigan Press, and she joins me right now from her office at the University of California Berkeley. And allow me to just add two quick comments…
(1) as a Stanford University alumnus, and therefore, automatically, a Berkeley rival, I have set aside my anti-Cal prejudices to conduct this interview today with Nina — it took a lot of work for me to do that. And
(2), more seriously, I’m taking a moment to note the recent death of Frederick Wiseman, whose cinematic style is a model and inspiration for the Finnegans Wake film series I’m now directing with One Little Goat Theatre Company. All of Wiseman’s movies are amazing, but if I had to choose a favourite, it would be At Berkeley, his four-hour film of the illustrious university where we now find Nina.

Nina Beguš, welcome, and thank you so much for joining me!

Nina Beguš: Hi, Adam and everyone! I’m so glad to be here.

Adam Seelig: Wow — there is so much for us to discuss. Let’s get into it.

In your AI research I’m seeing a thorough understanding of and appreciation for the arts, and you’re a clear champion for the humanities. To quote you back to yourself, “Humanities are co-cartographers of AI’s interior, bringing literary, philosophical, and architectural tools into spaces that engineering alone cannot fully describe or design.” In the Harvard article, you mentioned wanting to bring your work in Artificial Intelligence and Digital Humanities to a wider audience, including artistic communities. So this might be a case of ‘careful what you wish for’ because, as part of artistic communities myself, I’m eager to know more about your work, particularly your work with Joyce’s last novel and AI, which focuses on latent space. What is latent space?

Nina Beguš: Yes, latent spaces — the term is more popular with humanists than with technologists, I must say, first of all. Latent spaces are these hidden layers that are doing all the work behind what any AI model that we have today is doing. So basically, they are these black boxes that we have a really hard time interpreting, because the latent spaces are basically mathematical categories. They are the structures of vectors with hundreds or thousands of dimensions. And in that way, they are invisible to us humans and unimaginable to us humans. But we have techniques that can help us try to visualize them and understand them, although they are radically invisible and inaccessible. And some of these techniques we’re using in this very technical field of interpretability, trying to see what the models are doing inside. And then in this paper that you mentioned, “Latent Spacecraft” (“Latent Spacecraft Brains GANs Finnegans“ 2026) and in our work that we exhibited in the art world, we’ve shown that you could also use humanistic interpretability. You can use humanistic techniques, methods, such as comparison, interpretation, reading, metaphorical, spatial thinking, to navigate these interiors of machine learning models.

Adam Seelig: There were two terms that I didn’t know until I encountered your work. One is this latent space, which you’ve described wonderfully. And maybe I could echo it back to you as a kind of interior of every AI model that we’ve been working with. Is that fair to say, that it’s kind of one layer back from the surface?

Nina Beguš: Yes. Yes. The latency is crucial.

Adam Seelig: And there’s this other term, G.A.N. Could you tell us what that is, please?

Nina Beguš: So we call them GANs. This is just an abbreviation for Generative Adversarial Networks. It’s an architecture of an AI model. It’s very different from what people usually know, which is large language models (LLMs) that are built on transformer architecture. This architecture, it’s called “generative” because these networks are very productive. You give them just a little bit of data and they figure it out on their own. We gave them just eight words of English and they figured out the whole phonology of the English language, for example. So here’s the first difference with large language models: they need a lot — humongous amounts of data. GANs need very little to be able to produce something. “Adversarial” in their name is really about having two neural networks within this architecture — there are two networks that train each other. I often describe them as Higgins, Dr. Higgins and Eliza from Shaw’s Pygmalion, because one network sees the data, knows what the data is. And the other one doesn’t. And I think GANs are actually the only architecture that never sees the data — this generator that needs to produce it, that needs to produce fake data, this generator basically starts from scratch, starts with complete noise. It doesn’t know what the other network is going to offer as data. So it only learns from its feedback. It could be pixels. It could be text. It could be sound. It could be anything. And so it starts with complete noise, and then slowly through feedback and through trying out different options, it gets to more and more structure and eventually to a word in our case, because we gave them words as input data. And this all happens without human intervention.

Adam Seelig: Incredible. So the only part that you have contributed is the vocabulary. And in your case, your vocabulary that you’re describing was under eight words. Now, I believe that your GAN learned to say “start” or something that was somewhat comprehensible or almost comprehensible to us. What was that experiment?

Nina Beguš: So those are the basic GANs. The ones where we just teach them how English language looks like. So we gave them eight words, such as “greasy,” “suit” —very basic, random words. And they would start producing new words. One of the first words, if not the first word, was actually “start.” And it was a combination of the words that they were fed, but it wasn’t in the training data. So this is what we call “imagitation,” because they don’t just imitate, they don’t produce just “greasy greasy greasy,” because they’ve seen “greasy.” But from those few words, they’re able to come up with new words — new words of English or possible words of English.

Adam Seelig: So I have the list of words here from that experiment. The words were: ask, carry, dark, greasy, like, suit, water, & year. And you say here that from that, the model could produce “start” — a plausible word that follows English phonology, but isn’t in our vocabulary. So — and I’m quoting you here — “they don’t produce non-plausible words. They figure out the rules quickly.” One of the many things that is fascinating about the work that you’re doing is that your GANs are behaving like children who are acquiring language. Yes?

Nina Beguš: Yes. They are much closer to how us humans acquire language than, for example, large language models, which obviously learn on text, which is not how any human learns how to speak, and also need an immense amount of data. So the way it works with GANs is they learn from their environment. This is how our children learn too. They have, you know, basic imitation — a child learning from parents, just working with the principles that they are introduced to in their environment. And then they are able to push further into novel combinations. Sometimes kids would come up with a new word that doesn’t really exist. And there’s this aspect of playfulness in this.

Adam Seelig: I love that, the playfulness is so key. As a parent myself, when my kids were much younger — this is now years ago — my eldest at one point drew a picture of a bunny rabbit and a window, and then he described what was going on. He said, “This bunny is eyes-ing on the window.” There’s no such thing as “eyes-ing” in that sense, as we all know, and maybe it was “looking through” or “looking at” or what have you, but he invented it. The younger one at one point came up with one that we still use to this day, which he invented: “carrot on the cob.” So kids are just amazing with figuring it out, playing with it, making themselves known, and sometimes maybe just pure invention. And that’s what I love about this term that you’ve coined — imitation + imagination = imagitation.

And let’s get to Joyce now, because you are claiming that Joyce — let me paraphrase, and you can tell me if I’m out of line here — was a pioneer in exploring this latent space or this childlike playfulness that bent the rules of conventional syntax?

Nina Beguš: Yes. I mean, as with many things with Joyce, he kind of anticipates what happens in computing decades before anything like that is a possibility. So in the history of computing and Joyce and this conversation that’s been happening, a lot of computing returns to Joyce. So it’s not a coincidence that we did too, because it’s just so interesting how he manages to chart this latency of language. You know, what he was trying to do — he called it “the writing of the night.” He said there are other registers of language. Language is sometimes given in a state which doesn’t really work during the day. It’s not orderly. He called it “wide-awake language.” He said, This is not what I’m going after — not plot and “cut-and-dry grammar.” He said, I want to try to see how the writing of the night looks like. So basically going into this latency of language — what’s happening with language when it’s not completely externalized, because he really tried to express how things are in the night, in different stages: the conscious, unconscious, semi-conscious. He’s talking about that to his editor in his letters when he’s writing Finnegans Wake. That was his pursuit.

**“Apples” (oil on canvas, 1878), Paul Cézanne. Not all red, but not so bad. (Metropolitan Museum of Art**)

I think the easiest way to imagine this is for me to ask you: try to imagine a red apple. And as I ask you this, do you see it in your brain? Can you imagine it?

Adam Seelig: I do. It’s also a dangerous question to ask of someone named Adam, but go on.

Nina Beguš: [Laugh] So most people will be able to imagine this, visualize the red apple in a sort of low definition. It’s not completely clear the way your vision can render it if you don’t try, right? And this is how language is as well. You can hear me speak now in clear sentences, but the way language works in my internal layers, in my biological neural networks, in my brain, is more compressed, has this low definition to it. And this is why Joyce is so informative of what we found in our AI models, in GANs. Because when you listen to GANs, you will also hear they have this kind of old-school, gritty sound. It was very important for us to be able to publish these models, for people to just access them and play with them and hear them and see how they work.

Adam Seelig: How is it that the GAN has that kind of voice? What determined the voice of your GAN? In Finnegans Wake, the voice of the narrative often adheres, however lightly, to whoever might be in the scene. If it’s Anna Livia Plurabelle, then that voice might be more flowing and river-like because she is a river. And if it’s Earwicker, then it might take on some of his pub-keeping kinds of sounds and consciousness. And this narrative kind of floats throughout Finnegans Wake and takes on these different — literally hundreds of different voices, languages, and so on, depending on what’s happening in that zone. How did your GAN get its voice? And I should also really highlight the name of your GAN, which is “FinneGAN.”

**Gašper Beguš and Nina Beguš (Photo: Matevž Granda)**

Nina Beguš: Yeah, that’s a different GAN. So we created one that’s just words of English. And then we trained another one from scratch, simply on Finnegans Wake. So this other model, FinneGAN, as we call him, never really saw actual English words, does not know how our English looks like — only knows the world of Finnegans Wake. And what’s interesting about this voice or sound is —so the engineering part, Gašper Beguš, who made these models in his lab here at Berkeley, the engineering part is not very involved. You don’t really know what will come out of it. Gašper also trained these models on whale clicks because he’s studying whale communication. And you can pretty much train them on anything. I mean, GANs were initially, about ten years ago, famous for the deep fakes of cats, right? This is how it all started. Now, do they have a distinct voice? They have this imitative power, of course. But we really wanted to publish them because in general, in mainstream AI, people only interact with large language models that are very polished. They have these glib exteriors, right? Language is very smooth — it’s this world of perfect Newtonian physics where the apple falls beautifully down from the tree.

**Feline “deep fakes” at** **www.thesecatsdonotexist.com**

Adam Seelig: There’s that apple again, yes.

Nina Beguš: There’s the apple. But with GANs it’s not. It’s like listening to a radio that doesn’t have a clean frequency yet.

Adam Seelig: Very nice. And that’s where Finnegans Wake plays in so nicely into what you’re doing as a literary model for that in-between, night-languagey, children’s language, pre-verbal, post-verbal, can’t-quite-put-your-finger-on-it kind of quality — the dreamlike quality. That was one thing I wanted to ask you about too, is that there’s a lot of focus on children’s acquisition or child acquisition of language and of the childlike play in GANs. And one of the things I wanted to mention in that regard is dreams. I feel like through the dream language of Finnegans Wake, there’s a collapse of the conscious and rational and a kind of unconscious return to that pre-conscious or young, playful kind of zone of speech. And so maybe when we sleep at night, we are going back to a childlike place.

Nina Beguš: I love this comparison. Yes. When we started working on this project — so this was with Gašper Beguš, who built the models, and then with Metahaven, this wonderful artistic collective that helped us think through this, and visualized the models together with Ricardo Petrini. When we started talking about it, we said, isn’t it funny how all these terms — subconscious, deep learning, embedding — they suggest that all cognitive structures have this depth. And it seems like there’s this spatial metaphor about how we think of latency and making the invisible spaces visible, which is really what we’re trying to do here. And this is why we called it Latent Spacecraft, because latent spacecraft is really about navigating. It’s a craft of approaching spaces that are not navigable in a way. And our choice was to navigate them through language, because we know a lot about human language. Linguists have studied it for a long time. Cognitive scientists, right? We know a lot about literature. So this was our way in. It was through language acquisition and through literary experiments such as Finnegans Wake. And I love the dream comparison, because dreams make sense, right, when you’re in them, even though rationally they might not. But there’s this world that is being held together and it’s not in high definition again. It’s about this noisiness that GANs also produced when they try to get to a structure. So when they go from noise to a signal, from noise to a word, they produce a structure that’s clearer and clearer. And this is also how we presented the model — you look at the model and it goes from noise and then into upper and upper and upper layer. And you can see the structure coming together. And at the end, you sort of hear a sentence that you kind of think you know what it might mean, but it’s not completely externalized language yet. It’s like peeking into this dreamlike world where structures are formed in these cloud-like formations, in these soft, condensed formations.

Adam Seelig: I want to point our listeners to — in the transcript of this episode that we’re doing right now — they’re going to find a link to this FinneGAN that you have online. I think there are two GANs there. One is FinneGAN and the other one combines words.

Nina Beguš: Yes.

Adam Seelig: But people who are listening who don’t have patience to go online and find that can just Google “Latent Spacecraft Brains GANs Finnegans.” And I’m on that site right now and looking at this, and as promised, we’re coming back to this. I want to understand what’s going on here. I’m seeing — for those of you who are as old as I am — a kind of foggy TV test-pattern-like image, mostly in black and white, and some interesting patterns that are unfolding. And so this almost Rorschach-like thing that I’m looking at, that has a circle in the middle and then some clouds all around it — it’s very evocative. What happens when I go there?

Nina Beguš: Well, basically every time you open this website with the model, the model produces a new sentence from scratch — a sentence that I have never heard or anybody else has ever heard. It’s unique every single time because the model is actually working and producing it for you.

Adam Seelig: Incredible. Do you think that we could — when we’re done with our interview today — do you think that I could borrow some or have some audio of what that sounds like, and we can maybe put some of that into this episode so people can hear a couple of sentences?

Nina Beguš: Absolutely. I think — you might have to explain that they won’t necessarily understand what it is saying. Sometimes the words are close to intelligible, and online we put a transcriptor that’s trying to make sense of what’s being said, but sometimes it’s not very accurate.

Adam Seelig: So those who are reading Finnegans Wake well know that we’re spending a lot of time with the equivalent of your transcriptor, trying to figure out what’s happening here in this latent space of a novel that James Joyce has created. And maybe what we’ll do is I’m going to share a couple — a little bit of Joyce’s background in, let’s say, experimenting or exploring children and their approach to sound, speech, experience, and how important that was to his work, especially in Finnegans Wake. And then maybe you could provide a sentence or two you’ve heard or that have surprised you from your FinneGAN. Would that be an okay approach right now?

Nina Beguš: Oh, absolutely. I often — I mean, I can already do it right now. In the article itself, we put a sentence. Yes. “Right, we inhabit a locked hole, but can we use it?”

Adam Seelig: [recorded after the interview] I’m recording this after the interview and want to thank Nina for providing me with her original audio recordings of FinneGAN to share with you all. Here’s how that phrase sounded when FinneGAN’s voice, so to speak, spoke these words in the first place. And let me just add — and perhaps this is my Finnegans Wake brain accustomed to cyclical themes of falling and rising in the novel — but where Nina’s lab transcription has “right, we inhabit a locked hole,” I swear I can hear FinneGAN saying “rise, we inhabit a locked hole.” Okay, here’s the recording.

FinneGAN: “Right, we inhabit a locked hole, but can we use it?”

Adam Seelig: That was one of the sentences. I love that one.

Nina Beguš: Yeah. So even in the locked hole sentence, you can hear that the model actually says “holee,” it doesn’t say “hole.” But the transcriptor is modern. So it will put some things in there that have not existed in Joyce’s time. It doesn’t have a sense of history.

Adam Seelig: Mm-hmm. So maybe we can let our listeners hear a couple of those, and I’ll find a way to get that audio, and you yourselves can hear a couple of those sentences.

Adam Seelig: [recorded after the interview] And indeed, following the interview, Nina generously sent me some more of FinneGAN’s eccentric phrases, beginning with the second one mentioned in her article, “Latent Spacecraft: Brains, GANs, Finnegans,” which her lab, using Whisper speech recognition software, transcribed as: “Power of Motsunoshi Station Lettuce Wait a ti-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i.” Here’s how Finnegan said it originally.

FinneGAN: Power of Motsunoshi Station Lettuce Wait a ti-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i.

Adam Seelig: Have there been any other sentences that have stood out for you? I’ll let you think about that while I share some sentences from Joyce — or even just quickly, a quick background on children in literature and how really they were ignored for so long. And in my mind, at least in English literature, it’s William Wordsworth who really champions children’s experience. And he even in The Prelude talked about the poetic spirit, and claims that everyone is born with the poetic spirit. He calls it “the first poetic spirit of our human life” (Book II, “School-Time (continued),” 275-76). And all are born with it, but only some remember it. Of course, those who remember it are (self-congratulatory, as always, I imagine) the poets. And poets hold on to that. So we all have that. I’m thinking, analogously — it seems like the large language models are the adults who have forgotten that poetic spirit, whereas your GAN is the child that has maintained that poetic spirit.

Nina Beguš: I love that you say that because when we were working with the transcriptor, we said, “Oh, it’s like the adult trying to make sense of what the kid is saying.”

Adam Seelig: Terrific.

Nina Beguš: And sometimes not recognizing it. I mean, I had this experience myself. My oldest child is named Tomaž, and he could not pronounce his name when he was an infant. And so he would always say “mm-bah mm-bah mm-bah,” and we had no idea what that means until many months later. [Laugh] We deciphered it.

Adam Seelig: Yes. And he knew all along and he was making himself known, and it was us who took a little more time to figure it out. But eventually the penny will drop.

In Joyce’s work, he’s already from Dubliners, a young protagonist says — and I’m quoting here — “Every night as I gazed up at the window I said softly to myself the word paralysis. It had always sounded strangely in my ears, like the word gnomon in the Euclid and the word simony in the catechism.”

Then we have Portrait, he goes on to the novel, which famously opens with a kind of children’s story: “Once upon a time and a very good time it was there was a moocow coming down along the road and this moocow that was coming down along the road met a nicens little boy named baby tuckoo...” I mean, this is really getting at these early sounds.

In Ulysses, there’s the chapter “Oxen of the Sun,” where Joyce is exploring the liminal, embryonic, unconscious speech. It opens with these words that I can barely even pronounce — much as your son was unable to pronounce his own name early on and finding some other form of speech. And so it’s kind of early pregnancy of language that he’s exploring there.

And then I would say when we get to Finnegans Wake — perhaps the greatest influence on the entire novel (and people will argue otherwise for sure) might be Mother Goose. On page one, we already have Humpty Dumpty, and this is from the first page of Finnegans Wake: “The great fall of the offwall entailed at such short notice the pftjschute of Finnegan, erse solid man, that the humptyhillhead of humself prumptly sends an unquiring one well to the west in quest of his tumptytumtoes” (3:18-21). So there we have Humpty Dumpty from the start.

**Humpty Dumpty “Cruncheez” spelled à la Joyce.**

**Richard Harte sings the Ballad of Persse O’Reilly (“Have you heard of one Humpty Dumpty…”) in One Little Goat’s film of** *Finnegans Wake*, Chapter 2.

So we know we have someone who is taking “unserious” (I put in quotes) literature for children, and songs and games and so on, and taking them very, very seriously, and mining them and playing with them and stretching them. The first chapter of Book II, which is the chapter I’m rehearsing with Richard Harte now, is all children’s games, children’s dances, children’s songs, children’s rhymes. So the importance of childhood in this work and the playfulness that it brings is so essential.

And so now I want to turn to you one more time and hear maybe some play from your FinneGAN — another sentence or two that it’s played with or invented.

Nina Beguš: Yeah. I mean, approaching this pre-verbal world, I think, is the right identity to it. I’m trying to see what other sentences I’ve written down. Some were actually quite obscene. I’m looking at my folder right now to find them.

Adam Seelig: We want to hear the obscene ones. This is, of course, James Joyce’s world that we’re dealing with.

Adam Seelig: [recorded after the interview] After the interview, Nina successfully dug up the phrase she was thinking of, which her lab transcribed as, “Wanted him quite well for the Olympics. Kolopolitschevskiy rectum.” Here’s how FinneGAN’s original utterance sounded:

FinneGAN: Wanted him quite well for the Olympics. Kolopolitschevskiy rectum.

Adam Seelig: [recorded after the interview] And here’s another FinneGAN expression, transcribed as, “This is a gag out of I’m-a-slaughtering-to-you-with-a-sauce-and-a-stubber-ultra-meat.”

FinneGAN: This is a gag out of I’m-a-slaughtering-to-you-with-a-sauce-and-a-stubber-ultra-meat.

Adam Seelig: [recorded after the interview] And here’s one last phrase from FinneGAN, transcribed by Nina’s lab via speech recognition software as, “Boris’s tower. This round moves completely into my Abu Dhabi city.”

FinneGAN: “Boris’s tower. This round moves completely into my Abu Dhabi city.”

Adam Seelig: You’ve provided some examples of the expression, and we talked about the voice. And this is maybe a little bit strange, but — music and tone. Is that something that is going to play into FinneGAN?

Nina Beguš: Well, we’re continuing this project with a second iteration, because we started talking about this all also in relation to animals, because there are, you know, machines have acquired human language. But there were some animals that have learned the rudiments of it, like parrots. And they would do imagitation in some sort of way where, you know, this Einstein parrot named Alex, by Irene Pepperberg — he didn’t know the word “apple.” We’re back with apples. But he knew “banana” and “cherry.” So he called the apple “banerry.”

Adam Seelig: Incredible.

Nina Beguš: And this is still so unexplored. And I mentioned already that Gašper works on deciphering whale communication, so we’ve been thinking about sound across humans and machines and also animals — just looking at these underlying principles that maybe work across neural networks, both biological and artificial. But we’ve also been wondering, you know, what’s the original sound? What was the first sound on Earth? Have we always had sound or speech? And I think when you describe now Joyce playing and going back to these childlike operations, approaching the pre-linguistic, pre-verbal word, world — this is really hard to do for an artist. Even if you look at visual artists, for example, right? They become really good in realism and then they go into some other style. And sometimes, you know, at the age of three and four and five, our children create masterpieces. I have a full house of just my kids’ paintings because sometimes they are just so good that you actually have to frame them. And as an artist, you’re kind of trying to go back to that unbounded exploration that you had as a child, that you could afford as a child because you did not know the rules. You did not know limitations, right? This is how it is with language. You’re just exploring it. We’ve all gone through these nursery rhymes and through these tales and stories because this is how you learn how to reason and how to think. So yeah, going all the way back to this — I think it’s more and more important because science has been completely separated from arts. But now, especially with AI, I think it’s becoming more important to have them together. And that hasn’t been always a case that they’ve been separated. I just read Lamarck’s biography and, you know, back in the day scientists would be inspired by a poem during their research process. So I think what we’re really trying to push for here is to have this more interdisciplinary approach to exploring what we see as pure technicality, as this technology.

Adam Seelig: I have a question for you about the GANs. Now you’re working with I imagine several — just for this purpose, let me narrow it down to two. Let me narrow it down to FinneGAN and the other one where you had eight words and then it invented the word — or imagitated the word — “start,” or something that was close to something we recognize and is almost — and even is — intelligible to us. And I’m asking about the difference between the two, because the one where you fed eight words — well, that’s not a lot. But the FinneGAN — did you feed the FinneGAN over 600 pages of text? Because that is obviously drastically more. And how did the limit of one influence that GAN versus the abundance of the other?

Nina Beguš: Yes. So there’s much more data. They are both very small models, but there’s much more data with the FinneGAN. And the way we did it is we use the audio for GANs, not text. So this is a novel that’s meant to be read aloud. I mean, in the paper, I think we put a reading from Sweny’s — where, you know, an actual place in Ireland where people still gather to read Ulysses and other works, because it’s a reference in the novel. So this sound aspect of Joyce is primary, right? Especially with Finnegans Wake.

Adam Seelig: Absolutely. I concur 100% — as someone who’s involved with filming and recording Richard Harte and Pip Dwyer reading all of this material, I couldn’t agree more. Yes, sorry, go on.

Nina Beguš: So the two models — the FinneGAN, because it is trained on four-second audios, I think, then produces sentences. But the concatenation GAN, the one that’s only trained on words, pretty much produces only words, although it has become so good that it started — basically rudimentary syntax — it started to place them one after another. So it would say “water, underwater,” or “Andrei, hi Andrei,” things like that. So it’s already, you know, evolving in that direction where it’s going from just words towards composing them. That’s why we call it the concatenation GAN.

Adam Seelig: And of course, when I say that the FinneGAN is much larger, that’s just a relative term. Of course, compared to any large language model, it is a drop in the bucket. And so that is fundamentally something very different in what you’re doing here from most of the artificial intelligence, AI, that most of us have had exposure to now — even on a daily basis in internet searches and so on.

Nina Beguš: Yeah. I mean, we did train an LLM also on Finnegans Wake — we just didn’t publish it here in this paper, but new papers are coming and it’s already accessible online. We just wanted to see the difference and how good the model is with imagitating words, with creating nonce words — words that could be words, but are not — like “tonard,” “least,” “castank,” right? What Joyce does. And the model is really good at it, turns out.

Adam Seelig: Fantastic. And if you’re ever open one day to training FinneGAN on our audio from our Finnegans Wake film series, we would be very open to that.

Nina Beguš: Wonderful.

Adam Seelig: I am wondering about that: is the audio that you shared or brought or trained, what have you, for your FinneGAN — is that audio read by a human or is it read out loud by a machine?

Nina Beguš: It’s read out loud by a machine. We didn’t want to get into a copyright issue. We were considering — I know there’s beautiful audio readings by, you know, Irish actors — we were considering using that. I’m sure it would have a different tone to it if we had.

Adam Seelig: Well if you ever wanted to do that, I know a couple of Irish actors who have been reading Finnegans Wake a lot. [Laugh] So talk to me and we’re very happy to share. And I think it’s just an extraordinary project that you’ve got going on here — that you have drawn this comparison between a kind of machine learning, a sort of infancy of machine learning, and the importance of infancy and pre-verbal / post-verbal / dream-verbal world of Finnegans Wake. It’s really, I think, an inspired connection that you’ve made. And this term that you’ve created is one that I anticipate I’ll be using in future, which is imagitation, this imitation plus imagination that is so actively a part of the GANs and, of course, so actively a part of the Finnegans Wake world.

Nina, thank you very much for joining us here, telling us about what you’re working on, telling us about your FinneGAN. And I look forward to future conversations in person and maybe in this format again in future.

Nina Beguš: Yes, that would be wonderful. Thanks so much for having me. It was a pleasure.

[End of interview]

Adam Seelig: That was my interview with Berkeley scholar Nina Beguš. Together with her colleagues Gašper Beguš, Metahaven and Riccardo Petrini, Nina is the author of “Latent Spacecraft: Brains, GANs, Finnegans,” to which you’ll find a link in the transcript for this podcast on One Little Goat Theatre Company’s website, www.OneLittleGoat.org. Join us in a fortnight for Episode 25 when Richard Harte continues Chapter 5 of Finnegans Wake. In the meantime, to be sure you don’t miss the episode, why not follow or subscribe to this podcast?

[Music: “Closing Credits (Ch05),” instrumental with Tyler Emond on bass, Jinu Isac on drums, Adam Seelig on piano, from the Finnegans Wake film series.]
For more on One Little Goat’s Finnegans Wake project, including transcripts of this podcast and the complete films of Chapters 1, 2 and 3 visit our website at OneLittleGoat.org. And to hear about upcoming performances and screenings, join our mailing list, also on our website.

One Little Goat Theatre Company is a nonprofit, artist-driven, registered charity in the United States and Canada that depends on donations from individuals to make our productions, including this one, possible. If you’re able, please make a tax-deductible donation through our website, www.OneLittleGoat.org Finnegans Wake is made possible by Friends of One Little Goat Theatre Company and the Emigrant Support Programme of the government of Ireland. Thank you for your support! Music for this episode was arranged and performed on the piano by yours truly, Adam Seelig, with Tyler Emond on bass and Jinu Isac on drums, recorded at Ghost Town Studio in Toronto. A big thank you once again to special guest Nina Beguš. Thank you as ever to the team at the Irish Consulate in Toronto. And thank you to Production Consultants Cathy Murphy and Andrew Moodie. Thank you for listening!
[Music fades out]
[End of Ep024]

Mentioned: Nina Beguš, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Digital Humanities, Stanford vs Cal (Berkeley), Frederick Wiseman, “At Berkeley” (film), FinneGAN, “imagitation,” latent spaces, GANs (Generative Adversarial Networks), large language models (LLMs), “What Finnegans Wake Teaches Us about AI,” “Latent Spacecraft Brains GANs Finnegans,” humanistic interpretability, eight-word experiment, whale communication, nonce words, child language acquisition and invention, children and language in Joyce (Dubliners, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Ulysses “Oxen of the Sun”, Finnegans Wake), Mother Goose, Humpty Dumpty, “the writing of the night,” dream language, pre-verbal language, Metahaven, Ricardo Petrini, Gašper Beguš, University of California Berkeley, Whisper speech recognition, deep fakes (of cats), “We inhabit a locked hole but can we use it?”, William Wordsworth’s “poetic spirit” in children, Shaw’s Pygmalion, Irene Pepperberg’s Alex the parrot, Richard Harte, Pip Dwyer, Sweny’s Pharmacy Dublin, interdisciplinary science and arts.

Resources: Transcript for this episode, including the text of Finnegans Wake.

Cited: “What Finnegans Wake Teaches Us about AI,” Paul Massari, Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, 2026-02-26.
“Latent Spacecraft Brains GANs Finnegans,” Nina Beguš, Gašper Beguš, Metahaven, Ricardo Petrini; Antikythera, https://latentspacecraft.antikythera.org/, 2026-03-02.

Episode 023: In the name of Annah (104:1-108:36, Begin Ch05)

June 4, 2026 Adam Seelig

JAMES JOYCE’S FINNEGANS WAKE
Episode 023:
IN THE NAME OF ANNAH

PAGE 104:1-108:36 | BEGIN CHAPTER 5 | 2026-06-04

PODCAST AUDIO

PODCAST TRANSCRIPT

[Music: Instrumental of “The Alphabet Song (Variation On)” with Tyler Emond on bass, Jinu Isac on drums, Adam Seelig on piano, from the Finnegans Wake film series. Music fades out]

Adam Seelig: Welcome to James Joyce’s divine and delirious comedy, Finnegans Wake. In this episode, number 23, we’ll hear Irish-Canadian actor — and my good friend and colleague — Richard Harte performing pages 104 to 108 to begin Chapter 5 of Joyce’s last novel. I’m Adam Seelig, the director of the reading you’ll soon hear.

**John Cage prepares his piano (photo: Irving Penn, 1947)**

For those of you in New York, join me on Thursday, June 11th at Time and Space Limited in Hudson, New York for “Joyce / Cage,” an evening featuring excerpts from One Little Goat’s Finnegans Wake film series paired with Wake-inspired songs by John Cage. The songs will be performed live by soprano Jaclyn Hopping, accompanied by John Cage Trust Executive Director Jeffrey Lependorf, who will also join me in conversation. It promises to be a great night, so come if you can. For information on and tickets to this event, please visit One Little Goat Theatre Company’s website.

And for those of you around Dublin on Tuesday, June 16th, the Bloomsday Film Festival will be screening our complete film of Finnegans Wake Chapter 4 at the James Joyce Centre. For details and links, please visit the Bloomsday Film Festival website or www.OneLittleGoat.org.

[Music: “Breakfast,” instrumental with Tyler Emond on bass, Jinu Isac on drums, Adam Seelig on piano, from the Finnegans Wake film series.]

[Music fades out]

Adam Seelig: Chapter 5 of Finnegans Wake turns to the female protagonist of the novel, Anna Livia Plurabelle, or ALP, focusing on her as river (the River Liffey), as spouse (of HCEarwicker), and as author of a consequential letter that promises to rehabilitate HCE’s much maligned reputation. It’s ‘Anna to the rescue,’ or in the words of the previous chapter, “The solid man saved by his sillied woman.” (94:3)

If I had to give this chapter a title — and if the title hadn’t already been taken by Joe Cocker, that ‘roostery’ English blues singer — I’d call it “The Letter.” And if I went a step further to give the chapter subheadings, they would be “The Paper of the Letter,” “The Envelope of the Letter,” “The Message of the Letter,” “The Letters of the Letter,” etc.

This famous letter is found by a Hen named Belinda, and she finds it in a litter, a dump, in dirt, under sod, or to bring back that word we often heard in Chapter 1, in a ‘tip,’ i.e. a trash heap. This littery letter appears to be written by Anna. But even that, as so often happens in the Wake, is open to debate, because there’s a mystery that haunts this chapter, right up to its conclusion, and that is: Who wrote the letter? Was it in fact Anna? And if not her, who?

**Vik Muniz’s trash/art (New York Times 2010-10-24)**

Chapter 5 opens with a glorious and playful invocation of Anna Livia Plurabelle that merges the Quran with the Bible. Every sura in the Quran begins with, “In the name of Allah the all merciful,” and the Lord’s Prayer, one of the Bible’s greatest hits, goes like this: “Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.” (Matthew 6:9-10)) Chapter 5’s opening line combines them: “In the name of Annah the Allmaziful, the Everliving, the Bringer of Plurabilities, haloed be her eve, her singtime sung, her rill be run, unhemmed as it is uneven!” (104:1-3)

The chapter then introduces us to Anna’s famous letter. Although it’s described as “her untitled mamafesta,” the letter in fact has gone by hundreds of different names at many different times. Edmund Epstein counts 312 of them in total, with most referring to the love and marriage of our flawed hero, HCE, and his long-suffering spouse, ALP. One thing that Richard Harte and I regularly look for in the Wake — especially when approaching an epic catalog like this one — is a rising and falling movement in any given phrase, sentence and paragraph because Finnegans Wake itself is, as we’ve seen over several chapters, a sublime and ridiculous evocation of the cyclical rise and fall of humanity.

Here, for example, is one of the names for the letter appearing early in the list: “Knickle Down Duddy Gunne and Arishe Sir Cannon,” with the downward motion (“Knickle Down”) followed naturally by the upward (“Arishe Sir Cannon”), in this case suggesting investiture or a knighthood ceremony in which the subject kneels (or ‘knickles’) down in order to receive honour — paradoxically lowering himself to become exalted. The name immediately preceding this one lifts us up: “Anna Stessa’s Rise to Notice” (104:8-9). And these are just two of the 312 inventive names for Anna’s manifesto, of which I’ll point out just a few more…

“From the Rise of the Dudge Pupublick to the Fall of the Potstille” (105:22-23) — another up and down, in this case contrasting the rise of the Dutch Republic with the fall of the Bastille, mixed with a healthy dose of alcoholic terms in light of HCE and ALP’s identity (one of their many identities) as publicans of the Mullingar Inn in Chapelizod; hence “Pupublick,” which also hints at HCE’s sin-tinged stutter, and “Postille,” echoing a “pot still” for distilling whisky.

Several names for the letter call out HCE and ALP’s initials, for example:
— “He Can Explain”, which gives us HCE (105:14), and
— “Allolosha Popofetts”, which yields ALP (106:22-23).

A simple, three-word name, “The Suspended Sentence,” (106:13-14) could refer to the suspended judicial sentence for HCE’s alleged sins, while also applying to Finnegans Wake itself, given that the novel suspends a sentence between the end and the beginning, famously ending mid-sentence and beginning with its continuation — the “r” in the novel’s opening word, “riverrun,” remains uncapitalized for good reason. For more observations on this evocative name for the letter, I will link in the transcript for this episode to a terrific Finnegans Wake blog called, fittingly, “The Suspended Sentence”.

And while you may end up with your own favourite name-for-the-letter in this inventive list, I’ll share mine: “Of the Two Ways of Opening the Mouth” (105:23-24).

**Priests perform the opening of the mouth ritual. Extract from the Papyrus of Hunefer Egyptian** **Book of the Dead** **(c.1300 BCE).**

Not only does this entry reference “The Book of Opening the Mouth” from the Egyptian Book of the Dead, suggesting ancient rituals of death and afterlife, falling and rising, but to my ear it’s a perfect encapsulation of what this entire novel achieves, remarkably, on every single page, and that is an uncanny ability to say two often contradictory things at once; to say it and its opposite; to speak, paradoxically, out of both sides of the mouth. From the very first word of the novel’s very title, Finnegans, I hear at least ‘two ways of opening the mouth,’ with “Finn” suggesting the ‘finality’ of an end, and “egan” suggesting ‘again’; the former a fall, the latter a rise; to ‘end again’? We haven’t even read the full title, let alone the novel, and Finnegans Wake has already shown us “Two Ways of Opening the Mouth”.

**The Arms of the City of Dublin. “The motto, which translates, *The Obedience of the Citizen is the Felicity of the Town*, is parodied in several places in the Wake.” (Danis Rose,** **James Joyce Digital Archive**)

The final name given to ALP’s letter in this multi-page catalog is a breathless, run-on that summarizes her defense of HCE against a conspiring public that has fabricated salacious accusations about HCE vis-à-vis two girls in Dublin’s Phoenix Park and Chapelizod (107:1-7); and in the course of her full-throated defence of her husband, Anna slings some mud of her own, smearing the two girls or young women in this slanderous scenario as “a Pair of Sloppy Sluts” and ends by mentioning their “Raincoats”, a sartorial detail that associates the two allegedly disreputable young women with the two togaed women portrayed in Dublin's traditional Coat of Arms — I’ll post an image of the Dublin Coat of Arms in the podcast transcript because I think you’ll get a kick out of seeing it in this context.

Following our live audience’s deserved applause for Richard’s delivery of this epic, sentence suspended over three pages, the text presents us with a new, professorial character who appears to analyze Anna’s letter as if it were a rare and ancient manuscript, the way a paleographer might.

Where some see mere litter, the hen finds a letter; and where the hen picks (and pecks) out at letter, the paleographer sees a scrap of literature. Like “The Man on the Dump” in Wallace Stevens’s poem, Chapter 5 of Finnegans Wake returns literature to litter while transforming litter into literature. “The proteiform graph itself is a polyhedron of scripture. There was a time when naif alphabetters would have written it down…” (107:8-10) This is how our paleographer’s assessment of the written specimen begins, and after a full paragraph of this polysyllabic (and hilarious) scholarly pretention, a voice from the text, as if heckling our speaker, butts in with the question everyone wants to know: “who […] wrote the durn thing anyhow?” (107:36-108:1) Up until now I assumed it was ALP. This question of who wrote The Letter now becomes the mystery that Chapter 5 attempts to solve.

And that, the text reassures us, will require some forbearance: “remember patience is the great thing” (108:8).

Before we hear the opening pages of Chapter 5, I want acknowledge how lucky we were to film and record this chapter at the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library at the University of Toronto. Chapter 5 might be the bookiest of chapters in this already bookish book that is Finnegans Wake, so a library, naturally, is a great location; but a library with as deep and broad and (true to its name) rare a collection as the Fisher… well, that is the ideal location. It also doesn’t hurt that the Fisher Library is architecturally stunning. Torontonians will know the Fisher’s exterior as the ‘head of the peacock,’ so to speak, at U of T’s Robarts Library, while others of you may have seen its interior in Star Trek: Discovery (Season 5, Episode 8, “Labyrinths”) where it played the part of the “eternal archive,” an infinite library safeguarding the secrets of the universe. (And I’ll post a link to that Star Trek episode in this episode’s transcript.)

I want to thank Librarians John Shoesmith and David Fernández at the Fisher for opening their doors to One Little Goat for our live taping of this chapter, and for allowing us to pull and display 100 books and manuscripts that relate to the novel in general and this chapter in particular, including a 500-year-old Geneva Bible and Quran; a 1927 copy of transition magazine where the opening pages of Chapter 5 were first published; and two first-editions of Finnegans Wake — the first, a copy in mint condition; the second, a heavily annotated copy annotated by media maven and visionary Marshall McLuhan (1911-80).

**19th-century engraving of Gutenberg's 15th-century printing press. (Image: Public Domain)**

Which is another reason our shoot of Chapter 5 at Fisher was bashert, or meant to be: Marshall McLuhan’s archives are housed at Fisher, and McLuhan was a lifelong reader and devotee of Finnegans Wake. His insights into the novel — I can tell you from having looked at some of those annotations in his first edition copy — are absolutely brilliant. For example (as those of you who listened to Episode 2 of this podcast series might recall), McLuhan read Joyce’s text as a verbal fugue, noting that “back” in the opening sentence — “riverrun, past Eve and Adam’s, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs” — sounds like “Bach” (as in Johann Sebastian), and “bach” is German for “brook,” which is a stream or kind of river; so this ‘river running back’ or ‘backwards’ is also a ‘river running Bach’ or ‘Bachwords.’ A literary fugue.

The Gutenberg Galaxy, McLuhan’s book from 1962, examines the effect of the printing press on human thought and experience. McLuhan’s contention is that Johannes Gutenberg’s invention in the 1400s shifted literature from an oral medium to a visual one; from ear to eye; and consequently, from communal to individual. Before the printing press, 99 people wanting to access a text would gather around one person to hear them recite it — because that one person, whether a scholar, rabbi, priest, imam, monk, etc., was the only literate one with access to that scroll. Today, thanks to Gutenberg’s nifty invention, all 99 people can read it on their own. So our experience of texts and literature since the printing press transitioned from oral, audible and communal to visual, silent and solitary. What McLuhan found remarkable in Finnegans Wake, as well as in the unpunctuated writing of Gertrude Stein and other modernists, is literature’s return from eye back to ear, because the Wake not only explores the medium of print, deeply and irreverently, but through its dream language, demands to be heard. In the process, individual readers become communal listeners. And here we are, dear audience, about to hear Richard Harte’s reading/performance of Finnegans Wake.

“Take breath and read it with the ears, as I always wish to be read, and my verse comes all right.” These are the words of the poet — and priest! — Gerard Manley Hopkins (1884-1889), quoted in The Gutenberg Galaxy by McLuhan, who goes on to compare the writing of Hopkins with that of Joyce: “Joyce never tired of explaining how in Finnegans Wake ‘the words the reader sees are not the words that [they] will hear.’ As with Hopkins, the language of Joyce only comes alive when read aloud” (95). It reminds me of another of Joyce’s comments on the Wake: “If anyone doesn’t understand a passage, all [they] need do is read it aloud.” Of course, even then, there’s no guarantee we will “understand” every word, since a certain amount of bewilderment or mystery is fundamental to any dream or dream language, but I can guarantee we’ll have lots of fun along the way — together. That was certainly the case with our live audience at Fisher Library (including, by the way, relatives of Marshall McLuhan), gathered on October 21st, 2024 to hear and see Richard Harte read/perform James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake, Chapter 5. Here are the opening pages of that chapter, from page 104 line 1 to page 108 line 36.

[Richard Harte reads Finnegans Wake 104:1-108:36]

[104] In the name of Annah the Allmaziful, the Everliving, the
Bringer of Plurabilities, haloed be her eve, her singtime sung, her
rill be run, unhemmed as it is uneven!
Her untitled mamafesta memorialising the Mosthighest has
gone by many names at disjointed times. Thus we hear of, The
Augusta Angustissimost for Old Seabeastius' Salvation, Rockabill
Booby in the Wave Trough, Here's to the Relicts of All Decencies,
Anna Stessa's Rise to Notice, Knickle Down Duddy Gunne and
Arishe Sir Cannon, My Golden One and My Selver Wedding,
Amoury Treestam and Icy Siseule, Saith a Sawyer til a Strame, Ik
dik dopedope et tu mihimihi, Buy Birthplate for a Bite, Which of
your Hesterdays Mean Ye to Morra? Hoebegunne the Hebrewer
Hit Waterman the Brayned, Arcs in His Ceiling Flee Chinx on the
Flur, Rebus de Hibernicis, The Crazier Letters, Groans of a Briton-
ess, Peter Peopler Picked a Plot to Pitch his Poppolin, An Apology
for a Big (some such nonoun as Husband or husboat or hose-
bound is probably understood for we have also the plutherple-
thoric My Hoonsbood Hansbaad's a Journey to Porthergill gone
and He Never Has the Hour), Ought We To Visit Him? For Ark
see Zoo, Cleopater's Nedlework Ficturing Aldborougham on the
Sahara with the Coombing of the Cammmels and the Parlourmaids
of Aegypt, Cock in the Pot for Father, Placeat Vestrae, A New
Cure for an Old Clap, Where Portentos they'd Grow Gonder how
I'd Wish I Woose a Geese; Gettle Nettie, Thrust him not, When the

[105] Myrtles of Venice Played to Bloccus's Line, To Plenge Me High
He Waives Chiltern on Friends, Oremunds Queue Visits Amen
Mart, E'en Tho' I Granny a-be He would Fain Me Cuddle, Twenty
of Chambers, Weighty Ten Beds and a Wan Ceteroom, I Led the
Life, Through the Boxer Coxer Rising in the House with the Golden
Stairs, The Following Fork, He's my O'Jerusalem and I'm his
Po, The Best in the West, By the Stream of Zemzem under Zig-
zag Hill, The Man That Made His Mother in the Marlborry
Train, Try Our Taal on a Taub, The Log of Anny to the Base
All, Nopper Tipped a Nappiwenk to his Notylytl Dantsigirls, Prszss
Orel Orel the King of Orlbrdsz, Intimier Minnelisp of an Extor-
reor Monolothe, Drink to Him, My Juckey, and Dhoult Bemine
Thy Winnowing Sheet, I Ask You to Believe I was his Mistress,
He Can Explain, From Victrolia Nuancee to Allbart Noahnsy,
Da's a Daisy so Guimea your Handsel too, What Barbaras Done
to a Barrel Organ Before the Rank, Tank and Bonnbtail, Huskvy
Admortal, What Jumbo made to Jalice and what Anisette to Him,
Ophelia's Culpreints, Hear Hubty Hublin, My Old Dansh, I am
Older northe Rogues among Whisht I Slips and He Calls Me his
Dual of Ayessha, Suppotes a Ventriliquorst Merries a Corpse,
Lapps for Finns This Funnycoon's Week, How the Buckling Shut
at Rush in January, Look to the Lady, From the Rise of the
Dudge Pupublick to the Fall of the Potstille, Of the Two Ways
of Opening the Mouth, I have not Stopped Water Where It Should
Flow and I Know the Twentynine Names of Attraente, The Tortor
of Tory Island Traits Galasia like his Milchcow, From Abbeygate
to Crowalley Through a Lift in the Lude, Smocks for Their Graces
and Me Aunt for Them Clodshoppers, How to Pull a Good Horus-
coup even when Oldsire is Dead to the World, Inn the Gleam of
Waherlow, Fathe He's Sukceded to My Esperations, Thee Steps
Forward, Two Stops Back, My Skin Appeals to Three Senses and
My Curly Lips Demand Columbkisses; Gage Street on a Crany's
Savings, Them Lads made a Trion of Battlewatschers and They
Totties a Doeit of Deers, In My Lord's Bed by One Whore Went
Through It, Mum It is All Over, Cowpoyride by Twelve Acre Ter-
riss in the Unique Estates of Amessican, He Gave me a Thou so I

[106] serve Him with Thee, Of all the Wide Torsos in all the Wild Glen,
O'Donogh, White Donogh, He's Hue to Me Cry, I'm the Stitch
in his Baskside You'd be Nought Without Mom, To Keep the
Huskies off the Hustings and Picture Pets from Lifting Shops, Nor-
sker Torsker Find the Poddle, He Perssed Me Here with the Ardour
of a Tonnoburkes, A Boob Was Weeping This Mower was Reaping,
O'Loughlin, Up from the Pit of my Stomach I Swish you the White
of the Mourning, Inglo-Andeen Medoleys from Tommany Moohr,
The Great Polynesional Entertrainer Exhibits Ballantine Braut-
chers with the Link of Natures, The Mimic of Meg Neg end
the Mackeys, Entered as the Lastest Pigtarial and My Pooridiocal
at Stitchioner's Hall, Siegfield Follies and or a Gentlehomme's Faut
Pas, See the First Book of Jealesies Pessim, The Suspended Sen-
tence, A Pretty Brick Story for Childsize Heroes, As Lo Our Sleep,
I Knew I'd Got it in Me so Thit settles That, Thonderbalt Captain
Smeth and La Belle Sauvage Pocahonteuse, Way for Wet Week
Welikin's Douchka Marianne, The Last of the Fingallians, It Was
Me Egged Him on to the Stork Exchange and Lent my Dutiful
Face to His Customs, Chee Chee Cheels on their China Miction,
Pickedmeup Peters, Lumptytumtumpty had a Big Fall, Pimpimp
Pimpimp, Measly Ventures of Two Lice and the Fall of Fruit,
The Fokes Family Interior, If my Spreadeagles Wasn't so Tight
I'd Loosen my Cursits on that Bunch of Maggiestraps, Allolosha
Popofetts and Howke Cotchme Eye, Seen Aples and Thin Dyed,
i big U to Beleaves from Love and Mother, Fine's Fault was no
Felon, Exat Delvin Renter Life, The Flash that Flies from Vuggy's
Eyes has Set Me Hair On Fire, His is the House that Malt Made,
Divine Views from Back to the Front, Abe to Sare Stood Icyk
Neuter till Brahm Taulked Him Common Sex, A Nibble at Eve
Will That Bowal Relieve, Allfor Guineas, Sounds and Compliments
Libidous, Seven Wives Awake Aweek, Airy Ann and Berber Blut,
Amy Licks Porter While Huffy Chops Eads, Abbrace of Umbellas
or a Tripple of Caines, Buttbutterbust, From the Manorlord Hoved
to the Misses O'Mollies and from the Dames to their Sames, Many-
festoons for the Colleagues on the Green, An Outstanding Back and
an Excellent Halfcentre if Called on, As Tree is Quick and Stone is

[107]      White So is My Washing Done by Night, First and Last Only
True Account all about the Honorary Mirsu Earwicker, L.S.D.,
and the Snake (Nuggets!) by a Woman of the World who only can
Tell Naked Truths about a Dear Man and all his Conspirators how
they all Tried to Fall him Putting it all around Lucalizod about
Privates Earwicker and a Pair of Sloppy Sluts plainly Showing all
the Unmentionability falsely Accusing about the Raincoats.
    The proteiform graph itself is a polyhedron of scripture.
There was a time when naif alphabetters would have written it
down the tracing of a purely deliquescent recidivist, possibly
ambidextrous, snubnosed probably and presenting a strangely
profound rainbowl in his (or her) occiput. To the hardily curio-
sing entomophilust then it has shown a very sexmosaic of nym-
phosis in which the eternal chimerahunter Oriolopos, now frond
of sugars, then lief of saults, the sensory crowd in his belly
coupled with an eye for the goods trooth bewilderblissed by
their night effluvia with guns like drums and fondlers like forceps
persequestellates his vanessas from flore to flore. Somehows this
sounds like the purest kidooleyoon wherein our madernacerution
of lour lore is rich. All's so herou from us him in a kitchernott
darkness, by hasard and worn rolls arered, we must grope on till
Zerogh hour like pou owl giaours as we are would we salve aught
of moments for our aysore today. Amousin though not but. Closer
inspection of the bordereau would reveal a multiplicity of person-
alities inflicted on the documents or document and some prevision
of virtual crime or crimes might be made by anyone unwary
enough before any suitable occasion for it or them had so far
managed to happen along. In fact, under the closed eyes of the in-
spectors the traits featuring the chiaroscuro coalesce, their con-
trarieties eliminated, in one stable somebody similarly as by the
providential warring of heartshaker with housebreaker and of
dramdrinker against freethinker our social something bowls along
bumpily, experiencing a jolting series of prearranged disappoint-
ments, down the long lane of (it's as semper as oxhousehumper!)
generations, more generations and still more generations.
    Say, baroun lousadoor, who in hallhagal wrote the durn thing

[108] anyhow? Erect, beseated, mountback, against a partywall, below
freezigrade, by the use of quill or style, with turbid or pellucid
mind, accompanied or the reverse by mastication, interrupted
by visit of seer to scribe or of scribe to site, atwixt two showers
or atosst of a trike, rained upon or blown around, by a right-
down regular racer from the soil or by a too pained whittlewit
laden with the loot of learning?
Now, patience; and remember patience is the great thing, and
above all things else we must avoid anything like being or be-
coming out of patience. A good plan used by worried business
folk who may not have had many momentums to master Kung's
doctrine of the meang or the propriety codestruces of Carpri-
mustimus is just to think of all the sinking fund of patience pos-
sessed in their conjoint names by both brothers Bruce with whom
are incorporated their Scotch spider and Elberfeld's Calculating
Horses. If after years upon years of delving in ditches dark one
tubthumper more than others, Kinihoun or Kahanan, giardarner
or mear measenmanonger, has got up for the darnall same pur-
pose of reassuring us with all the barbar of the Carrageehouse
that our great ascendant was properly speaking three syllables
less than his own surname (yes, yes, less!), that the ear of Fionn
Earwicker aforetime was the trademark of a broadcaster with
wicker local jargon for an ace's patent (Hear! Calls! Everywhair!)
then as to this radiooscillating epiepistle to which, cotton, silk or
samite, kohol, gall or brickdust, we must ceaselessly return, where-
abouts exactly at present in Siam, Hell or Tophet under that
glorisol which plays touraloup with us in this Aludin's Cove of
our cagacity is that bright soandsuch to slip us the dinkum oil?
Naysayers we know. To conclude purely negatively from the
positive absence of political odia and monetary requests that its
page cannot ever have been a penproduct of a man or woman of
that period or those parts is only one more unlookedfor conclu-
sion leaped at, being tantamount to inferring from the nonpre-
sence of inverted commas (sometimes called quotation marks)
on any page that its author was always constitutionally incapable
of misappropriating the spoken words of others.
[End of excerpt]

Adam Seelig: That was Richard Harte reading the opening pages of Chapter 5 from Finnegans Wake, recorded live at the Fisher Rare Book Library in Toronto on October 21st, 2024.

Join us for Episode 24 in a fortnight for a special interview with Berkeley scholar Nina Beguš on her unusual use of Finnegans Wake to shape Artificial Intelligence. And join us two weeks later for Episode 25 for Richard Harte’s continuation of Chapter 5. In the meantime, to be sure you don’t miss the episode, why not follow or subscribe to this podcast?

[Music: “Closing Credits (Ch05),” instrumental with Tyler Emond on bass, Jinu Isac on drums, Adam Seelig on piano, from the Finnegans Wake film series.]
For more on One Little Goat’s Finnegans Wake project, including transcripts of this podcast and the complete films of Chapters 1, 2 and 3 visit our website at OneLittleGoat.org. And to hear about upcoming performances and screenings, join our mailing list, also on our website. One Little Goat Theatre Company is a nonprofit, artist-driven, registered charity in the United States and Canada that depends on donations from individuals to make our productions, including this one, possible. If you’re able, please make a tax-deductible donation through our website, www.OneLittleGoat.org Finnegans Wake is made possible by Friends of One Little Goat Theatre Company and the Emigrant Support Programme of the government of Ireland. Thank you for your support! And thank you to the artists for this episode: Richard Harte; Sound by William Bembridge; Stage Management by Sandi Becker; Directed by yours truly, Adam Seelig; Music arranged and performed on the piano by me, with Tyler Emond on bass and Jinu Isac on drums, recorded at Ghost Town Studio in Toronto. A big thanks to John Shoesmith, Special Collections Librarian, to David Fernández, Head of Rare Books and Special Collections, and to their colleagues at the Fisher Rare Book Library at the University of Toronto, as well as to our wonderful live audience. Thank you to the team at the Irish Consulate in Toronto. And thank you to Production Consultants Cathy Murphy and Andrew Moodie. Thank you for listening!
[Music fades out]
[End of Ep023]

Mentioned: John Cage, Time & Space Limited, Hudson NY, Bloomsday Film Festival, ALP, Anna Livia Plurabelle, The Letter, letter/litter, who wrote the letter?, Quran and Bible, names of the letter, ALP’s defense of HCE, cyclical falling and rising, “The Suspended Sentence,” “Of the Two Ways of Opening the Mouth,” two women on Dublin Coat of Arms, enter the professor of paleography, letter/litter/literature, patience, Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library at the University of Toronto, Marshall McLuhan, Gutenberg printing press, literature’s shift from ear/aural/communal to eye/visual/individual, Gerard Manley Hopkins, “read it with the ears,” dream language, people gathering to hear text read, synopsis.

Cited: Marshall McLuhan. The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man (1962). University of Toronto Press, 2011.

Episode 022: By the Rivers of ‘Babalong’ (100:5-103:11, End of Ch04)

January 15, 2026 Adam Seelig

JAMES JOYCE’S FINNEGANS WAKE
Episode 022:
Gun Dogs, Slow Fox

PAGE 100:5-103:11 | END OF CHAPTER 4 | 2026-01-15

PODCAST AUDIO

PODCAST TRANSCRIPT

[Music: Instrumental of “The Ballad of Persse O’Reilly” with Adam Seelig on piano and Brandon Bak on drums, from the film series of Finnegans Wake. Music fades out]

Adam Seelig: Welcome to James Joyce’s divine and delirious comedy, Finnegans Wake. In this episode, number 22, we’ll hear Irish-Canadian actor — and my good friend and colleague — Richard Harte performing pages 100 to 103 to conclude Chapter 4 of Joyce’s last novel. I’m Adam Seelig, the director of the reading you’ll soon hear.

The film of Chapter 4, the same chapter you’ll hear today, is now complete and will soon be screening at festivals, starting with the Toronto Irish Film Festival at the TIFF Lightbox in March of 2026. Please join One Little Goat Theatre Company’s mailing list online for the full announcement.

[Music: Adam Seelig plays piano]
Adam Seelig: Finnegans Wake is a production of One Little Goat Theatre Company. One Little Goat is filming and recording all 17 chapters (roughly 30 Hours) of Joyce’s Finnegans Wake before live audiences in various locations, screening and releasing them along the way, with the aim of completing the entire book in time for its 90th birthday, May 4, 2029. One Little Goat Theatre Company is an official charity in Canada and the United States — if you’d like to support our work, please visit us online at www.OneLittleGoat.org to make a charitable donation. To get in touch, you’ll find our email address on the One Little Goat Theatre Company website and we’d love to hear from you.
[Music fades out]

**“By the Rivers of Babylon,” Ephraim Moses Lilien, 1910. (Wikimedia Commons)**

Adam Seelig: The last lines of Chapter 4, which you’ll soon hear, are among my favourite in all of Finnegans Wake. I hope you find them as beautiful and evocative as I. It helps that Joyce chose as inspiration for these last lines one of the most beautiful and evocative moments in the King James Bible — the opening of Psalm 137:

By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion. We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof.

What the Wake does with this is nothing short of breathtaking.

“The rivers of Babylon” become “the waters of babalong” (103:11), connoting the babble of a brook, the babble of a baby, the length of a river, and the babel of the Wake’s dream language which manages, like the Biblical Tower of Babel, both to unify many languages into one while dividing its singular language into many.

The “harps” of the psalm will become “hearts” in the Wake. And the “willows” of the Bible, known for their weeping, will become “trees” and “stones” in the Wake, anticipating the metamorphoses of the two Washerwomen we’ll meet in Chapter 8, known for their wagging, their gossiping, their babbling by the river of Dublin.

The Babylon of exile is here, too. “How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?” the same psalm goes on to ask. The note-perfect end of Chapter 4, to my ear, is the answer.

Today’s excerpt marks a major transition in the Wake. Chapters 2, 3 and 4 focused on Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker, or HCE — that trilogy of chapters is sometimes referred to as the ‘Humphriad’. The end of Chapter 4 shifts our attention to Anna Livia Plurabelle, or ALP, and the following chapter, Chapter 5, will focus on her as river, as spouse, and as author of the famous letter that promises to rehabilitate HCE’s reputation.

We are moving away from land and Dublin city as personified by our male protagonist HCE toward water and River Liffey as personified by HCE’s wife, our female protagonist, ALP. We are, in the language heard earlier this chapter, moving “backtowards motherwaters” (84:30, Ep017). Tide is turning. Hence Chapter 4 ends at Island Bridge, on the Liffey. Edmund Epstein in his Guide Through Finnegans Wake explains:

Anna Livia is tidal. Twice a day, following the ebbing ocean tide, she slips downstream through Dublin city and to the mouth of Dublin Bay, where she runs into the Irish Sea. Then, with the turn of the tide, she is borne upstream by the incoming flow, through Dublin Bay and Dublin city back to the weir at Island Bridge. Then the tide turns again, and Liffey begins to move once more toward the sea. (12–13)

These tidal patterns at Island Bridge, located beside Phoenix Park, are explicitly invoked on the last page of Chapter 4:

At Island Bridge she met her tide.
Attabom, attabom, attabombomboom! (103:1-2)

But before we reach this last page of Chapter 4, here’s what happens in today’s excerpt in sequence.

**“Achtung Baby” album, U2, 1991.(Wikipedia)**

We begin with a German-sounding warning, when the typical call to attention, Achtung!, with a ‘T,’ gets schmeared with a bit of feces, becoming “Achdung!” with a ‘D.’ This opening Teutonic passage (or maybe I should say Doo-doo-donic passage) translates into something like: “Attention! The Viking King visits beautiful young girls. Three somebodies adventure with the giant foreigner in Phoenix Park.”

What we have here is a remix of HCE’s alleged, sexually suggestive sins in Phoenix Park. Early on this same chapter mentioned “the Serpentine in Phornix Park” (80:6), harking back, way back, to the serpent in the Garden of Eden and the sinfulness of Adam and Eve — fornix is a brothel in Latin, giving us a current word for sinful sex, fornication. So Dublin’s Phoenix Park is the site of original sin and the consequent fall of humanity.

But what falls down in the Wake must rise up, like the Phoenix that gives the park its name, or like the genitalia of HCE in the sex scene of the following paragraph, which, hilariously, subversively, combines papal and sexual language and imagery. Making their appearance in this passage are the smoke that shoots from he Sistine Chapel, a Vatican climax if ever there was, alongside words like ‘snake’ (there’s that original sin again), ‘beaver,’ an ‘exuding amber liquid’ and, perhaps most creatively, and certainly most phallically, a “porphyroid buttertower” (100:17), with “porphyroid” conjuring something purplish and hard as a rock.

Now all eyes are on ALP. Women are wondering, “Was she fast?” (101:1) And the questions accumulate from there: “why or whether… who… what… whence… what… which…” etc. (101). What we discover is that ALP gave HCE 111 children and somehow still finds the energy to defend her beleaguered spouse. If anyone will save HCE from his alleged sins and the salacious claims that have hounded him mercilessly from the moment we met him back in Chapter 2, it’s ALP. She reminds me of Bessie in Robbie Robertson and The Band’s 1969 song “Up on Cripple Creek”:

Up on Cripple Creek, she sends me
If I spring a leak, she mends me
I don't have to speak, she defends me
A drunkard's dream if I ever did see one

**“Madonna and Child with Saint Anne,” Caravaggio, 1606. (Galleria Borghese)**

For HCE, ALP is “she who shuttered him after his fall and waked him widowt sparing” (102:1-2), and if need be, she’ll stamp out those who defame her spouse, “to crush the slander’s head” (102:17), much as Mary and Jesus in Caravaggio’s painting “Madonna and Child with Saint Anne” (1606) stomp on the evil serpent’s head. (I’ll link to the painting on One Little Goat’s podcast page for those who want a closer look.)

What accounts for the longevity of ALP and HCE’s relationship is their formula, not uncommon to many couples today, namely: quarrel, make up and endure.

Tifftiff today, kissykissy tonay and agelong pine tomauranna. Then who but Crippled-with-Children would speak up for Dropping-with-Sweat? (102:28-30)

So long-suffering is ALP that her age-long pain dates back to the very genesis of man and womankind. As we heard earlier,

she who shuttered him after his fall and waked him widowt sparing and gave him keen and made him able (102:1-3).

**“The First Labours of Adam and Eve,” Alonso Cano, 1652. (Wikimedia Commons / Pollok House, Scotland)**

ALP is Eve, saddled with Cain and Abel and, by the sounds of it, another 109 kids; HCE is Adam, working by the sweat of his brow. They are a timeless couple less in love than in the throes of life.

Now it’s time for Richard’s performance of James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake, page 100 line 5 to the end of page 103 for the conclusion of Chapter 4. The performance was filmed and recorded at Type Books on Queen Street West in Toronto on January 22nd, 2024 with a live audience.

[Richard Harte reads Finnegans Wake 100:5-103:11]

[100]    Achdung! Pozor! Attenshune! Vikeroy Besights Smucky
Yung Pigeschoolies. Tri Paisdinernes Eventyr Med Lochlanner
Fathach I Fiounnisgehaven. Bannalanna Bangs Ballyhooly Out
Of Her Buddaree Of A Bullavogue.
    But, their bright little contemporaries notwithstanding, on
the morrowing morn of the suicidal murder of the unrescued ex-
patriate, aslike as asnake comes sliduant down that oaktree onto
the duke of beavers, (you may have seen some liquidamber exude
exotic from a balsam poplar at Parteen-a-lax Limestone. Road
and cried Abies Magnifica! not, noble fir?) a quarter of nine,
imploring his resipiency, saw the infallible spike of smoke's jutstiff
punctual from the seventh gable of our Quintus Centimachus'
porphyroid buttertower and then thirsty p.m. with oaths upon
his lastingness (En caecos harauspices! Annos longos patimur!) the
lamps of maintenance, beaconsfarafield innerhalf the zuggurat, all
brevetnamed, the wasting wyvern, the tawny of his mane, the
swinglowswaying bluepaw, the outstanding man, the lolllike lady,
being litten for the long (O land, how long!) lifesnight, with
suffusion of fineglass transom and leadlight panes.
    Wherefore let it hardly by any being thinking be said either or
thought that the prisoner of that sacred edifice, were he an Ivor
the Boneless or an Olaf the Hide, was at his best a onestone par-
able, a rude breathing on the void of to be, a venter hearing his
own bauchspeech in backwords, or, more strictly, but tristurned
initials, the cluekey to a worldroom beyond the roomwhorld, for
scarce one, or pathetically few of his dode canal sammenlivers
cared seriously or for long to doubt with Kurt Iuld van Dijke
(the gravitational pull perceived by certain fixed residents and
the capture of uncertain comets chancedrifting through our sys-
tem suggesting an authenticitatem of his aliquitudinis) the canoni-
city of his existence as a tesseract. Be still, O quick! Speak him
dumb! Hush ye fronds of Ulma!

[101] Dispersal women wondered. Was she fast?
Do tell us all about. As we want to hear allabout. So tellus tel-
las allabouter. The why or whether she looked alottylike like
ussies and whether he had his wimdop like themses shut? Notes
and queries, tipbids and answers, the laugh and the shout, the
ards and downs. Now listed to one aneither and liss them down
and smoothen out your leaves of rose. The war is o'er. Wimwim
wimwim! Was it Unity Moore or Estella Swifte or Varina Fay
or Quarta Quaedam? Toemaas, mark oom for yor ounckel! Pig-
eys, hold op med yer leg! Who, but who (for second time of
asking) was then the scourge of the parts about folkrich Luca-
lizod it was wont to be asked, as, in ages behind of the Homo
Capite Erectus, what price Peabody's money, or, to put it
bluntly, whence is the herringtons' white cravat, as, in epochs
more cainozoic, who struck Buckley though nowadays as then-
times every schoolfilly of sevenscore moons or more who know-
her intimologies and every colleen bawl aroof and every red-
flammelwaving warwife and widowpeace upon Dublin Wall for
ever knows as yayas is yayas how it was Buckleyself (we need
no blooding paper to tell it neither) who struck and the Russian
generals, da! da!, instead of Buckley who was caddishly struck
by him when be herselves. What fullpried paulpoison in the spy
of three castles or which hatefilled smileyseller? And that such
a vetriol of venom, that queen's head affranchisant, a quiet stink-
ingplaster zeal could cover, prepostered or postpaid! The lounge-
lizards of the pumproom had their nine days' jeer, and pratsch-
kats at their platschpails too and holenpolendom beside, Szpasz-
pas Szpissmas, the zhanyzhonies, when, still believing in her
owenglass, when izarres were twinklins, that the upper reaches
of her mouthless face and her impermanent waves were the better
half of her, one nearer him, dearer than all, first warming creature
of his early morn, bondwoman of the man of the house, and
murrmurr of all the mackavicks, she who had given his eye for
her bed and a tooth for a child till one one and one ten and one
hundred again, O me and O ye! cadet and prim, the hungray and
anngreen (and if she is older now than her teeth she has hair that

[102] is younger than thighne, my dear!) she who shuttered him after
his fall and waked him widowt sparing and gave him keen and
made him able and held adazillahs to each arche of his noes, she
who will not rast her from her running to seek him till, with the
help of the okeamic, some such time that she shall have been after
hiding the crumbends of his enormousness in the areyou looking-
for Pearlfar sea, (ur, uri, uria!) stood forth, burnzburn the gorg-
gony old danworld, in gogor's name, for gagar's sake, dragging
the countryside in her train, finickin here and funickin there,
with her louisequean's brogues and her culunder buzzle and her
little bolero boa and all and two times twenty curlicornies for her
headdress, specks on her eyeux, and spudds on horeilles and a
circusfix riding her Parisienne's cockneze, a vaunt her straddle
from Equerry Egon, when Tinktink in the churchclose clinked
Steploajazzyma Sunday, Sola, with pawns, prelates and pookas
pelotting in her piecebag, for Handiman the Chomp, Esquoro,
biskbask, to crush the slander's head.
Wery weeny wight, plead for Morandmor! Notre Dame de la
Ville, mercy of thy balmheartzyheat! Ogrowdnyk's beyond her-
bata tay, wort of the drogist. Bulk him no bulkis. And let him
rest, thou wayfarre, and take no gravespoil from him! Neither
mar his mound! The bane of Tut is on it. Ware! But there's a
little lady waiting and her name is A.L.P. And you'll agree. She
must be she. For her holden heirheaps hanging down her back.
He spenth his strenth amok haremscarems. Poppy Narancy, Gial-
lia, Chlora, Marinka, Anileen, Parme. And ilk a those dames had
her rainbow huemoures yet for whilko her whims but he coined a
cure. Tifftiff today, kissykissy tonay and agelong pine tomauran-
na. Then who but Crippled-with-Children would speak up for
Dropping-with-Sweat?

      Sold him her lease of ninenineninetee,
      Tresses undresses so dyedyedaintee,
      Goo, the groot gudgeon, gulped it all.
      Hoo was the C. O. D.?
                                  Bum!

[103]  At Island Bridge she met her tide.
      Attabom, attabom, attabombomboom!
      The Fin had a flux and his Ebba a ride.
      Attabom, attabom, attabombomboom!
      We're all up to the years in hues and cribies.
      That's what she's done for wee!
                                      Woe!

Nomad may roam with Nabuch but let naaman laugh at Jor-
dan! For we, we have taken our sheet upon her stones where we
have hanged our hearts in her trees; and we list, as she bibs us,
by the waters of babalong.

[End of excerpt]

Adam Seelig: That was Richard Harte reading the concluding pages of Chapter 4 from Finnegans Wake, recorded live at Type Books on Queen Street West in Toronto on January 22nd, 2024.

Join us for Episode 23 when Richard begins Chapter 5 of Finnegans Wake. This podcast series is taking a break between chapters to focus on the film production of future chapters, so please note that the exact date of the next episode’s release is to be determined, and we’ll then resume our fortnightly podcast releases every other Thursday. In the meantime, to be sure you don’t miss the episode, why not follow or subscribe to this podcast?

[Music: Instrumental of “Roll, Jordan, Roll” with Adam Seelig on piano and Brandon Bak on drums, from the film of Finnegans Wake Ch03.]

Thank you for listening!

[Music fades out]

[End of Ep022]

Mentioned: King James Bible, Psalm 137, “by the rivers of Babylon,” babble, Babel, transition from HCE to ALP, male to female, land to water, tides, River Liffey, Island Bridge, Phoenix Park, Eve and Adam, serpent, Garden of Eden, original sin, papal and sexual imagery, ALP’s 111 children, ALP’s defence of HCE, formula for longevity of ALP and HCE’s relationship, synopsis.

Cited: Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, “Madonna and Child with Saint Anne,” 1606, Galleria Borghese, Italy.

“Up on Cripple Creek” by The Band, The Band (eponymous), Capitol Records, 1969.

Episode 021: Gun Dogs, Slow Fox (96:25-100:4 of Ch04)

January 1, 2026 Adam Seelig

JAMES JOYCE’S FINNEGANS WAKE
Episode 021:
Gun Dogs, Slow Fox

PAGE 96:25-100:4 OF CHAPTER 4 | 2026-01-01

PODCAST AUDIO

PODCAST TRANSCRIPT

[Music: Instrumental of “The Ballad of Persse O’Reilly” with Adam Seelig on piano and Brandon Bak on drums, from the film series of Finnegans Wake. Music fades out]

Adam Seelig: Welcome to James Joyce’s divine and delirious comedy, Finnegans Wake. In this episode, number 21, we’ll hear Irish-Canadian actor — and my good friend and colleague — Richard Harte performing pages 96 to 100 from Chapter 4 of Joyce’s last novel. I’m Adam Seelig, the director of the reading you’ll soon hear.

This episode is releasing on January first of 2026, so I wish you all a happy new year!

[Music: Adam Seelig plays piano]

Adam Seelig: Finnegans Wake is a production of One Little Goat Theatre Company. One Little Goat will film and record all 17 chapters (roughly 30 Hours) of Joyce’s Finnegans Wake before live audiences in various locations, screening and releasing them along the way, with the aim of completing the entire book in time for its 90th birthday, May 4, 2029. One Little Goat Theatre Company is an official charity in Canada and the United States — if you’d like to support our work, please visit us online at www.OneLittleGoat.org to make a charitable donation. To get in touch, you’ll find our email address on the One Little Goat Theatre Company website and we’d love to hear from you.

[Music fades out]

**Robert Burns (1902) by David Watson Stevenson, Toronto, still from the film, “Finnegans Wake, Chapter 4” (2026).**

Adam Seelig: We left off last time with the four old men singing — most fittingly for this new year’s day episode — Robbie Burns’s “Auld Lang Syne,” that classic hit of new year’s eve. The song’s refrain,

We'll take a cup of kindness yet
for auld lang syne,

you may remember in its Finnegans Wake version as performed by Richard Harte. Here’s that moment again, should your memory want refreshment, so to speak [Harte reads/sings (Ep019)]:

Ah ho! It was too too bad to be falling
out about her kindness pet and the shape of O O O O O O O O
Ourang's time. (96:21-23)

It sounds like Finnegans Wake is wishing us all a happy new year.

The opening, 10-line sentence of today’s reading from Chapter 4 ends with one of my favourite phrases in the Wake, which frames us, the readers and listeners of this novel, as the inheritors of our protagonist HCEarwicker’s story. The text first points to “you,” then to “us”:

you, charming coparcenors, us, heirs of his tailsie. (96:35)

We, my fellow readers and listeners, are receiving HCE’s legend. We are at once the heirs — H-E-I-R-S — of the tale — T-A-L-E — and hairs — H-A-I-R-S — on the tail — T-A-I-L — of this shaggy-dog story that is Finnegans Wake.

Or more accurately, shaggy-fox story, because today’s reading opens with a fox hunt, with Earwicker playing fox to his pursuers’ gun dogs. HCE manages to outfox his predators by hiding and holing up with a warm drink, and the hunt is called off.

**Red fox (vulpes vulpes). Source: Nature Canada.**

Why is HCE portrayed here as a fox? The beginning of Chapter 4 zoomorphized him as a lion; why now this volpinism? Adaline Glasheen sees the fox as Charles Stewart Parnell (Ep008, Ep018), the Irish nationalist leader who, like Earwicker, was hounded by scandal. In Glasheen’s own words:

Fox — I am baffled by the animals of FW e.g., Bear, Lion, Bull, Hound; Fox is specially dodgy, foxy. Uncertain, I suggest that Fox […] usually indicates that [Charles Stewart] Parnell is present on the page but is not directly named. […] In “The Shade of Parnell” Joyce says Parnell was hunted to death from city to city like a deer. A hunted deer is poetic, innocent, passive, and it may have struck Joyce […] that better sport — and just as cruel — is hunting a trickster fox. At any rate, foxes are the common prey of the hunter in FW […]; and the hunted (96-97) seems to be Parnell combined with his traducer Pigott, who was hunted through Europe to his death. (99)

It’s worth noting that this traducer, or slanderer, the obscure Irish journalist Richard Pigott, forged evidence against Parnell. His forgeries were exposed at trial because he publicly misspelled the word “hesitancy” as “hesitency,” thereby linking him to the counterfeit documents — a real ‘gotcha’ moment in the legal drama surrounding Parnell. And what word in our text should appear not once, not twice, but three times in the short paragraph following the fox hunt (97:25-27)? That’s right: “hesitancy” in all its misspelled glory (and infamy). So yes, Glasheen, as always, is on to something when she links Earwicker to fox and fox to Parnell, pursued by scandal wherever they run.

Coming to a rest, our fox — or in French, renard — now finds himself surrounded by a group of officials: “Assembly men murmured. Reynard is slow!” (97:28). Early in Chapter 4, Earwicker finds himself surrounded by a different group of officials, described as a “public [body]” (76:14, Ep016). So from the start to the end of this chapter — and let’s not forget the trial in the middle — society in its official, public forms is judging our protagonist.

**Morse code in action. Undated photo. Source: Milwaukee Independent.**

From here, rumours, as is their wont, spread far and wide, reporting on HCE having run away or died or nearly died in all kinds of absurd ways. The news in this case is — as we hear too often today — fake, but at least it’s entertaining, from stories of HCE escaping overseas via tunnel and ship; to his drunken drowning in a pond (even though he seems to have only waded into the water up to his crotch); to his fantasy-like encounter with Mr. Whitlock (98:25), a character I imagine, based on his name, with the long white hair of a medieval wizard; to reports of Earwicker “disguised [as an] ex-nun” (99:7-8).

In Chapter 2, rumours about HCE spread from person to person by word of mouth, eventually reaching Hosty the Busker, who spread the rumours further through his scandalous Ballad (Ep010). Here, in Chapter 4, the grapevine is boosted by the mass of media and charged by the speed of technology. Early reports on HCE appear in a newsletter, then quickly move from print to radio to morse code. The technological cues abound in short, punchy, mostly two-word sentences throughout today’s last paragraph (97:29-100:4): “Wires hummed.” “Chirpings crossed.” “Cracklings cricked.” “Morse nuisance noised.” “Aerials buzzed…,” and, this being Finnegans Wake, all this technology is also subverted and mocked: “Jams jarred.” “Mush spread.” The Wake never fails to take the piss.

“It’s called technology”: this refrain from a new, mostly-instrumental track by Makaya McCraven, Theon Cross and Ben LaMar Gay keeps echoing in my mind when I think of this ‘technology’ sequence in today’s reading. I’ll link to the song on One Little Goat’s podcast page for those wanting to treat their ears to something different.

Now it’s time for Richard’s performance of James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake, page 96 line 25 to page 100 line 4 of Chapter 4. The performance was filmed and recorded at Type Books on Queen Street West in Toronto on January 22nd, 2024 with a live audience.

[Richard Harte reads Finnegans Wake 96:25-100:4.]

[96] Well?
Well, even should not the framing up of such figments in the
evidential order bring the true truth to light as fortuitously as
a dim seer's setting of a starchart might (heaven helping it!) un-
cover the nakedness of an unknown body in the fields of blue
or as forehearingly as the sibspeeches of all mankind have foli-
ated (earth seizing them!) from the root of some funner's stotter
all the soundest sense to be found immense our special mentalists
now holds (securus iudicat orbis terrarum) that by such playing
possum our hagious curious encestor bestly saved his brush with
his posterity, you, charming coparcenors, us, heirs of his tailsie.
Gundogs of all breeds were beagling with renounced urbiandor-

[97] bic bugles, hot to run him, given law, on a scent breasthigh,
keen for the worry. View! From his holt outratted across the
Juletide's genial corsslands of Humfries Chase from Mullinahob
and Peacockstown, then bearing right upon Tankardstown, the
outlier, a white noelan which Mr Loewensteil Fitz Urse's basset
beaters had first misbadgered for a bruin of some swart, led
bayers the run, then through Raystown and Horlockstown and,
louping the loup, to Tankardstown again. Ear canny hare for
doubling through Cheeverstown they raced him, through
Loughlinstown and Nutstown to wind him by the Boolies. But
from the good turn when he last was lost, check, upon Ye Hill
of Rut in full winter coat with ticker pads, pointing for his room-
ing house his old nordest in his rolltoproyal hessians a deaf fuch-
ser's volponism hid him close in covert, miraculously ravenfed
and buoyed up, in rumer, reticule, onasum and abomasum, upon
(may Allbrewham have his mead!) the creamclotted sherriness of
cinnamon syllabub, Mikkelraved, Nikkelsaved. Hence hounds
hied home. Preservative perseverance in the reeducation of his
intestines was the rebuttal by whilk he sort of git the big bulge
on the whole bunch of spasoakers, dieting against glues and gra-
vies, in that sometime prestreet protown. Vainly violence, viru-
lence and vituperation sought wellnigh utterly to attax and a-
bridge, to derail and depontify, to enrate and inroad, to ongoad
and unhume the great shipping mogul and underlinen overlord.
    But the spoil of hesitants, the spell of hesitency. His atake is
it ashe, tittery taw tatterytail, hasitense humponadimply, heyhey-
heyhey a winceywencky.
    Assembly men murmured. Reynard is slow!
    One feared for his days. Did there yawn? 'Twas his stom-
mick. Eruct? The libber. A gush? From his visuals. Pung? De-
livver him, orelode! He had laid violent hands on himself, it was
brought in Fugger's Newsletter, lain down, all in, fagged out,
with equally melancholy death. For the triduum of Saturnalia
his goatservant had paraded hiz willingsons in the Forum while
the jenny infanted the lass to be greeted raucously (the Yardstat-
ed) with houx and epheus and measured with missiles too from

[98] a hundred of manhood and a wimmering of weibes. Big went
the bang: then wildewide was quiet: a report: silence: last Fama
put it under ether. The noase or the loal had dreven him blem,
blem, stun blem. Sparks flew. He had fled again (open shun-
shema!) this country of exile, sloughed off, sidleshomed via the
subterranean shored with bedboards, stowed away and ankered
in a dutch bottom tank, the Arsa, hod S.S. Finlandia, and was
even now occupying, under an islamitic newhame in his seventh
generation, a physical body Cornelius Magrath's (badoldkarak-
ter, commonorrong canbung) in Asia Major, where as Turk of
the theater (first house all flatty: the king, eleven sharps) he had
bepiastered the buikdanseuses from the opulence of his omni-
box while as arab at the streetdoor he bepestered the bumbashaws
for the alms of a para's pence. Wires hummed. Peacefully general
astonishment assisted by regrettitude had put a term till his exis-
tence: he saw the family saggarth, resigned, put off his remain-
ders, was recalled and scrapheaped by the Maker. Chirpings
crossed. An infamous private ailment (vulgovarioveneral) had
claimed endright, closed his vicious circle, snap. Jams jarred.
He had walked towards the middle of an ornamental lilypond
when innebriated up to the point where braced shirts meet knic-
kerbockers, as wangfish daring the buoyant waters, when rod-
men's firstaiding hands had rescued un from very possibly several
feel of demifrish water. Mush spread. On Umbrella Street where
he did drinks from a pumps a kind workman, Mr Whitlock,
gave him a piece of wood. What words of power were made fas
between them, ekenames and auchnomes, acnomina ecnumina?
That, O that, did Hansard tell us, would gar ganz Dub's ear
wag in every pub of all the citta! Batty believes a baton while
Hogan hears a hod yet Heer prefers a punsil shapner and Cope
and Bull go cup and ball. And the Cassidy — Craddock rome
and reme round e'er a wiege ne'er a waage is still immer and
immor awagering over it, a cradle with a care in it or a casket
with a kick behind. Toties testies quoties questies. The war is
in words and the wood is the world. Maply me, willowy we,
hickory he and yew yourselves. Howforhim chirrupeth evereach-

[99] bird! From golddawn glory to glowworm gleam. We were
lowquacks did we not tacit turn. Elsewere there here no con-
cern of the Guinnesses. But only the ruining of the rain has
heard. Estout pourporteral! Cracklings cricked. A human pest
cycling (pist!) and recycling (past!) about the sledgy streets, here
he was (pust!) again! Morse nuisance noised. He was loose at
large and (Oh baby!) might be anywhere when a disguised ex-
nun, of huge standbuild and masculine manners in her fairly fat
forties, Carpulenta Gygasta, hattracted hattention by harbitrary
conduct with a homnibus. Aerials buzzed to coastal listeners of
an oertax bror collector's budget, fullybigs, sporran, tie, tuft,
tabard and bloody antichill cloak, its tailor's (Baernfather's) tab
reading V.P.H., found nigh Scaldbrothar's Hole, and divers
shivered to think what kaind of beast, wolves, croppis's or four-
penny friars, had devoured him. C.W. cast wide. Hvidfinns lyk,
drohneth svertgleam, Valkir lockt. On his pinksir's postern, the
boys had it, at Whitweekend had been nailed an inkedup name
and title, inscribed in the national cursives, accelerated, regres-
sive, filiform, turreted and envenomoloped in piggotry: Move
up. Mumpty! Mike room for Rumpty! By order, Nickekellous
Plugg; and this go, no pentecostal jest about it, how gregarious
his race soever or skilful learned wise cunning knowledgable
clear profound his saying fortitudo fraught or prudentiaproven,
were he chief, count, general, fieldmarshal, prince, king or Myles
the Slasher in his person, with a moliamordhar mansion in the
Breffnian empire and a place of inauguration on the hill of Tully-
mongan, there had been real murder, of the rayheallach royghal
raxacraxian variety, the MacMahon chaps, it was, that had done
him in. On the fidd of Verdor the rampart combatants had left
him lion with his dexter handcoup wresterected in a pureede
paumee bloody proper. Indeed not a few thick and thin well-
wishers, mostly of the clontarfminded class, (Colonel John Bawle
O'Roarke, fervxamplus), even ventured so far as to loan or beg
copies of D. Blayncy's trilingual triweekly, Scatterbrains' Aften-
ing Posht, so as to make certain sure onetime and be satisfied of
their quasicontribusodalitarian's having become genuinely quite

[100] beetly dead whether by land whither by water. Transocean
atalaclamoured him; The latter! The latter! Shall their hope then
be silent or Macfarlane lack of lamentation? He lay under leagues
of it in deep Bartholoman's Deep.

[End of excerpt]

Adam Seelig: That was Richard Harte reading pages 96 to 100 of Chapter 4 from Finnegans Wake, recorded live at Type Books on Queen Street West in Toronto on January 22nd, 2024. Join us for Episode 22 in a fortnight when Richard reads the end of Chapter 4 of Finnegans Wake. In the meantime, to be sure you don’t miss the episode, why not follow or subscribe to this podcast?

[Music: Instrumental of “Roll, Jordan, Roll” with Adam Seelig on piano and Brandon Bak on drums, from the film of Finnegans Wake Ch03.]

And thank you to the artists for this episode: Richard Harte; Sound by William Bembridge; Stage Management by Sandi Becker; Directed by yours truly, Adam Seelig. A big thanks to Claire Foster and the staff and owners of Type Books, as well as to our wonderful live audience. Thank you to everyone at the Irish Consulate in Toronto. And thank you to Production Consultants Cathy Murphy, Andrew Moodie and Shai Rotbard-Seelig. Thank you for listening!

[Music fades out]
[End of Ep021]

Mentioned: Robbie Burns “Auld Lang Syne,” Earwicker as fox, Parnell, the hunt, gun dogs, public officials judging HCE, absurd news of HCE’s whereabouts and near fatal experiences, media and technology spreading news and rumours, synopsis.

Cited: “Technology” by Makaya McCraven, with Theon Cross and Ben LaMar Gay, Off the Record (Techno Logic), Nonesuch Records, 2025.

Episode 020: Special: Interview with Kenji Hayakawa on translating the Wake into Japanese

December 22, 2025 Adam Seelig

JAMES JOYCE’S FINNEGANS WAKE
Episode 020:
SPECIAL: INTERVIEW WITH KENJI HAYAKAWA
ON TRANSLATING THE WAKE INTO JAPANESE

2025-12-22

PODCAST AUDIO

PODCAST TRANSCRIPT

[Music: Instrumental of “The Ballad of Persse O’Reilly” with Adam Seelig on piano and Brandon Bak on drums, from the film series of Finnegans Wake. Music fades out]

***Kenji Hayakawa (right) and Adam Seelig at Dublin Castle, August 2024.***

Adam Seelig: Welcome to James Joyce’s divine and delirious comedy, Finnegans Wake. This episode, number 20, is a special one because joining us from his home in Ireland’s capital will be translator Kenji Hayakawa, who is currently translating Finnegans Wake into Japanese. Kenji will share his insights into Joyce’s last novel, and we’ll hear him read excerpts from his translation alongside actor Richard Harte’s readings in the original English.

Hi, I’m Adam Seelig, and I’m the director of the Finnegans Wake film series produced by One Little Goat Theatre Company.

Some good news to share: the complete film of Finnegans Wake Chapter 3 is now on our website and YouTube channel. Definitely give it a look and listen!

And as I record this near the end of 2025, I’d like to ask you all, dear listeners, to support the work of One Little Goat Theatre Company. We are a nonprofit, artist-driven, registered charity in the United States and Canada that depends on donations from individuals to make our productions, including this one, possible. So if you’re able, please take a moment to make a tax-deductible donation through our website, www.OneLittleGoat.org. Thank you on behalf of everyone involved with our productions.

[Music: Adam Seelig plays piano]

Adam Seelig: Finnegans Wake is a production of One Little Goat Theatre Company. For the next five years, One Little Goat will film and record all 17 chapters (roughly 30 Hours) of Joyce’s Finnegans Wake before live audiences in various locations, screening and releasing them along the way, with the aim of completing the entire book in time for its 90th birthday, May 4, 2029. One Little Goat Theatre Company is an official charity in Canada and the United States — if you’d like to support our work, please visit us online at www.OneLittleGoat.org to make a charitable donation. To get in touch, you’ll find our email address on the One Little Goat Theatre Company website and we’d love to hear from you.

[Music fades out]

Adam Seelig: I first heard about Kenji Hayakawa when Darina Gallagher at the James Joyce Centre in Dublin told me about him and his new Japanese translation of Finnegans Wake. So when actor Richard Harte and I were in County Dublin, Rush to film Chapter 6 of the Wake—this was in the summer of 2024—I thought I’d invite Kenji to be part of the audience. To my delight, he and his partner, Lisa, accepted. They schlepped out from their home in Dublin to our shoot in Rush, and two days later, I made the corresponding journey from Rush to Dublin to meet up with Kenji. We spent an afternoon together with Kenji taking me to one marvellous bookstore after another, and the two of us have been in touch ever since.

Before I share Kenji’s bio with you, I’ll simply say this about him: he’s brilliant, and he’s great fun. And I’ll add, his knowledge and understanding of Finnegans Wake is awesome. I feel lucky to know him and I’m thrilled he’s joining us for this special podcast episode.

**Kenji Hayakawa’s Japanese translation of *Finnegans Wake* Chapter 2 on** **finneganswake.net, edited by Yuta Imazeki.**

Kenji Hayakawa is a translator and interpreter based in Dublin. Born to a Japanese mother and Irish father in Saitama, Japan, just north of Tokyo, he grew up in a bilingual family environment. After graduating from high school in Japan, Kenji attended the University of British Columbia in Vancouver for his undergraduate studies, and it was there that he started reading Finnegans Wake for the first time in a reading group run by Kevin Spenst. Following his graduation from UBC, Kenji returned to Japan, where he worked for several years before relocating to Ireland’s capital to pursue a master’s degree at University College Dublin, James Joyce’s alma mater. While working in an office job in Dublin, Kenji volunteered for several years at Sweny’s Pharmacy, a central meeting place for Joyce devotees. He is currently running a weekly livestreaming program in Japanese called “Reading Finnegans Wake” and working on his new Japanese translation of the Wake, which we’ll discuss in a moment. In June of 2025, Kenji, together with Irish literature scholar Yuta Imazeki, co-founded the Japanese website “Finnegans Web,” which is where Japanese readers can now find Kenji’s new translation of Finnegans Wake Chapter 2, published in October of 2025. And you can find a link to “Finnegans Web” on One Little Goat’s podcast web page.

Welcome, Kenji! Thank you for joining this podcast as our very first guest.

Kenji Hayakawa: I'm delighted to be with your podcast, Adam. I admire the work you are doing with Richard and I feel honored that I can talk about Finnegans Wake today with you.

AS: Thank you, Kenji. You're very kind. Let's talk about your new translation of Finnegans Wake. I'd like to start with a little bit of background. This is not the first Japanese translation of Joyce's last novel. Could you please provide us with some background on the other translations that exist?

KH: Sure. So as you rightly pointed out this is not the first Japanese translation. In fact Japanese translations have been coming out even before the publication of the full book of Finnegans Wake. So as early as 1933 the ALP fragments were being translated into Japanese by a team of translators.

AS: Incredible because Finnegans Wake was not fully published until 1939.

KH: Yes, I should have mentioned that. So, in any case, in 1933, the first ALP fragment was translated into Japanese and over the decades a few translators have been translating fragments. However, the full book was translated for the first time by Naoki Yanase and published in 1993. incidentally this is the third language to have a full length translation of Finnegans Wake at this time. So one could argue that Japanese was quite ahead of the curve vis-à-vis all languages in the world.

AS: So let's talk about your new translation and if there are already translations that exist and there's one translation of the entire text I think it's a fair question: why?

KH: Just to also add that another translation of the book albeit in an abridged form came out in 2004 translated by Kyoko Miyata who is actually a Joyce scholar and then in 2014 a revised full length translation of the whole book was published by a small independent publisher called ALP Press and this translation was done by Tatsuo Hamada who is an independent translator a retired biologist based in Japan. So quite a few translations out: two full length translations, at least one high quality abridged translation by a Joyce scholar and then some fragments before that. So to to your question of why do a new translation… Well, the biggest reason is that compared to how translators were working in the '90s and the 2000s or even before that, we have so much more resources as translators to consult, and also standards that translators are held up to are, I would argue, generally higher than a few decades ago, at least in Japan. So in this environment it's actually more surprising if a translation done and published in the 80s, 90s and 2000s still counted as adequate. In fact if even one or two major challenges were adequately addressed by these translations then I would consider that a major achievement. Listeners should remember that, for example, Google search and Wikipedia were not in existence until the year 2001. In Japan there is a major database called Japan Knowledge. this was not in service until 2001 I believe as well. And then Fweet, the perhaps most famous resource for Finnegans Wake readers was not online until 2005.

AS: So you’re drawing on a range of resources unavailable to previous translators. Kenji, I’m really interested in hearing you speak about this dialect-oriented Japanese translation that you're doing. In other words, the previous translations — and again, this is my basic understanding and you can speak to it more elaborately — is that the earlier translations were writing or translating in a kind of nationalized Japanese language, whereas what you're doing is going back into dialects. You're almost translating this into a broader, more diverse version of Japanese rather than a standardized one. Are you able to to talk about that?

KH: Sure. So this is as you point out rightly the biggest innovation of my translation and perhaps the most important one as well in the sense that this is the element of Finnegans Wake in the original text that was least adequately captured by previous translations in my view. To give the listeners a little bit of background… Japanese as a language was standardized in the late 19th century to up to around 1900 by the newly formed modern Japanese government. And then the second phase of Japanese language history after 1900 is the introduction of the national language subject into compulsory education. Up until that point, Japanese was a hodgepodge of diverse dialects. Some scholars argue that there were hundreds of different dialects, and even today, they're categorized into at least 18 different categories of dialect. So very diverse and chaotic hodgepodge of different dialects. And then after 1900 with the introduction of national language into compulsory education, basically everyone living on the Japanese archipelago were encouraged to use standard Japanese. There's a wonderful book by Patrick Heinrich called The Making of Monolingual Japan — those who are interested in this history, I strongly recommend this resource. But any case, against that backdrop, we can understand that just as dialects were in a way marginalized and suppressed in Japan with the introduction of standard Japanese, so was Irish in Ireland during the early 19th century when compulsory education and compulsory standard English was also introduced into Irish society. Famously, Daniel O’Connell was criticized by the Irish speaking people for being perceived as promoting English over Irish, although some might argue that O’Connell was being pragmatic. But in any case, there was a parallel suppression of Irish in Ireland with the infamous tally stick system where children were made to wear these sticks and every time they spoke Irish when they're supposed to speak English, their stick will be marked with a cut and they'll be punished according to how many cuts were on this stick (bata scóir). So we have these parallels and I just wanted to as it were take advantage of this historical contingency and really pack the translation with non-standard dialect terms to the same density that Joyce packs the original text with non-standard English dialect terms as well as Irish and other foreign languages and also minority languages in Europe.

AS: So what I'm understanding about your translation is that rather than this monolingual approach, you're taking a polylingual approach and it really does match Joyce's approach. He did not write Finnegans Wake in English. He wrote it, as I've been saying for a while now on this podcast, in a dream language, which I would call rather than writing in English, writing it in languages or writing in a language. And in the same way, you're not translating into Japanese. You're translated translating into ‘Japaneses’ plural. And that is amazing. And yet, it's not possible that you, Kenji Hayakawa, speak 18 dialects. How do you then incorporate these dialects if you don't speak them all? And by the way, I should also say Joyce did not speak all 64 languages, living and dead, that are incorporated into Finnegans Wake. So, it's maybe not the fairest of question. Nevertheless, I'm curious about your relationship with these dialects.

KH: Right. That's a very good question. And as you rightly point out, Joyce wasn't fluent himself in that many languages, to be honest. Even sometimes the languages that people assume he's fluent in such as German — he wasn't that fluent and yet he packed all these different words in. And the way he did it was essentially consult dictionaries or witness contingently people using a certain phrase in a text or in conversation and he would note these phrases in his notebook and put them in the original text. So in the same spirit I didn't necessarily feel the need to study all the dialects out there and become fluent before using them. But on the other hand, I did think about okay, is it in some way disrespectful towards the dialect speakers to use their language when I am not fluent in them? And I think the answer is no. And the reason is that most of us are helpless vis-à-vis most languages anyway, right? And yet we have to somehow find a way to get along with others who don't speak our own language and speak a language that we are not competent in. So this is a very interesting negotiation as a translator to try and incorporate languages that I don't understand in a respectful way but also not discouraging myself from doing that. I guess one guiding principle was sound. So when Joyce puns across multiple languages in a word, I would often try to pun between a standard Japanese term and then a few dialect terms and then on top of that the phonetic texture of the resulting neologism. And insofar as the dialect term allowed me to construct phonetically interesting terms, then I would tend to prioritize using that particular dialect over the other dialect terms.

AS: And these dialects you're drawing from a database as I understand. Can you just give us a sense of that database where it comes from, how you access it?

KH: So the database is called Japan Knowledge, which I already mentioned, but basically it's a vast database of different dictionaries in Japan which includes the Japan dialect dictionary and essentially I can enter a term and then look for entries that contain that term. So for example, I could say ‘light’ and all the entries that contains the word ‘light’ would come up and this would include a list of dialect terms for ‘light’ and then I would look for the exact term in that list that would serve my purpose. So, as you can see, this is a very handy tool, not available to any of the previous translators. And quite frankly, without this kind of tool, I don't think it's practical for any translator to draw on this rich resource of different dialects.

AS: Wonderful. Well, speaking of light, let's get to some lightning and thunder. Let's first hear Richard Harte reading the third thunderword in Finnegans Wake. It’s one of the ten extraordinary, 100-letter words in the novel. This one occurs in Chapter 2 before “The Ballad of Persse O’Reilly” when a crowd has gathered to hear the salacious balladeer, Hosty, deliver his scandalous takedown of the protagonist HCE. And in this thunderword there’s this amazing kind of clapping from the audience that combines with crapping in light of the shit-storm, if you will, that’s about to go down. Here’s Richard Harte delivering this thunderword right before Hosty’s Ballad in Chapter 2 of Finnegans Wake.

Richard Harte: 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 (klikkaklakkaklaskaklopatzklatschabattacreppycrotty-
graddaghsemmihsammihnouithappluddyappladdypkonpkot!). [Applause]

AS: So that was Richard Harte reading the third thunderword from Chapter 2 of Finnegans Wake. And yeah, curious ears are wondering how does that sound in Kenji Hayakawa's new Japanese translation.

KH: All right, let's see if I can do this justice.

AS: Bravo. Very nicely done. And you kept the “kot” at the end, which is a kind of German shit. What other shits did you put into this clapping crapping word, this thunderword that's comprised of phonemes that live somewhere between clapping and crapping? Just take us through some of them. Are these across Japanese dialects that all in some way mean clapping or crapping?

KH: Okay, very interesting question. So actually I made an exception with the thunderwords to my method. Specifically for the thunderwords, I went with a purely phonetic transcription while also manipulating the spelling a little bit so that we get 100 characters in the Japanese as well. So as you have just heard it the thunderword starts with “kurika” which is pretty much exactly the same as the original which is “klikka” and then it ends as you said exactly the same as Richard. And the reason why I took an exception with the thunderwords and went with the purely phonetic transcription is because I see the thunderword as transcending any kind of national language. To me, the thunderword is closer to a magic incantation rather than something that has to be semantically translated into Japanese. The other idea I had with the translation here was actually inspired by a Joyce quote, again I'm terrible at remembering these things exactly, but if I remember correctly, then Joyce said something to the effect that he hoped that if someone in, let's say, [_____] picked up his book and found a local river name in Finnegans Wake and smiled at the fact, then he would have been glad to have written the book. So in a similar spirit to me, if someone masters the thunderword in this Japanese translation and is able to read it out loud to let's say an Irish audience in an Irish pub setting and the Irish audience, even though they don't have a word of Japanese, recognize this thunderword, then this is an example of the work transcending national linguistic borders and actually connecting people. Conversely, as a translator, I want the Japanese readers to be curious about other languages. So, by reading this thunderword, which is essentially nonsense in Japanese, most readers will immediately notice that it has some kind of meaning in the original, but not in this Japanese version. So, well, what does it mean in the original? And they will learn a variety of different ways of saying excrements and clapping and so on. And again this experience of reaching over to another language, another writing system and learning about that language on its own terms is an experience that I do want to encourage through this translation. So those were some of the motivations behind this choice.

AS: I think it's lovely that you have this transcendent approach. At the same time you're moving across Japanese dialects. You're working polyvocally, polylingually within one language and then you're also working beyond the borders which is appropriate for a natural phenomenon like thunder and lightning which of course is truly universal. So that's a brilliant and inspired choice for sure.

Well, I'd love to turn to another excerpt and hear some more from your translation. It's wonderful to hear Richard right before your translation. I can really start to hear some of these rhythmic semblances and affinities. So, let's take it away here. We'll hear another excerpt from from Richard. This is also from Chapter 2, which you have translated Kenji. We'll talk about that in one moment: why you started with Chapter 2 rather than starting with Chapter 1 of Finnegans Wake. First, let's give a listen to page 39, lines 2 to13, roughly the top of page 39. What's happened here in Chapter 2 is we've been introduced to HCE and the rumour mill is spreading wildly already at this point. He had an encounter with a Cad, the Cad went home and told his spouse, and there's a kind of rumour about HCE, salacious rumours. Again, I keep coming back to that word because there is really a lot of sin that's associated with HCE. These are alleged sins. Did they actually happen? We're not quite sure. But what we do know is that Joyce is really interested in the movement of language, and language does not move any faster than when people are gossiping. So we have this rumour mill and gossip, a grapevine, etc. It's moving from the Cad to the spouse and the spouse to a priest and then… it goes on to a number of people. We then get to Philly Thurnston I think is heading to the racetracks if I got that right. And now we're at the top of 39. And now the rumour is spreading so quickly it takes on a quality of horse racing. That's the speed at which it's moving. So, we're at the horse races now. We're going to hear Richard read the top of page 39 from chapter 2 of Finnegans Wake and then we'll hear Kenji. Okay, take it away, Richard.

Richard Harte: … during a priestly flutter for safe and sane bets at the
hippic runfields of breezy Baldoyle on a date (W. W. goes
through the cald) 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 never-
rip mud and purpular cap was surely leagues unlike any other
phantomweight that ever toppitt our timber maggies. [Applause]

AS: So that was Richard Harte reading the horse race, if you will, page 39 of Finnegans Wake. Would love to hear your version of it. And maybe well, why don't we just get into it and then we'll talk about how how you actually rendered this. So, Kenji Hayakawa, this is your new translation from the Japanese, page 39 of Finnegans Wake.

KH: All right, here we go.

AS: Fantastic. Fantastic. That is great. Kenji, how did you… did you go to the races? Did you did you lose a lot of money in order to translate this passage? How did you get that sound?

KH: Unfortunately, well, fortunately or unfortunately, because I'm based in Dublin, I couldn't, you know, literally fly to Japan and go to a Japanese horse race. But I did feel that listening to horse race commentary in Japanese will greatly help me in rendering this in the right rhythm. So, I listened to about I think one hour of non-stop horse racing commentary in Japanese over and over again. So, in reality, I probably spent a few hours listening to it. But what I noticed was that in horse race commentary, it's almost like, as you said in the introduction to this clip, that the words and the intonation follow the rhythm of the race itself. So when the race heats up, the commentators also become more lively and articulate. when the race is slow or when there's an obvious outcome, let's say, then the commentators are less lively, maybe a little bit more calm, composed, reflective. So, in this example, it's very clear that Winny Widger is somewhat of a surprising winner. At least the characters who are depicted in this chapter seem to have failed to predict Winny Widger taking the cup. So the commentators are clearly quite taken aback by this. Nonetheless, they're very excited. So I just wanted to capture that excitement not only in terms of semantics but also in terms of the intonation in Japanese.

AS: Love that section and I love it in in both languages. And I want to just ask you that question as promised. Chapter 2, why did you start with chapter 2 and not in the obvious place which would be to begin translating Finnegans Wake into Japanese with Chapter 1?

KH: Very good question and the short answer is that I felt that Chapter 1 misleads readers into thinking that this chapter is paradigmatic of how the rest of the book is written. So what I mean is Chapter 1 is very special and it has a distinct style, very complicated structure. An earlier version was written quite early on, I think 1926 1927 if I remember correctly, and originally when Joyce was writing Book One he planned to begin with Chapter 2 not 1. And then he wanted the book to have six chapters not eight and the two chapters that were not in the book originally were Chapter 1 and Chapter 6 (‘the quiz’).

AS: So in a sense, you're following his natural instinct, which was to start at what is now Chapter 2. That was going to be his beginning, but instead he added this Chapter 1. And again, for shorthand, I'm calling it an overture that sounds many of the themes that we will hear later in the novel. Is that then a fair answer to the question, that that's why you started with Chapter 2: that it’s kind of a way in for both you as a translator and for your readers?

KH: Yes, that's correct. And also if the readers start with Chapter 2, then they will as it were, in my view anyway, more accurately understand the rest of the book as following an actually quite intelligible narrative structure. So that might be a surprising claim for those who start with Chapter 1. However, Chapters 2, 3 and 4 comprise what's commonly called the Humphriad, and they do have a very clear narrative structure. And then chapters 5, 7 and 8 also each have a very clear theme: ALP's letter for Chapter 5, Shem's as it were self flagellating autobiography as narrated by Shaun in Chapter 7, and then finally the two washerwomen gossiping about ALP in Chapter 8.

AS: So if we pulled Chapters 1 and 6 out of Book One of Finnegans Wake — and anyone who wants maybe to cut back on some reading and get through this a little faster, just take out Chapters 1 and 6. No big deal. You're going to be fine.

Kenji, can you give us a window onto your translation process: what goes into translating let’s say a page of Finnegans Wake?

KH: So, it's not my sole effort. Yuta Imazeki, the Tokyo based Irish literature scholar, is a close collaborator of mine, and he checks not only the translation, but also the notes that are made in preparation to the translation. And then we also have PhD candidate, soon to hopefully be doctor of Chinese philosophy in Tokyo University, Kohei Ise, who is taking a look at the Chinese words in the translation, since we decided to render all the Latin terms in Chinese. And basically the starting point for me for translating this book is the weekly livestream program that I've been running now for over three years where essentially every Friday we gather online and read a page or two of Finnegans Wake for about 2 hours and again I draw on all the online resources to decode the text and participants can write and share their interpretation in chat. We generally have a very productive and fun conversation every week. But that's step one. And then step two would be preparing the notes with Yuta on a more detailed series of notes describing what's referenced in the text. And here we go a few steps beyond the usual resources such as [Roland] McHugh and [Adaline] Glasheen and so on. But we also draw on material directly available on archive.org (wonderful website by the way). And we use Wictionary a lot as well. We vet every claim made on Fweet or McHugh and wiki or whichever other resource we're using. And then we add our own insights and references that we've discovered as well. So we have arguably one of the most thorough annotations to the original text ready by that point and that is also shared on our website Finnegans Web in Japanese.

AS: And we'll link to that in our podcast post on One Little Goat.

KH: So at that point we're spending minimum 10 hours maybe 15 hours per page purely for the purpose of annotation and then we're ready to start our first draft. So at that point I start writing my first draft translation. And at that point in addition to all the notes we used I also make heavy use of the James Joyce Digital Archive page. That's a fantastic resource. Essentially, this website allows you to reference every past draft on record of a chapter or a section.

AS: And I'll add to our our listeners if if you don't mind my jumping in for one sec that also on that same site, the James Joyce Digital Archive, is a wonderful Chicken Guide. The Chicken Guide is a kind of lay language version, simple summary of what what's happened in each chapter. Marvelous guide. Carry on. Sorry.

KH: Yeah, absolutely. And again, this resource was not available to any of the previous translators. So, I'm really privileged to be able to use all of these resources. The first draft maybe takes about 15 hours to complete per page. And then that is checked by Yuta again, revised by me, and that's how it's done. So, it's maybe minimum 30 hours per page spent all starting with the

AS: Minimum!

KH: Yeah. And in this process, I gradually came to realize that starting with Chapter 2 was more rational than what I initially thought. Initially I just thought, well, it's easier to start with Chapter 2 than Chapter 1. So I will start with Chapter 2, make all my mistakes, and when I feel I'm ready to take on Chapter 1, I might go back to it. But the more I go through this iteration, the more I'm realizing that for multiple reasons, Chapter 1 should probably be reserved for a much later time to be worked on compared to the other chapters.

AS: What I like about your process and your description here is that while you are clearly the translator of this new translation, it’s also on a certain level a group effort.

KH: Yeah, I'm glad that you really emphasized the community element because the reason why I'm working on this text now is because of a reading group to begin with. So the first time I heard of Finnegans Wake was 15 years ago now — goodness — in Vancouver when I was still doing my undergrad at UBC Vancouver. And I was one day listening to NPR on my bike and the program was interviewing Kevin Spenst, a local poet. And Kevin said that he's running this monthly reading group of a book called Finnegans Wake and they're spending a month to read three pages tops, maybe even two. I was thinking, well, that is quite extraordinary for two reasons. One: NPR interviews reading group organizers. That's awesome. And then secondly, this reading group is going to spend according to them anyway 17 years reading one book. How does that work? So I picked up a copy of Finnegans Wake in the library when I got to campus and understood that yes indeed it probably takes 17 years to read this thing. And, for some reason I bought and brought the Japanese translation of Finnegans Wake to Vancouver at the time. I think I just bought it because it was a famous translation and I wanted a copy, but I had no idea, I mean, I hadn't opened it and I had no idea what was written in it. So, I go to this reading group and everyone's so nice. Amy Logan, Kim Koeg and Mark Logan and others. And basically they welcomed me with open arms and there was a multilingual exchange, right? So someone would understand German, others would know a bit of Greek. I believe Kevin had the French translation of Finnegans Wake at the reading. So we had a bit of French input there. And then I had my Japanese translation. We weren't scholars, so we weren't debating whether anyone's interpretation was plausible or whether one was better than the other, but we were more just sort of sharing what we saw in the text. And this was a surprisingly satisfying experience. So yeah, that experience stuck with me and every other reading group I've been a part of or organized essentially is in the spirit of that reading group in Vancouver of Kevin and Amy and so forth. Few books kind of not only make an impact on you personally but also make an impact on community in that way. And again by putting this translation on the internet, I hope for many people across the country in Japan to access this text and hopefully start their own reading groups and see if something comes out of that. Yes. So that's that's kind of where it's at.

AS: Fantastic. Well, why don't we take it to another excerpt from Richard followed by Kenji's translation of Finnegans Wake. And I'm thinking that it would be fun for us to hear “The Ballad of Persse O’Reilly.” Why don't we play the first stanza, the first verse from Richard's recording and then we can hear that first verse in Kenji's new translation,

Richard Harte: "THE BALLAD OF PERSSE O’REILLY." [Music]
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?

AS: And so there we have Richard singing, performing the first verse of “The Ballad of Persse O’Reilly,” which opens with the fall of that famous Mother Goose character, Humpty Dumpty. And take it away, Kenji Hayakawa. This is your new Japanese translation of that first verse.

KH: Okay. Is singing encouraged in this case?

AS: Of course it is.

KH: Oh my goodness.

AS: You got this, Kenji.

KH: So, a little bit of context is when Adam was in Tokyo and we did the event, I recorded this part and it was probably one of the most surreal experiences of my life where I was just singing at the top of my voice in my kitchen. I hope my neighbours will not know completely put me on their blacklist for this, but, in any case, okay, let's go.

「パース・オライリーのバラッド」

AS: Very nice. Very nice. And I'm sure your neighbours will forgive you if you've startled them in any way. You just tell them it's in the name of Irish literature and they'll understand.

KH: I will say this, it's not quite the same without this excellent piano accompaniment.

AS: We have an unfair advantage by having piano accompaniment. It's true in our version.

While we’re on The Ballad of Persse O’Reilly, you recently brought to my attention a political moment that came up vis-à-vis the Ballad. Would you be okay to introduce us to some of the political dimensions around the song?

KH: I take it you're referring to the first No Kings protest in the United States that happened in May. So this protest included a man holding up a cardboard with two lines of a verse from The Ballad of Persse O’Reilly, and on the edge of the cardboard was also written “from Finnegans Wake” just in case, you know, people were not sure where it was from, wanted that reference.

AS: That's good. Always good to footnote your political signs.

KH: Yes. Exactly. Cite your sources. The two lines were:

So snug he was in his hotel premises sumptuous
But soon we’ll bonfire all his trash, tricks and trumpery

And of course, we've got the word Trump in there. In this context, Trumpery just means nonsense or gobbledegook. “So snug he was in his hotel premises sumptuous” — [US President Donald] Trump is a self-styled real estate businessman, so of course the reference to hotel is appropriate.

AS: And owns a hotel in Washington.

***No Kings protest, Washington DC, 2025-10-18 (source: Politico).***

KH: Yeah, as well as a golf course on the west coast of Ireland, and many other places. So although the broader kind of political implication of The Ballad is very interesting, in the context of the No King's protest it was obviously used in a straightforward way. So what I mean by that is in the original text, Hosty composed a ballad to essentially magnify and exaggerate all the negative things that people have said about HCE. And given that HCE is thought to have been born in the UK in Sidlesham that he's presumed to be British — in fact he says “British to my backbone tongue.” So you know presumably he speaks British English. So there is this HCE the quintessential British figure being arguably slandered, but perhaps a grain of truth in that as well, by all the Liffey-side people as Joyce calls them. So all the Irish people — and Hosty is a representative of this Irish Liffey-side crowd who all seem to get a kick out of slandering HCE the quintessential British figure. But Joyce is also making fun of Hosty by showing how essentially a whole nation is united to go after this one helpless pub owner in Chapelizod [Dublin]. So as a reader, we're not sure how we're supposed to feel about this ballad. I mean on the one hand, yes it's a criticism of British colonialism and imperialism and all the violence the British have done in Ireland and all the rest, but on the other hand it's also a criticism of a kind of a reactionary nationalism by the Irish people who kind of define themselves in a negative way vis-à-vis something that they all reject, namely British rule and British culture and so on. And so in the No Kings case it's taken in the straightforward way of you know oppressed people protesting against this kind of arch enemy but in the text in the original text the act of composing this song is also being made fun of. So Joyce is not saying ‘everyone should just be up in arms and compose rants to curse the leader.’

AS: So he's able to play it both ways. He's at once able to enjoy the radical spirit behind taking someone down on the one hand and at the same time lampooning or parodying that and recognizing how fatuous or how much hot air there is sometimes behind that as well.

KH: Yeah. And again, I think Richard's performance of the ballad encapsulates both aspects very well.

AS: I agree completely. Let’s turn our attention now to the famous opening line of Finnegans Wake in your new Japanese translation, Kenji. I’ll start by playing Richard’s reading first and then we’ll turn to you. Here’s Richard:

Richard Harte: riverrun, past Eve and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend
of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to
Howth Castle and Environs.

AS: That was Richard reading the opening sentence/paragraph of Finnegans Wake. Those are the first few lines. Would love to hear it now in Kenji Hayakawa's new Japanese translation.

KH:

AS: Lovely. You have captured that first rhythmic stamp. “kawaran” — “riverrun.” I'm hearing something very close sonically to “riverrun.”

KH: Well, there are several things to note. So firstly, the original word “riverrun” sounds very natural in English. So we immediately know that we're talking about a river that is running. And then we have all these secondary connotations in French. We have dreaming river and in Italian return or riverrano and so on. So, I purposefully focused on the phonetic texture at perhaps the expense of some of the secondary meanings. In Japanese, river is kawa. There really isn't any other way of saying river that sounds natural. So, kawa was a bit of a lock for me, no pun intended. And then ran is another conscious choice in that it's kind of similar to the thunderword, but again I wanted this word to transcend linguistic boundaries to a certain extent. And ran is a very natural art to add to pretty much any word in Japanese. It's not commonly used in modern Japanese but for example in premodern classical Japanese you can conjugate many verbs by putting ran at the end and then in the case I guess even in modern Japanese for example in kawaran it's a conjugation of the verb kawaru which means to change but kawaran makes it not change so it's river run and then it also means doesn't change or not changing in Japanese. So that captures the Italian riverano, a return in the sense that we're telling the same story that is not changing.

I wanted also to find a way to fit the French rêver, to dream. But at the end of the day, I thought overcomplicating this word and ruining the phonetic texture of it was not worth the price of putting the word ‘dream’ in. But if anyone has a solution, then I'm all ears.

AS: You've captured river, you've captured — and tell me if I'm getting this right — a kind of sense of constancy. Would that be fair to say?

KH: Yeah. I mean, not changing, therefore constant.

AS: Yeah. So there's something eternal at play here. And gods willing, the earth willing, the rivers will run forever.

Kenji, I'm wondering about the Irish cultural context, never mind Gaelic and Irish language, which plays a a strong linguistic role throughout Finnegans Wake, but I'm talking about just Irishness. I mean, part of what has been so wonderful for me in reading the Wake is that I'm reading it with Richard Harte, who was born and raised in Dublin. So, he has this amazing Irish sense, Irish history, I mean, he brings that to his readings. And so, there's a lot of reference there that he naturally understands that I, as someone who grew up in Vancouver, British Columbia, did not really access, and I don't come from an Irish background. So what do you do then to, let's call it, culturally translate some of this material over to Japanese readers who by and large are not Irish and most of whom have not set foot in Ireland. How do you make this work let's say available to them on the cultural Irish level?

KH: Right. Thanks for this question because it's a very important one for me. And again this goes back to my approach of using non-standard Japanese at the same density as the original text because again Irish English is very inflected and kind of a language unto itself sometimes, very distinct from standard American English and even from standard British English. So, it didn't really make sense for me to pretend as if standard Japanese would be adequate. What I really took care to do was to preserve all the Irish references, and I made sure as many proper names are included faithfully as possible. So right off the bat, for example, the original text [of Chapter 2] is:

Now (to forebare for ever solittle of Iris Trees and Lili O’Rangans)

And straight away we have a reference to British actress Iris Tree as well as possibly a reference to lily brunello or the orange lily. And these references are preserved as

さて（アイリス・ツリーやリリ・オランガンの類いには露ほどにも減久せんぞ）

So right off the bat, reserve the name. And then Humphrey Chimpden is Hanfuree Chinpuden [ハンフリー・チンプデン]; the Iawikkah [イアウィッカー].

AS: I almost feel like I could be translating this into Japanese at this point.

KH: Exactly. So some might feel, especially translators who are good at creative approaches, might feel that this is a little too straightforward. But for me that's the whole point; that you hear a name like Iris Tree or Earwicker and you can see that I could have translated it in some creative way to make it sound more Japanese but I deliberately kept it as it is.

AS: So you’re in an interesting position. You are translating into Japanese, which is historically related to Chinese, but you don’t have other countries you can go to with Japanese script. When someone is translating Finnegans Wake into German they can draw on so many other languages out there that are using the Latin alphabet, from English to French to a language like modern Turkish, modern Turkish is written with Latin letters. So do you feel, I’ll put it simply, disadvantaged?

KH: Yeah, that's a very interesting question and I haven't completely made up my mind on this, but I can share my thought process and again I would be very interested in hearing what you think as well as what listeners think about this. So from a Japanese perspective, we're using a script that's only used in the Japanese language. So what that means is that if I wanted to write something in Chinese, then it's in a totally different script. So I cannot naturally pun across two different languages using the same script. Korean has a different script again. So, if I want to pun with Korean words, then I can't do it naturally in the Japanese script except in some contrived way, whereas what you're implying in your question is that if you're writing in German, you're still using the Latin script shared by Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, English, French, as well as a whole host of minority languages as well. And Latin of course. So you can naturally pun across these languages without any additional contrivances. But then a challenge becomes: how do you make the Latin text, for example, how do you make the German translation distinctly German? That's the challenge for the German translator. And what I mean by that is in the Japanese script, because I'm using Japanese script, yes, on the one hand it's hard to construct multilingual puns, but on the other hand it's just very self-evidently Japanese. So I don't have to do anything except write in the script and to make it Japanese. Whereas in the German script, if you go too overboard with the multilingual puns, then it just starts to kind of lose a sense of what the base language is. I mean, the English already at times loses that sense as well. And you're almost feeling like, am I reading Albanian instead of English here? Or, you know, isn't this just basically Dutch? So it's kind of interesting what it means to translate into a language. I mean there's that very kind of you know common rather in my view a little bit trite joke of, like, well first we have to translate it into English, which is kind of correct but…

AS: And it is something that on the James Joyce Digital Archive they've done handily, they've done a beautiful job of translating, so to speak, each chapter. Again I can't recommend it highly enough — wonderful work

KH: And talking about the James Joyce Digital Archive, the thing is, when you look at the earlier drafts of each chapter it's very clear that Joyce thought about the plot in pretty much standard English, very readable, and very few multilingual puns, and a lot of the puns, dialects, local slang terms, etc. were added through up to a dozen revisions. So, it's on the one hand, it is definitely an English text, the base language was English, but the finished product makes you feel like it's not really following one base language at times. And to say that, okay, now I'm translating this into German or Italian means you somehow have to make it feel like the base language is German or Italian. And that is a distinct kind of challenge that a Japanese translator or a Chinese translator might not necessarily face.

AS: So in a certain sense you have an advantage over those Latin scripts of German, Spanish and so on who are translating Finnegans Wake, and good luck to them all.

KH: My well wishes go to these translators as much as yours, Adam.

AS: Kenji, it’s been a pleasure having you on this podcast; our very first guest, I’m honoured that you joined, and thrilled that you’re making such extraordinary headway with this new Japanese translation of FW. I learn so much about the text from conversations with you. I hope people have enjoyed likewise hearing some of your insights into your process and into the novel more broadly. Thank you so much for this time; really appreciate it.

KH: Pleasure is all mine. Thank you very much. And hopefully we get to talk about this continuously in the years to come.

AS: That was translator Kenji Hayakawa joining our podcast in December of 2025 from his home in Dublin. Many thanks again to Kenji.

For those wanting to know more about some of the topics Kenji discussed, I will link on One Little Goat Theatre Company’s podcast web page to two resources he recommends.

(1) Patrick O'Neill’s book, Finnegans Wakes: Tales of Translation, published in my backyard by University of Toronto Press.

And (2) The Making of Monolingual Japan: Language Ideology and Japanese Modernity, by Patrick Heinrich, published in England by Multilingual Matters.

I have of course also linked to finneganswake.net, where you can find Kenji’s Japanese translation of and annotations to Finnegans Wake.

Join us on new year’s day of 2026 for Episode 21 to hear actor Richard Harte continue his reading/performance of Chapter 4 of Finnegans Wake. In the meantime, I’m wishing you all peace and health for 2026.

[Music: Instrumental of “Roll, Jordan, Roll” with Adam Seelig on piano and Brandon Bak on drums, from the film of Finnegans Wake Ch03.]

Adam Seelig: For more on One Little Goat’s Finnegans Wake project, including transcripts of this podcast and the complete films of Chapters 1, 2 and 3, visit our website at OneLittleGoat.org. And to hear about upcoming performances and screenings, join our mailing list, also on our website.

Finnegans Wake is made possible by Friends of One Little Goat Theatre Company and the Emigrant Support Programme of the government of Ireland. Thank you for your support!

And thank you for listening!

[Music fades out]

[End of Ep020]

Mentioned: translator Kenji Hayakawa, existing Japanese translations of Finnegans Wake, why translate FW into Japanese, Kenji’s translation and annotations (with Yuta Imazeki) on https://finneganswake.net/, Japan Knowledge database, Fweet, standardized Japanese, 18 categories of Japanese dialects, drawing on nonstandard Japanese dialect terms to translate FW, suppression of Irish language under British rule, translating into “Japaneses” plural much as Joyce wrote FW in multiple languages (dream language), translating puns and sound, thunderword #3 in English and Japanese, thunderword as a trans-lingual magical incantation, ‘horserace’ excerpt from Ch02 in English and Japanese, starting with Ch02 rather than Ch01, Vancouver FW reading group led by Kevin Spenst, community aspect of reading and translating FW, “Ballad of Persse O’Reilly” excerpt in English and Japanese, political dimensions of “Ballad,” No Kings protest against American President Donald Trump, opening line of FW in English and Japanese, “riverrun” as “Kawaran” meaning “unchanging” in Japanese, “Kaway” meaning “river” in Japanese, ‘cultural translation’ of Irish culture, Japanese script vs Latin-letter scripts (English, German, etc.), James Joyce Digital Archive.

Resources: Transcript for this episode, including the text of Finnegans Wake.
Finnegans Wakes: Tales of Translation, Patrick O'Neill. University of Toronto, 2022.
The Making of Monolingual Japan: Language Ideology and Japanese Modernity, Patrick Heinrich. Bristol, UK, Multilingual Matters, 2012.
Kenji Hayakawa’s Japanese translation of FW Ch02 online.
Note: Kenji Hayakawa will be speaking at the James Joyce Centre in Dublin on 2026-01-15.

Episode 019: Four Judges, Sin City (92:6-96:24 of Ch04)

December 4, 2025 Adam Seelig

JAMES JOYCE’S FINNEGANS WAKE
Episode 019:
Four Judges, Sin City

PAGE 92:6-96:24 OF CHAPTER 4 | 2025-12-4

PODCAST AUDIO

PODCAST TRANSCRIPT

[Music: Instrumental of “The Ballad of Persse O’Reilly” with Adam Seelig on piano and Brandon Bak on drums, from the film series of Finnegans Wake. Music fades out]

Adam Seelig: Welcome to James Joyce’s divine and delirious comedy, Finnegans Wake. In this episode, number 19, we’ll hear Irish-Canadian actor — and my good friend and colleague — Richard Harte performing pages 92 to 96 from Chapter 4 of Joyce’s last novel. I’m Adam Seelig, the director of the reading you’ll soon hear.

I’m happy to let you know that later this month One Little Goat Theatre Company is releasing the complete film of Finnegans Wake Chapter 3 on our website and YouTube channel. Join our email list to be the first to know.

[Music: Adam Seelig plays piano]
Adam Seelig: Finnegans Wake is a production of One Little Goat Theatre Company. For the next five years, One Little Goat will film and record all 17 chapters (roughly 30 Hours) of Joyce’s Finnegans Wake before live audiences in various locations, screening and releasing them along the way, with the aim of completing the entire book in time for its 90th birthday, May 4, 2029. One Little Goat Theatre Company is an official charity in Canada and the United States — if you’d like to support our work, please visit us online at www.OneLittleGoat.org to make a charitable donation. To get in touch, you’ll find our email address on the One Little Goat Theatre Company website and we’d love to hear from you.
[Music fades out]

Adam Seelig: Today’s excerpt features the four old men, among the most amusing characters in all of Finnegans Wake. We’ll also get a first, teasing look at what might be the contents of the famous letter by ALP that promises to exonerate her beleaguered spouse HCE.

The four old men combine—as you’d expect from Finnegans Wake—the high and the low, the sacred and profane. They are at once the four Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke and John—and the four drunks of the WWI drinking song that goes something like this:

Glo-ri-ous! Glo-ri-ous!
One keg of beer for the four of us!
Glory be to God that there ain’t no more of us,
The four of us could drink it all alone!

**The four Gospels as depicted in *The Book of Kells* (c.800): Matthew (top l.), Mark (lion, top r.), Luke (eagle, bottom l.), John (ox, bottom r.).**

(For those wanting a more polished version of the song, I’ve linked to it in the transcript of this episode posted on One Little Goat’s website.) ‘The four of them,’ as I simply like to call them, are often referred to as “Mamalujo,” an abbreviation for Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. They are, in fact, the first published characters of Finnegans Wake, appearing in Ford Madox Ford’s transatlantic review just over 100 years ago (and for more on that, I’ve linked in the transcript to Peter Chrisp’s terrific blog, from swerve of shore to bend of bay).

‘The four of them’ are also the four provinces of Ireland, always appearing in the novel in the same order: first is Ulster, with its capital of Belfast; next is Munster, with Cork its capital; third is Leinster and its capital, Dublin; and last is Connacht, with its capital of Galway. In that order, with Ulster north, Munster south, Leinster east and Connacht west, they form the shape of the cross. As John Gordon explains: “The usual Mamalujo order, imposed on the map of Ireland, traces the traditional Catholic sequence of crossing oneself: up, down, left, right. (In the Orthodox churches it is up, down, right, left.)”

Adeline Glasheen contends that Mamalujo also stands for James Joyce’s spouse, daughter and son: Mama (i.e. Nora Joyce), Lucia, Giorgio. Mamalujo.

And ‘the four of them’ are also the four Gaelic authors of the monumental 17th-century chronicle of Irish history known as The Annals of the Four Masters. We met them briefly back in Chapter 1:

[Richard Harte reads] Four things therefore, saith our herodotary Mammon Lujius in his grand old historiorum, wrote near Boriorum, bluest book in baile's annals, f. t. in Dyffinarsky ne'er sall fail til heathersmoke and cloudweed Eire's ile sall pall. And here now they are, the fear of um. (13:1-5)

There’s only one small problem with these four annalists: their memories are fuzzy and often more concerned with romantic reverie than factual accuracy.

In today’s excerpt they take on the role of four judges reaching a verdict on the courtroom proceedings. The four of them put their heads together on the matter, or as the text puts it, “the four justicers laid their wigs together” (92:35), and given the general haziness of these four old men, it will come as no surprise that they default to a verdict of ‘not guilty’ for Pegger Festy / Festy King, whom we encountered in our previous episode (Ep018).

**Salvador Dalí, *Sinbad the Sailor*, 1978. Source:** **Artsy**.

Soon after, they are back in their chambers talking about our protagonists Anna Livia Plurabelle and HCEarwicker, wondering what ALP could possibly see in HCE, whom they deride as “Singabob, the badfather,” (94:33) a mere thingamabob comprised of ‘sin’ and ‘badness’ — a far cry, in other words, from the heroic Sinbad of the Arabian Nights. This then eventually leads to some recollections of past romance, along with plenty of fluid argument, or as the text calls it, “contradrinking” (96:3), and finally concludes today’s excerpt—harmoniously?—with a drunken round of the most famous glass-raising song of them all, Robbie Burns’s “Auld Lang Syne.”

Today’s excerpt also provides a teaser of ALP’s letter that will, she hopes, clear HCE’s much maligned name. “The solid man saved by his sillied woman.” (94:3) We’ll visit this letter in great detail in our next chapter, Chapter 5. In the meantime, Chapter 4 gives us a sneak peak at two letters in the letter or in reaction to the letter, plus a few marks of punctuation. The letters are “A” and “O” separated by an extended ellipsis and a question and exclamation mark, with a final exclamation mark after the “O”. If you want to see it on the page, take a look on One Little Goat’s website, and here, in the spirit of sneak peaks, is Richard Harte reading it in today’s excerpt:

Now tell me, tell me, tell me then!
What was it?
A .......... !
? ..........O! (94:19-22)

From A to O, the letter might contain everything from alpha to omega. If so, the exclamation mark at the end is well warranted!

Just prior to the letter, the text reminds us of HCE’s sin, so reminiscent of Adam and Eve’s original sin (Ep018), with the fruit of sexual knowledge here appearing via the Latin word malum meaning both ‘apple’ and ‘evil’. As the text puts it, “ana mala woe is we!” This leads to HCE’s Humpty-Dumpty-like fall, or as the text describes him, “old obster lumpky pumpkin,” adding another appropriately fall fruit to the scene. And then we’re told, “And that was how framm Sin fromm Son, acity arose, finfin funfun, a sitting arrows.” (94:16-19) So we’ve lost Paradise once again, but, like our Biblical forebears, make the most of it: from sin, from sex, children; and from such multiplying, cities and civilization. It all starts with Cupid’s prick, if you will: “a sitting arrows.” Fallen humanity raises a city. What goes down must come up and down again etc. It makes Las Vegas’s nickname redundant — every metropolis is a Sin City.

Here the Wake is recirculating the Catholic concept of felix culpa, referring to the fall of Adam and Eve as fortunate because it gives humanity the opportunity to rise again, much like the phoenix of Dublin’s Phoenix Park that’s central to Finnegans Wake. Joyce has built and based his city on sin, sex, love.

For fun (and Fin) I’d like to offer a contrasting urban model offered by 19th-century Portuguese author José Maria de Eça de Quierós (1845-1900). In de Quierós’s ingenious reimagining of humanity’s origins, titled Adam and Eve in Paradise, it’s not sinful sex but cowering fear that builds our cities. Here’s an excerpt in the new translation by Margaret Jull Costa:

We, his descendants, owe our supremacy to Adam’s cowering terror. It was thanks to those bestial threats that he was obliged to climb up to the highest peaks of Humanity. The Mesopotamian poets of Genesis revealed their understanding of Man’s origins in those subtle verses in which the Serpent, that most dangerous of creatures, leads Adam, out of love for Eve, to eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. If the troglodyte Lion had never roared, Man would not now be working in cities, because Civilization was born out of his desperate attempts to defend himself against both the Unfeeling and the Unthinking. Society is really the work of the wild beasts. (42)

Before we get to Richard’s reading, a quick synopsis of today’s excerpt in sequence… W.P. and Pegger Festy, the two witnesses to take the stand in the courtroom drama of our two previous episodes (Ep017 & Ep018) are presented in contrast, with W.P. appearing to attract all the women. Having reached their noncommittal verdict of ‘not guilty,’ the four justices release Pegger, who, unable to contain his excitement on his way out of court, lets out a massive fart that elicits cries of shame from the gallery. We then get a glimpse of ALP’s letter, as we just discussed, followed by ‘the four of them’ “contradrinking” each other about ALP and HCE.

**‘Sufferin’ Dufferin,’ Bus 29. Photo:** **Toronto Star**.

And one last note for the Canadian listeners out there: I hope you appreciate the prophetic reference in today’s reading to Toronto’s worst bus route, bus No.29 along Dufferin Street, popularly known as ‘Sufferin’ Dufferin’ (93:30).

Now it’s time for Richard’s performance of James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake, page 92 line 6 to page 96 line 24 of Chapter 4. The performance was filmed and recorded at Type Books on Queen Street West in Toronto on January 22nd, 2024 with a live audience.

[Richard Harte reads Finnegans Wake 92:6-96:24.]
[92] The hilariohoot of Pegger's Windup cumjustled as neatly
with the tristitone of the Wet Pinter's as were they isce et ille
equals of opposites, evolved by a onesame power of nature or of
spirit, iste, as the sole condition and means of its himundher
manifestation and polarised for reunion by the symphysis of
their antipathies. Distinctly different were their duasdestinies.
Whereas the maidies of the bar, (a pairless trentene, a lunarised
score) when the eranthus myrrmyrred: Show'm the Posed:
fluttered and flattered around the willingly pressed, nominating
him for the swiney prize, complimenting him, the captivating
youth, on his having all his senses about him, stincking thyacinths
through his curls (O feen! O deur!) and bringing busses to his
cheeks, their masculine Oirisher Rose (his neece cleur!), and
legando round his nice new neck for him and pizzicagnoling his
woolywags, with their dindy dandy sugar de candy mechree me
postheen flowns courier to belive them of all his untiring young
dames and send treats in their times. Ymen. But it was not un-
observed of those presents, their worships, how, of one among
all, her deputised to defeme him by the Lunar Sisters' Celibacy
Club, a lovelooking leapgirl, all all alonely, Gentia Gemma of the
Makegiddyculling Reeks, he, wan and pale in his unmixed admir-
ation, seemed blindly, mutely, tastelessly, tactlessly, innamorate
with heruponhim in shining aminglement, the shaym of his hisu
shifting into the shimmering of her hers, (youthsy, beautsy, hee's
her chap and shey'll tell memmas when she gays whom) till the
wild wishwish of her sheeshea melted most musically mid the
dark deepdeep of his shayshaun.
And whereas distracted (for was not just this in effect which
had just caused that the effect of that which it had caused to oc-
cur?) the four justicers laid their wigs together, Untius, Mun-
cius, Punchus and Pylax but could do no worse than promulgate

[93] their standing verdict of Nolans Brumans whereoneafter King,
having murdered all the English he knew, picked out his pockets
and left the tribunal scotfree, trailing his Tommeylommey's tunic
in his hurry, thereinunder proudly showing off the blink pitch to
his britgits to prove himself (an't plase yous!) a rael genteel. To
the Switz bobbyguard's curial but courtlike: Commodore valley O
hairy, Arthre jennyrosy?: the firewaterloover returted with such a
vinesmelling fortytudor ages rawdownhams tanyouhide as would
the latten stomach even of a tumass equinous (we were prepared
for the chap's clap cap, the accent, but, took us as, by surprise
and now we're geshing it like gush gash from a burner!) so that all
the twofromthirty advocatesses within echo, pulling up their briefs
at the krigkry: Shun the Punman!: safely and soundly soccered
that fenemine Parish Poser, (how dare he!) umprumptu right-
oway hames, much to his thanks, gratiasagam, to all the wrong
donatrices, biss Drinkbattle's Dingy Dwellings where (for like
your true venuson Esau he was dovetimid as the dears at
Bottome) he shat in (zoo), like the muddy goalbind who he was
(dun), the chassetitties belles conclaiming: You and your gift of
your gaft of your garbage abaht our Farvver! and gaingridando:
Hon! Verg! Nau! Putor! Skam! Schams! Shames!
And so it all ended. Artha kama dharma moksa. Ask Kavya for
the kay. And so everybody heard their plaint and all listened to
their plause. The letter! The litter! And the soother the bitther!
Of eyebrow pencilled, by lipstipple penned. Borrowing a word
and begging the question and stealing tinder and slipping like
soap. From dark Rosa Lane a sigh and a weep, from Lesbia
Looshe the beam in her eye, from lone Coogan Barry his arrow
of song, from Sean Kelly's anagrim a blush at the name, from
I am the Sullivan that trumpeting tramp, from Suffering Duf-
ferin the Sit of her Style, from Kathleen May Vernon her Mebbe
fair efforts, from Fillthepot Curran his scotchlove machree-
ther, from hymn Op. 2 Phil Adolphos the weary O, the leery,
O, from Samyouwill Leaver or Damyouwell Lover thatjolly
old molly bit or that bored saunter by, from Timm Finn again's
weak tribes, loss of strenghth to his sowheel, from the wedding

[94] on the greene, agirlies, the gretnass of joyboys, from Pat Mullen,
Tom Mallon, Dan Meldon, Don Maldon a slickstick picnic made
in Moate by Muldoons. The solid man saved by his sillied woman.
Crackajolking away like a hearse on fire. The elm that whimpers
at the top told the stone that moans when stricken. Wind broke
it. Wave bore it. Reed wrote of it. Syce ran with it. Hand tore
it and wild went war. Hen trieved it and plight pledged peace.
It was folded with cunning, sealed with crime, uptied by a harlot,
undone by a child. It was life but was it fair? It was free but was
it art? The old hunks on the hill read it to perlection. It made
ma make merry and sissy so shy and rubbed some shine off Shem
and put some shame into Shaun. Yet Una and Ita spill famine
with drought and Agrippa, the propastored, spells tripulations
in his threne. Ah, furchte fruchte, timid Danaides! Ena milo melo-
mon, frai is frau and swee is too, swee is two when swoo is free,
ana mala woe is we! A pair of sycopanties with amygdaleine
eyes, one old obster lumpky pumpkin and three meddlars on
their slies. And that was how framm Sin fromm Son, acity arose,
finfin funfun, a sitting arrows. Now tell me, tell me, tell me then!
What was it?
A .......... !
? ..........O!

So there you are now there they were, when all was over
again, the four with them, setting around upin their judges'
chambers, in the muniment room, of their marshalsea, under the
suspices of Lally, around their old traditional tables of the law
like Somany Solans to talk it over rallthesameagain. Well and
druly dry. Suffering law the dring. Accourting to king's evelyns.
So help her goat and kiss the bouc. Festives and highajinks and
jintyaun and her beetyrossy bettydoaty and not to forget now
a'duna o'darnel. The four of them and thank court now there
were no more of them. So pass the push for port sake. Be it soon.
Ah ho! And do you remember, Singabob, the badfather, the
same, the great Howdoyoucallem, and his old nickname, Dirty
Daddy Pantaloons, in his monopoleums, behind the war of the
two roses, with Michael Victory, the sheemen's preester, before

[95] he caught his paper dispillsation from the poke, old Minace and
Minster York? Do I mind? I mind the gush off the mon like Bal-
lybock manure works on a tradewinds day. And the O'Moyly
gracies and the O'Briny rossies chaffing him bluchface and play-
ing him pranks. How do you do, todo, North Mister? Get into
my way! Ah dearome forsailoshe! Gone over the bays! When
ginabawdy meadabawdy! Yerra, why would he heed that old
gasometer with his hooping coppin and his dyinboosycough and
all the birds of the southside after her, Minxy Cunningham, their
dear divorcee darling, jimmies and jonnies to be her jo? Hold
hard. There's three other corners to our isle's cork float. Sure, 'tis
well I can telesmell him H2CE3 that would take a township's
breath away! Gob and I nose him too well as I do meself, heav-
ing up the Kay Wall by the 32 to 11 with his limelooking horse-
bags full of sesameseed, the Whiteside Kaffir, and his sayman's
effluvium and his scentpainted voice, puffing out his thundering
big brown cabbage! Pa! Thawt I'm glad a gull for his pawsdeen
fiunn! Goborro, sez he, Lankyshied! Gobugga ye, sez I! O
breezes! I sniffed that lad long before anyone. It was when I was
in my farfather out at the west and she and myself, the redheaded
girl, firstnighting down Sycomore Lane. Fine feelplay we had
of it mid the kissabetts frisking in the kool kurkle dusk of the
lushiness. My perfume of the pampas, says she (meaning me)
putting out her netherlights, and I'd sooner one precious sip at
your pure mountain dew than enrich my acquaintance with that
big brewer's belch.
And so they went on, the fourbottle men, the analists, ungu-
am and nunguam and lunguam again, their anschluss about her
whosebefore and his whereafters and how she was lost away
away in the fern and how he was founded deap on deep in anear,
and the rustlings and the twitterings and the raspings and the
snappings and the sighings and the paintings and the ukukuings
and the (hist!) the springapartings and the (hast!) the bybyscutt-
lings and all the scandalmunkers and the pure craigs that used to
be (up) that time living and lying and rating and riding round
Nunsbelly Square. And all the buds in the bush. And the laugh-

[96] ing jackass. Harik! Harik! Harik! The rose is white in the darik!
And Sunfella's nose has got rhinoceritis from haunting the roes
in the parik! So all rogues lean to rhyme. And contradrinking
themselves about Lillytrilly law pon hilly and Mrs Niall of the
Nine Corsages and the old markiss their besterfar, and, arrah,
sure there was never a marcus at all at all among the manlies and
dear Sir Armoury, queer Sir Rumoury, and the old house by the
churpelizod, and all the goings on so very wrong long before
when they were going on retreat, in the old gammeldags, the
four of them, in Milton's Park under lovely Father Whisperer
and making her love with his stuffstuff in the languish of flowers
and feeling to find was she mushymushy, and wasn't that very
both of them, the saucicissters, a drahereen o machree!, and (peep!)
meeting waters most improper (peepette!) ballround the garden,
trickle trickle trickle triss, please, miman, may I go flirting?
farmers gone with a groom and how they used her, mused her,
licksed her and cuddled. I differ with ye! Are you sure of your-
self now? You're a liar, excuse me! I will not and you're an-
other! And Lully holding their breach of the peace for them. Pool
loll Lolly! To give and to take! And to forego the pasht! And
all will be forgotten! Ah ho! It was too too bad to be falling
out about her kindness pet and the shape of O O O O O O O O
Ourang's time. Well, all right, Lelly. And shakeahand. And
schenkusmore. For Craig sake. Be it suck.
[End of excerpt]

Adam Seelig: That was Richard Harte reading pages 92 to 96 of Chapter 4 from Finnegans Wake, recorded live at Type Books on Queen Street West in Toronto on January 22nd, 2024.

Join us for Episode 20 in a fortnight when Richard continues Chapter 4 of Finnegans Wake. In the meantime, to be sure you don’t miss the episode, why not follow or subscribe to this podcast?

[Music: Instrumental of “Roll, Jordan, Roll” with Adam Seelig on piano and Brandon Bak on drums, from the film of Finnegans Wake Ch03.]

Finnegans Wake is made possible by Friends of One Little Goat Theatre Company and the Emigrant Support Programme of the government of Ireland. Thank you for your support!

And thank you to the artists for this episode: Richard Harte; Sound by William Bembridge; Stage Management by Sandi Becker; Directed by yours truly, Adam Seelig.

A big thanks to Claire Foster and the staff and owners of Type Books, as well as to our wonderful live audience. Thank you to everyone at the Irish Consulate in Toronto. And thank you to Production Consultants Cathy Murphy, Andrew Moodie and Shai Rotbard-Seelig.

Thank you for listening!

[Music fades out]

[End of Ep019]

Mentioned: The four old men, ‘the four of them,’ four Gospels, Mamalujo, four provinces of Ireland, Annals of the Four Masters, four justices, the letter (of ALP to exonerate HCE), “A” and “O” as alpha to omega, cities and civilization founded on Adam and Eve’s fall, city from sin, Latin ‘malum’ as apple and evil, felix culpa, city from fear in Adam and Eve in Paradise by Eça de Quierós, synopsis.

Cited: José Maria de Eça de Quierós. Adam and Eve in Paradise (late 19th century). Trans. Margaret Jull Costa. New Directions, 2025.

Episode 018: Courtroom Drama & Thunderword (86:32-92:5 of Ch04)

November 20, 2025 Adam Seelig

JAMES JOYCE’S FINNEGANS WAKE
Episode 018:
Courtroom Drama & Thunderword

PAGE 86:32-92:5 OF CHAPTER 4 | 2025-11-20

PODCAST AUDIO

PODCAST TRANSCRIPT

[Music: Instrumental of “The Ballad of Persse O’Reilly” with Adam Seelig on piano and Brandon Bak on drums, from the film of Finnegans Wake Ch03. Music fades out]

Adam Seelig: Welcome to James Joyce’s divine and delirious comedy, Finnegans Wake. In this episode, number 18, we’ll hear Irish-Canadian actor — and my good friend and colleague — Richard Harte performing pages 86 to 92 from Chapter 4 of Joyce’s last novel. I’m Adam Seelig, the director of the reading you’ll soon hear.

**Actors Pip Dwyer & Richard Harte with EU Film Fest Artistic Director Jérémie Abessira (centre) at the screening of Chapter 3, Toronto 2025-11-18.**

I want to thank the Toronto European Film Festival for recently screening the “strawberry frolic” excerpt from Chapter 3 of our Finnegans Wake film series (you can hear the audio of that excerpt in Episode 14 of our podcast series). And I want to thank Kenji Hayakawa, Yuta Imazeki, and Kaori Hirashige for screening our films at their terrific event in Tokyo last month — I’m honoured and delighted to have been there for it in person. Last but not least, thank you to everyone in Toronto and Tokyo who attended these events.

[Music: Adam Seelig plays piano]

[Music fades out]

Adam Seelig: The poster text for the 1992 American legal comedy My Cousin Vinny starring Joe Pesci and Marisa Tomei says the following: “There have been many courtroom dramas that have glorified The Great American Legal System. This is not one of them.” Likewise, today’s excerpt from Finnegans Wake is no advertisement for Ireland’s Halls of Justice. What you’re about to hear in the dream language of the Wake is more theatre than trial as the court calls unreliable witnesses in pursuit of the elusive facts of HCEarwicker’s alleged sin. And what was that sin again of Finn-again’s Wake? It was sexual in nature. Though aren’t all human beings sexual in and by nature? The evidence building against HCE adds a dark salaciousness to the sexuality: “But it oozed out in Deadman's Dark Scenery Court through crossexanimation of the casehardened testis” (87:33-34). By the sounds of it, this case will be — to borrow a favourite phrase of police procedurals — not only a hard nut to crack, but a hard nutsack.

This brings us back to the biggest sex scandal in Irish history that led to the downfall of politician Charles Stewart Parnell in the late 1800s. As I mentioned in Episode 008, the scandal of Parnell falling for Katherine (or Kitty) O’Shea, then falling from political grace, is an eminently relatable tale because, as the Wake reminds us on virtually every page, humanity fell from grace the moment Eve and Adam were swayed by the snake and ate the forbidden fruit. And as Adeline Glasheen has shown, Parnell and the trials surrounding his affair with O’Shea pervade Finnegans Wake (Ep011).

**The O'Shea-Parnell Divorce Case (1890). Source:** **National Library of Australia**.

**Portrait of Katherine O’Shea, The O'Shea-Parnell Ddivorce Case (1890). Source:** **National Library of Australia**.

As for Adam and Eve, it would be more accurate to say that it was Eve who fell for the forbidden fruit first and in turn brought Adam down with her. So the Book of Genesis, in essence, scapegoats women for man’s fall. That’s precisely what happens in the trial of today’s excerpt: prosecutor leads witness to point finger at sinful women.

We saw this scapegoating strategy before in the “strawberry frolic” of Chapter 3 (Ep014), which encourages us to cherchez la femme, that is, ‘look for the woman’ to blame. In the language of the Wake, woman merges with fire, “Cherchons la flamme!” (64:28), and also fans those flames: “Fammfamm! Fammfamm!” (64:28-29) Similarly, in today’s excerpt, the prosecutor loads his misogyny with suggestions of hellfire and the devil himself, or herself. It’s no wonder that the 100-letter thunderword with which he emphatically concludes his questioning is made up of various phonemes meaning ‘whore.’ In a moment, we’ll take a look at this thunderword, the fourth in the novel, with a recap of the three that preceded it.

We left off the previous podcast episode (Ep017) with Crown attorney P.C. Robort questioning a disheveled character named Festy King. Now a new witness takes the stand to provide “Remarkable evidence” (86:32). He is identified not merely as an eyewitness, but as “an eye, ear, nose and throat witness,” who, as you might expect of an ENT, lives in a medical district at the address “Nullnull, Medical Square”. He’s also identified by the initials “W.P.” (86:32-34). Even Adeline Glasheen, in her thorough Census of Finnegans Wake has put an asterisk by her entry for “W.P.”, and as she explains, “An asterisk means I don’t know who somebody is.” Our ENT might be a version of Joyce’s friend Oliver St. John Gogarty (the model for Buck Mulligan in Ulysses), who was, among many things, an ENT, and/or he might, as John Gordon suggests, be a reference to Oscar Wilde’s father, also an eye and ear specialist, who lived at Two Merrion Square at the centre of Dublin’s medical establishment. Our witness, W.P. has had a little to drink in the morning, not unlike Tim Finnegan of the “Finnegan’s Wake” folk song (Ep001), and he tells the court that he saw — and heard and tasted and smelled, as is his wont — a man known as Hyacinth O’Donnell committing some violence, though W.P.’s account is questionable given how late and dark it was at the time.

**Diary of the Parnell Commission (1890), John Macdonald.**

The rowdy courtroom gallery cries out for O’Donnell to take the stand, and he does. Who is O’Donnell? He’s identified as a “mixer” (87:13, 88:4) — which strikes me as a characteristically Wakean, fluid identity — and his name, as Glasheen points out, echoes that of John MacDonald, author of the account of the Parnell Commission that inspires the trial of today’s excerpt.

And the exchange between prosecutor and O’Donnell is inspired indeed as the former mines the latter for evidence that might incriminate HCE. Our prosecutor is resourceful, clever, creative, at times seeming to go easy on the witness, at others setting traps, dropping hints, talking in code, changing tac, and ultimately leading the witness with question after question. So what was HCE’s crime, his sin? Perhaps, as the Wake often suggests, it was Original Sin itself, partaking of the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden. As the prosecutor asks, “In the middle of the garth, then?” To which O’Donnell responds, “That they mushn’t toucht it.” (90:14-15) From here, not unlike the OG tale of Genesis, prosecutor scapegoats women for the fall. He may not have a smoking gun for HCE, but at least our prosecutor’s got someone to blame, culminating in his rabid 100-letter thunderword.

**“Adam and Eve,” Titian, ca. 1550. Source:** **Museo del Prado**.

The ten thunderwords of Finnegans Wake are extraordinary, as is Richard Harte’s delivery of them. Here, as promised, is a recap of the three preceding 100-letter thunderwords for your listening pleasure.

This is the first one, on the opening page, built out of multilingual phonemes meaning, appropriately, thunder:

[Richard Harte reads Finnegans Wake 3:15-18.] The fall (bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonnerronntuonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthurnuk!) of a once wallstrait oldparr of a once wallstrait oldparr is retaled early in bed and later on life down through all christian minstrelsy. (Ep002)

Just as thunder here falls dramatically from the sky, so Tim Finnegan falls from his ladder; and just as Tim Finnegan falls, so too does Jarl van Hoother from his fortress at the conclusion of the prankquean fable, generating the second thunderword, also comprised of phonemes for thunder:

[Richard Harte reads Finnegans Wake 23:5-9.] And the duppy shot the shutter clup (Perkodhuskurunbarggruauyagokgorlayorgromgremmitghundhurthrumathunaradidillifaititillibumullunukkunun!) And they all drank free. For one man in his armour was a fat match always for any girls under shurts. (Ep005)

**Walter De Maria, “The Lightning Field” (1977), New Mexico. Source:** **Dia**.

The tale of the fall, as we discovered from the first thunderword, is retold through the ages, and indeed the second thunderword has told us again of the fall, this time of man falling to woman, male standing no chance against female — a phenomenon dating back to the mythological dawn of humanity, when Eve tempted Adam and woman perverted man.

The third thunderword, combining the crash of a fallen glass with the clap of a crowd gathered to hear Hosty’s salacious ballad with the crap the shit-talking Hosty is about to unload on HCE, adds to our protagonist’s moral fall — here the multilingual phonemes all signify ‘shit’:

[Richard Harte reads Finnegans Wake 44:13-15.] It’s cumming, it’s brumming! The clip, the clop! (All cla) Glass crash. The (klikkaklakkaklaskaklopatzklatschabattacreppycrottygraddaghsemmihsammihnouithappluddyappladdypkonpkot!). (Ep009)

And the fourth thunderword, which you’ll soon hear in today’s excerpt, leans viciously, and ludicrously, into the perceived culpability of woman in the continual fall of man.

Following the thunderword, we hear from a witness named Pegger Festy, who may be a transformation of Festy King, the first person to take the stand (in our previous episode). Like Festy King before him, Pegger Festy appears to be a disheveled mess. Pegger sounds like beggar; it’s also slang for ‘hard drinker’; and it’s also Hebrew for ‘corpse’ — perhaps Pegger likes to drink himself stiff? In any event, here he provides laughable testimony resulting in, well, laughter from the courtroom.

Now it’s time for Richard’s performance of James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake, 86 line 32 to page 92 line 5 of Chapter 4. The performance was filmed and recorded at Type Books on Queen Street West in Toronto on January 22nd, 2024 with a live audience.

[Richard Harte reads Finnegans Wake 86:32-92:5.]

[86] Remarkable evidence was given, anon, by an eye, ear, nose
and throat witness, whom Wesleyan chapelgoers suspected of
being a plain clothes priest W.P., situate at Nullnull, Medical
Square, who, upon letting down his rice and peacegreen cover-
disk and having been sullenly cautioned against yawning while

[87] being grilled, smiled (he had had a onebumper at parting from
Mrs Molroe in the morning) and stated to his eliciter under his
morse mustaccents (gobbless!) that he slept with a bonafides and
that he would be there to remember the filth of November,
hatinaring, rowdy O, which, with the jiboulees of Juno and the
dates of ould lanxiety, was going, please the Rainmaker, to
decembs within the ephemerides of profane history, all one with
Tournay, Yetstoslay and Temorah, and one thing which would
pigstickularly strike a person of such sorely tried observational
powers as Sam, him and Moffat, though theirs not to reason why,
the striking thing about it was that he was patrified to see, hear,
taste and smell, as his time of night, how Hyacinth O'Donnell,
B.A., described in the calendar as a mixer and wordpainter, with
part of a sivispacem (Gaeltact for dungfork) on the fair green
at the hour of twenty-four o'clock sought (the bullycassidy of
the friedhoffer!) to sack, sock, stab and slaughter singlehanded
another two of the old kings, Gush Mac Gale and Roaring
O'Crian, Jr., both changelings, unlucalised, of no address and
in noncommunicables, between him and whom, ever since wal-
lops before the Mise of Lewes, bad blood existed on the ground
of the boer's trespass on the bull or because he firstparted his
polarbeeber hair in twoways, or because they were creepfoxed
andt grousuppers over a nippy in a noveletta, or because they
could not say meace, (mute and daft) meathe. The litigants, he
said, local congsmen and donalds, kings of the arans and the dalk-
eys, kings of mud and tory, even the goat king of Killorglin,
were egged on by their supporters in the shape of betterwomen
with bowstrung hair of Carrothagenuine ruddiness, waving crim-
son petties and screaming from Isod's towertop. There were
cries from the thicksets in court and from the macdublins on the
bohernabreen of: Mind the bank from Banagher, Mick, sir! Pro-
dooce O'Donner. Ay! Exhibit his relics! Bu! Use the tongue
mor! Give lip less! But it oozed out in Deadman's Dark Scenery
Court through crossexanimation of the casehardened testis that
when and where that knife of knifes the treepartied ambush was
laid (roughly spouting around half hours 'twixt dusk in dawn,

[88] by Waterhose's Meddle Europeic Time, near Stop and Think,
high chief evervirens and only abfalltree in auld the land) there
was not as much light from the widowed moon as would dim a
child's altar. The mixer, accordingly, was bluntly broached, and
in the best basel to boot, as to whether he was one of those
lucky cocks for whom the audible-visible-gnosible-edible world
existed. That he was only too cognitively conatively cogitabun-
dantly sure of it because, living, loving, breathing and sleeping
morphomelosophopancreates, as he most significantly did, when-
ever he thought he heard he saw he felt he made a bell clipper-
clipperclipperclipper. Whether he was practically sure too of his
lugs and truies names in this king and blouseman business? That
he was pediculously so. Certified? As cad could be. Be lying! Be
the lonee I will. It was Morbus O' Somebody? A'Quite. Szer-
day's Son? A satyr in weddens. And how did the greeneyed
mister arrive at the B.A.? That it was like his poll. A cross-
grained trapper with murty odd oogs, awflorated ares, inquiline
nase and a twithcherous mouph? He would be. Who could bit
you att to a tenyerdfuul when aastalled? Ballera jobbera. Some
majar bore too? Iguines. And with tumblerous legs, redipnomi-
nated Helmingham Erchenwyne Rutter Egbert Crumwall Odin
Maximus Esme Saxon Esa Vercingetorix Ethelwulf Rupprecht
Ydwalla Bentley Osmund Dysart Yggdrasselmann? Holy Saint
Eiffel, the very phoenix! It was Chudley Magnall once more
between the deffodates and the dumb scene? The two childspies
waapreesing him auza de Vologue but the renting of his rock
was from the three wicked Vuncouverers Forests bent down
awhits, arthou sure? Yubeti, Cumbilum comes! One of the ox-
men's thingabossers, hvad? And had he been refresqued by the
founts of bounty playing there — is — a — pain — aleland in
Long's gourgling barral? A loss of Lordedward and a lack of sir-
philip a surgeonet showeradown could suck more gargling
bubbles out of the five lamps in Portterand's praise. Wirrgeling
and maries? As whose wouldn't, laving his leaftime in Black-
pool. But, of course, he could call himself Tem, too, if he had
time to? You butt he could anytom. When he pleased? Win and

[89] place. A stoker temptated by evesdripping aginst the driver who
was a witness as well? Sacred avatar, how the devil did they
guess it! Two dreamyums in one dromium? Yes and no error.
And both as like as a duel of lentils? Peacisely. So he was pelted
out of the coram populo, was he? Be the powers that be he was.
The prince in principel should not expose his person? Mac-
chevuole! Rooskayman kamerad? Sooner Gallwegian he would
say. Not unintoxicated, fair witness? Drunk as a fishup. Askt to
whether she minded whither he smuked? Not if he barkst into
phlegms. Anent his ajaciulations to his Crosscann Lorne, cossa?
It was corso in cursu on coarser again. The gracious miss was
we not doubt sensible how yellowatty on the forx was altered?
That she esually was, O'Dowd me not! As to his religion, if
any? It was the see-you-Sunday sort. Exactly what he meant by
a pederast prig? Bejacob's, just a gent who prayed his lent. And
if middleclassed portavorous was a usual beast? Bynight as useful
as a vomit to a shorn man. If he had rognarised dtheir gcourts
marsheyls? Dthat nday in ndays he had. Lindendelly, coke or
skilllies spell me gart without a gate? Harlyadrope. The grazing
rights (Mrs Magistra Martinetta) expired with the expiry of the
goat's sire, if they were not mistaken? That he exactly could not
tell the worshipfuls but his mother-in-waders had the recipis for
the price of the coffin and that he was there to tell them that
herself was the velocipede that could tell them kitcat. A maun-
darin tongue in a pounderin jowl? Father ourder about the
mathers of prenanciation. Distributary endings? And we recom-
mends. Quare hircum? No answer. Unde gentium fe . . . ? No ah.
Are you not danzzling on the age of a vulcano? Siar, I am deed.
And how olld of him? He was intendant to study pulu. Which
was meant in a shirt of two shifts macoghamade or up Finn,
threehatted ladder? That a head in thighs under a bush at the
sunface would bait a serpent to a millrace through the heather.
Arm bird colour defdum ethnic fort perharps? Sure and glomsk
handy jotalpheson as well. Hokey jasons, then, in a pigeegeeses?
On a pontiff's order as ture as there's an ital on atac. As a gololy
bit to joss? Leally and tululy. But, why this hankowchaff and

[90] whence this second tone, son-yet-sun? He had the cowtaw in his
buxers flay of face. So this that Solasistras, setting odds evens at
defiance, took the laud from Labouriter? What displaced Tob,
Dilke and Halley, not been greatly in love with the game. And,
changing the venders, from the king's head to the republican's
arms, as to the pugnaxities evinxed from flagfall to antepost
during the effrays round fatherthyme's beckside and the regents
in the plantsown raining, with the skiddystars and the morkern-
windup, how they appealed to him then? That it was wildfires
night on all the bettygallaghers. Mickmichael's soords shrieking
shrecks through the wilkinses and neckanicholas' toastingforks
pricking prongs up the tunnybladders. Let there be fight? And
there was. Foght. On the site of the Angel's, you said? Guinney's
Gap, he said, between what they said and the pussykitties. In the
middle of the garth, then? That they mushn't toucht it. The de-
voted couple was or were only two disappainted solicitresses on
the job of the unfortunate class on Saturn's mountain fort? That
was about it, jah! And Camellus then said to Gemellus: I should
know you? Parfaitly. And Gemellus then said to Camellus: Yes,
your brother? Obsolutely. And if it was all about that, egregious
sir? About that and the other. If he was not alluding to the whole
in the wall? That he was when he was not eluding from the whole
of the woman. Briefly, how such beginall finally struck him now?
Like the crack that bruck the bank in Multifarnham. Whether he
fell in with what they meant? Cursed that he suppoxed he did.
Thos Thoris, Thomar's Thom? The rudacist rotter in Roebuck-
dom. Surtopical? And subhuman. If it was, in yappanoise lan-
guage, ach bad clap? Oo! Ah! Augs and ohrs with Rhian O'-
kehley to put it tertianly, we wrong? Shocking! Such as turly
pearced our really's that he might, that he might never, that he
might never that night? Treely and rurally. Bladyughfoulmoeck-
lenburgwhurawhorascortastrumpapornanennykocksapastippata -
ppatupperstrippuckputtanach, eh? You have it alright.
Meirdreach an Oincuish! But a new complexion was put upon
the matter when to the perplexedly uncondemnatory bench
(whereon punic judgeship strove with penal law) the senior

[91] king of all, Pegger Festy, as soon as the outer layer of stuccko-
muck had been removed at the request of a few live jurors,
declared in a loudburst of poesy, through his Brythonic inter-
preter on his oath, mhuith peisth mhuise as fearra bheura muirre
hriosmas, whereas take notice be the relics of the bones of the
story bouchal that was ate be Cliopatrick (the sow) princess
of parked porkers, afore God and all their honours and king's
commons that, what he would swear to the Tierney of Dundal-
gan or any other Tierney, yif live thurkells folloged him about
sure that was no steal and that, nevertheless, what was deposited
from that eyebold earbig noseknaving gutthroat, he did not fire
a stone either before or after he was born down and up to that
time. And, incidentalising that they might talk about Markarthy
or they might walk to Baalastartey or they might join the nabour
party and come on to Porterfeud this the sockdologer had the
neck to endorse with the head bowed on him over his outturned
noreaster by protesting to his lipreaders with a justbeencleaned
barefacedness, abeam of moonlight's hope, in the same trelawney
what he would impart, pleas bench, to the Llwyd Josus and the
gentlemen in Jury's and the four of Masterers who had been all
those yarns yearning for that good one about why he left
Dublin, that, amreeta beaker coddling doom, as an Inishman was
as good as any cantonnatal, if he was to parish by the market steak
before the dorming of the mawn, he skuld never ask to see sight or
light of this world or the other world or any either world, of Tyre-
nan-Og, as true as he was there in that jackabox that minute, or
wield or wind (no thanks t'yous!) the inexousthausthible wassail-
horn tot of iskybaush the hailth up the wailth of the endknown ab-
god of the fire of the moving way of the hawks with his heroes in
Warhorror if ever in all his exchequered career he up or lave a
chancery hand to take or throw the sign of a mortal stick or stone
at man, yoelamb or salvation army either before or after being
puptised down to that most holy and every blessed hour. Here,
upon the halfkneed castleknocker's attempting kithoguishly to
lilt his holymess the paws and make the sign of the Roman God-
helic faix, (Xaroshie, zdrst!— in his excitement the laddo had

[92] broken exthro Castilian into which the whole audience perse-
guired and pursuited him olla podrida) outbroke much yellach-
ters from owners in the heall (Ha!) in which, under the mollifi-
cation of methaglin, the testifighter reluctingly, but with ever so
ladylike indecorum, joined. (Ha! Ha!)
[End of excerpt]

Adam Seelig: That was Richard Harte reading pages 86 to 92 of Chapter 4 from Finnegans Wake, recorded live at Type Books on Queen Street West in Toronto on January 22nd, 2024. Join us for Episode 19 in a fortnight when Richard continues Chapter 4 of Finnegans Wake. In the meantime, to be sure you don’t miss the episode, why not follow or subscribe to this podcast?

[Music: Instrumental of “Roll, Jordan, Roll” with Adam Seelig on piano and Brandon Bak on drums, from the film of Finnegans Wake Ch03.]

For more on One Little Goat’s Finnegans Wake project, including transcripts of this podcast and the complete films of Chapters 1 and 2, visit our website at OneLittleGoat.org. And to hear about upcoming performances and screenings, join our mailing list, also on our website. One Little Goat Theatre Company is a nonprofit, artist-driven, registered charity in the United States and Canada that depends on donations from individuals to make our productions, including this one, possible. If you’re able, please make a tax-deductible donation through our website, www.OneLittleGoat.org Finnegans Wake is made possible by Friends of One Little Goat Theatre Company and the Emigrant Support Programme of the government of Ireland. Thank you for your support! And thank you to the artists for this episode: Richard Harte; Sound by William Bembridge; Stage Management by Sandi Becker; Directed by yours truly, Adam Seelig. A big thanks to Claire Foster and the staff and owners of Type Books, as well as to our wonderful live audience. Thank you to everyone at the Irish Consulate in Toronto. And thank you to Production Consultants Cathy Murphy, Andrew Moodie and Shai Rotbard-Seelig. Thank you for listening!

[Music fades out]

[End of Ep018]

Mentioned: EU Film Fest, Tokyo screening, courtroom comedy, elusive evidence on HCE’s alleged sin, Parnell and O’Shea sex scandal, Adam and Eve, Original Sin, woman as scapegoat, misogyny, new witnesses W.P. and Hyacinth O’Donnell and Pegger Festy, thunderwords 1-4, retelling the fall, synopsis.

Episode 017: Last Battle (81:12-86:31 of Ch04)

November 6, 2025 Adam Seelig

JAMES JOYCE’S FINNEGANS WAKE
Episode 017: LAST BATTLE

PAGE 81:12-86:31 OF CHAPTER 4 | 2025-11-06

PODCAST AUDIO

PODCAST TRANSCRIPT

[Music: Instrumental of “The Ballad of Persse O’Reilly” with Adam Seelig on piano and Brandon Bak on drums, from the film of Finnegans Wake Ch03. Music fades out]

Adam Seelig: Welcome to James Joyce’s divine and delirious comedy, Finnegans Wake. In this episode, number 17, we’ll hear Irish-Canadian actor — and my good friend and colleague — Richard Harte performing pages 81 to 86 from Chapter 4 of Joyce’s last novel. I’m Adam Seelig, the director of the reading you’ll soon hear.

**Pip Dwyer and little sister Kate near Clifden County Galway, summer 1993.**

Irish-Canadian actor Pip Dwyer has joined the cast of our film/podcast series for Chapter 8 of the novel, which we recently shot at what might be the most fitting venue in all of Toronto, given that Chapter 8 is known as ‘the washerwomen’ chapter: and that is a laundromat called Ulster Coin Wash. Yes, to the Irish listeners out there, Toronto, once called ‘the Belfast of Canada,’ has a robust history of Northern Irish Protestant immigration, resulting in a downtown residential street named Ulster, where you will find, naturally, Ulster Coin Wash. We will edit and release Chapter 8 in the future, and I promise you, it’s truly something to look forward to.

[Music: Adam Seelig plays piano]

[Music fades out]

Adam Seelig: John Cage’s essay on “Experimental Music” (1957) provides a way of thinking about Joyce’s ‘Experimental Novel’ — and I’m sure in what I’m about to quote you’ll notice John Cage’s use of the verb ‘to wake’:

And what is the purpose of writing music? One is, of course, not dealing with purposes but dealing with sounds. Or the answer must take the form of paradox: a purposeful purposelessness or a purposeless play. This play, however, is an affirmation of life – not an attempt to bring order out of chaos nor to suggest improvements in creation, but simply a way of waking up to the very life we’re living… (Silence 12)

Joyce’s Finnegans Wake was a major inspiration and source text for John Cage, so I’m not surprised that the stated purpose of Cage’s playfully purposeless art, like Joyce’s, is to wake us.

Sex and violence: in Chapter 4 we get the violence first. Today’s reading opens with the fourth and final confrontation between the Cad and our protagonist, HCEarwicker.

The first confrontation occurs in chapter 2 when HCE encounters the so-called Cad. [Richard Harte reads] “he met a cad with a pipe” (35:10-11, Ep008)

The second, a variation on the first, makes a gun more explicit, and also puts a kind of English complexion on the Cad. [Harte reads] “It was after the show at Wednesbury that one tall man, humping a suspiciousparcel, when returning late amid a dense particular on his home way from the second house of the Boore and Burgess Christy Menestrels by the old spot, Roy's Corner, had a barkiss revolver placed to his faced with the words: you're shot, major: by an unknowable assailant (masked)” (62:26-33, Ep013).

That’s from Chapter 3, which later includes another variation on this confrontation, this time with the Cad appearing as a German newspaper reporter, Herr Betreffender (69:32), who attacks Earwicker with a verbal barrage of 111 insults. [Harte reads] “W.D.'s Grace, Gibbering Bayamouth of Dublin, His Farther was a Mundzucker and She had him in a Growler, Burnham and Bailey, Artist, Unworthy of the Homely Protestant Religion, Terry Cotter, You're Welcome to Waterfood…” (71:19-22, Ep015). That’s confrontation #3.

The fourth and final one, the ‘last battle,’ if you will, occurs now in Chapter 4, with the fight instigated by an “attackler” described as “a cropatkin” (81:18), making him either (or both) a Russian revolutionary (McHugh) and/or Irish anarchist (Rose). And they fight, the attacker attacking and the defender, HCE, defending. But as so often happens in the fluid, dream language of Finnegans Wake, these opposing figures become confused to the point where we can no longer tell the attacker from the attacked. Perhaps they’re ultimately one and the same; perhaps they’re both HCE himself, as Danis Rose has theorized, and the confrontations we’ve been witnessing all along are internal to the sleeping Earwicker, divided within, and at times against, himself. No wonder both assailant and assailed need to break after their brawl not merely for refreshment, but for a complete refresh of identity, or as the Wake puts it, they take a “pause for refleshmeant, the same man (or a different and younger him of the same ham)” (82:10-11).

This merging of identities, which happens throughout the novel, reminds me in particular of a phrase early in Chapter 3: “by the coincidance of their contraries reamalgamerge in that indentity of undiscernibles where the Baxters and the Fleshmans may they cease to bidivil uns…” (49:36-50:2). I love that “coincidance of their contraries”.

The “purposeful purposelessness or purposeless play” of Chapter 4 continues with some “collidabanter” between the attacker and the attacked, who appear to make up and get along before parting ways. One of them crosses a bridge, spits out his teeth—a very dream-like image—and, still bloody from the brawl, files a police report (84).

Adaline Glasheen points out that the pattern of encounter, plea, attack and counter-attack may owe something to Charles Baudelaire’s fable “Let's Beat Up the Poor!” (Assomons les pauvres !, 1865), in which the narrator randomly attacks a beggar (Glasheen, “Beggar” entry, 27). The beggar’s counter-attack, however, is so successful that the narrator ultimately acknowledges the beggar as his equal. “Monsieur, vous êtes mon égal !” (“Sir, you are my equal!”) That the Wake goes further by fusing and confusing the opposing parties might be something else Joyce learned from Baudelaire, in this case from the French poet’s most famous line of all: “Hypocrite lecteur, — mon semblable, — mon frère!” (Au Lecteur, 1857); “Hypocrite — brother — we’re the same!”

John Tenniel’s illustration of the trial in *Alice in Wonderland* (1890).

And then we’re at a trial. You’ll hear the court convened and called to order to solve “the wasnottobe crime cunundrum” of HCE (85:22), the crime conundrum being the hazy sin committed by our protagonist which the Dublin public won’t let go of since the scandal surrounding it first spread back in Chapter 2. To allege HCE of wrongdoing, let alone convict him, based on a “wasnottobe crime cunundrum” could not possibly hold up ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’ in any proper court of law. Luckily for us readers and listeners, this court is far from proper, resembling more of a show trial or kangaroo court à la Lewis Carroll’s Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland or the 1992 courtroom comedy My Cousin Vinny.

A drunk prisoner, Festy King, is called to the stand, though he’s hardly a reliable witness given that he comes from “a family long and honourably associated with the tar and feather industries” (85:22-23). Crown attorney P.C. Robort attempts to dig up dirt on HCE via Festy King. And the public gallery, “convened by the Irish Angricultural and Prepostoral Ouraganisations” (86:20-21), is clearly ready to get their hate on. There’s plenty of purposeful purposelessness at play.

Now it’s time for Richard’s performance of James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake, 81 line 12 to page 86 line 31 of Chapter 4.

The performance was filmed and recorded at Type Books on Queen Street West in Toronto on January 22nd, 2024 with a live audience.

[Richard Harte reads Finnegans Wake 75:1-81:11.]

[81] It was hard by the howe's there, plainly on this disoluded and a
buchan cold spot, rupestric then, resurfaced that now is, that
Luttrell sold if Lautrill bought, in the saddle of the Brennan's
(now Malpasplace?) pass, versts and versts from true civilisation,
not where his dreams top their traums halt (Beneathere! Bena-
there!) but where livland yontide meared with the wilde, saltlea
with flood, that the attackler, a cropatkin, though under medium
and between colours with truly native pluck, engaged the Adver-
sary who had more in his eye than was less to his leg but whom for
plunder sake, he mistook in the heavy rain to be Oglethorpe or
some other ginkus, Parr aparrently, to whom the headandheel-
less chickenestegg bore some Michelangiolesque resemblance,
making use of sacrilegious languages to the defect that he would
challenge their hemosphores to exterminate them but he would
cannonise the b — y b — r's life out of him and lay him out
contritely as smart as the b — r had his b — y nightprayers
said, three patrecknocksters and a couplet of hellmuirries (tout
est sacré pour un sacreur, femme à barbe ou homme-nourrice) at the
same time, so as to plugg well let the blubbywail ghoats out of
him, catching holst of an oblong bar he had and with which he
usually broke furnitures he rose the stick at him. The boarder
incident prerepeated itself. The pair (whethertheywere Nippo-
luono engaging Wei-Ling-Taou or de Razzkias trying to recon-
noistre the general Boukeleff, man may not say), struggled
apairently for some considerable time, (the cradle rocking equally

[82] to one and oppositely from the other on its law of capture and
recapture), under the All In rules around the booksafe, fighting
like purple top and tipperuhry Swede, (Secremented Servious of
the Divine Zeal!) and in the course of their tussle the toller man,
who had opened his bully bowl to beg, said to the miner who
was carrying the worm (a handy term for the portable distillery
which consisted of three vats, two jars and several bottles though
we purposely say nothing of the stiff, both parties having an
interest in the spirits): Let me go, Pautheen! I hardly knew ye.
Later on, after the solstitial pause for refleshmeant, the same
man (or a different and younger him of the same ham) asked in
the vermicular with a very oggly chew-chin-grin: Was six vic-
tolios fifteen pigeon takee offa you, tell he me, stlongfella, by
picky-pocky ten to foul months behindaside? There were some
further collidabanter and severe tries to convert for the best part
of an hour and now a woden affair in the shape of a webley (we
at once recognise our old friend Ned of so many illortemporate
letters) fell from the intruser who, as stuck as that cat to that
mouse in that tube of that christchurch organ, (did the imnage of
Girl Cloud Pensive flout above them light young charm, in
ribbons and pigtail?) whereupon became friendly and, saying not
his shirt to tear, to know wanted, joking and knobkerries all
aside laying, if his change companion who stuck still to the in-
vention of his strongbox, with a tenacity corrobberating their
mutual tenitorial rights, happened to have the loots change of
a tenpound crickler about him at the moment, addling that hap
so, he would pay him back the six vics odd, do you see, out of
that for what was taken on the man of samples last Yuni or Yuly,
do you follow me, Capn? To this the other, Billi with the Boule,
who had mummed and mauled up to that (for he was hesitency
carried to excelcism) rather amusedly replied: Woowoo would
you be grossly surprised, Hill, to learn that, as it so happens, I
honestly have not such a thing as the loo, as the least chance of
a tinpanned crackler anywhere about me at the present moho-
moment but I believe I can see my way, as you suggest, it
being Yuletide or Yuddanfest and as it's mad nuts, son, for you

[83] when it's hatter's hares, mon, for me, to advance you something
like four and sevenpence between hopping and trapping which
you might just as well have, boy baches, to buy J. J. and S. with.
There was a minute silence before memory's fire's rekindling and
then. Heart alive! Which at very first wind of gay gay and whisk-
wigs wick's ears pricked up, the starving gunman, strike him
pink, became strangely calm and forthright sware by all his lards
porsenal that the thorntree of sheol might ramify up his Sheo-
fon to the lux apointlex but he would go good to him suntime
marx my word fort, for a chip off the old Flint, (in the Nichtian
glossery which purveys aprioric roots for aposteriorious tongues
this is nat language at any sinse of the world and one might as
fairly go and kish his sprogues as fail to certify whether the
wartrophy eluded at some lives earlier was that somethink like a
jug, to what, a coctable) and remarxing in languidoily, seemingly
much more highly pleased than tongue could tell at this opening
of a lifetime and the foretaste of the Dun Bank pearlmothers
and the boy to wash down which he would feed to himself in
the Ruadh Cow at Tallaght and then into the Good Woman at
Ringsend and after her inat Conway's Inn at Blackrock and, first
to fall, cursed be all, where appetite would keenest be, atte,
funeral fare or fun fain real, Adam and Eve's in Quantity Street
by the grace of gamy queen Tailte, her will and testament: You
stunning little southdowner! I'd know you anywhere, Declaney,
let me truthfully tell you in or out of the lexinction of life and
who the hell else, be your blanche patch on the boney part!
Goalball I've struck this daylit dielate night of nights, by golly!
My hat, you have some bully German grit, sundowner! He
spud in his faust (axin); he toped the raw best (pardun); he
poked his pick (a tip is a tap): and he tucked his friend's leave. And,
with French hen or the portlifowlium of hastes and leisures, about
to continue that, the queer mixture exchanged the pax in embrace
or poghue puxy as practised between brothers of the same breast,
hillelulia, killelulia, allenalaw, and, having ratified before the
god of the day their torgantruce which belittlers have schmall-
kalled the treatyng to cognac, turning his fez menialstrait in the

[84] direction of Moscas, he first got rid of a few mitsmillers and
hurooshoos and levanted off with tubular jurbulance at a bull's
run over the assback bridge, spitting his teeths on rooths, with the
seven and four in danegeld and their humoral hurlbat or other
uncertain weapon of lignum vitae, but so evermore rhumanasant of
a toboggan poop, picked up to keep some crowplucking ap-
pointment with some rival rialtos anywheres between Pearidge
and the Littlehorn while this poor delaney, who they left along
with the confederate fender behind and who albeit ballsbluffed,
bore up wonderfully wunder all of it with a whole number of
plumsized contusiums, plus alasalah bruised coccyx, all over him,
reported the occurance in the best way he could, to the flabber-
gaze of the whole lab, giving the Paddybanners the military
salute as for his exilicy's the O'Daffy, in justifiable hope that,
in nobiloroman review of the hugely sitisfactuary conclusium
of their negotiations and the jugglemonkysh agripment dein-
derivative, some lotion or fomentation of poppyheads would be
jennerously exhibited to the parts, at the nearest watchhouse in
Vicar Lane, the white ground of his face all covered with digon-
ally redcrossed nonfatal mammalian blood as proofpositive of the
seriousness of his character and that he was bleeding in self
defience (stanch it!) from the nostrils, lips, pavilion and palate,
while some of his hitter's hairs had been pulled off his knut's
head by Colt though otherwise his allround health appeared to
be middling along as it proved most fortunate that not one of
the two hundred and six bones and five hundred and one muscles
in his corso was a whit the whorse for her whacking. Herwho?
Nowthen, leaving clashing ash, brawn and muscle and brass-
made to oust earthernborn and rockcrystal to wreck isinglass but
wurming along gradually for our savings backtowards mother-
waters so many miles from bank and Dublin stone (olympiading
even till the eleventh dynasty to reach that thuddysickend Ham-
laugh) and to the question of boney's unlawfully obtaining a
pierced paraflamme and claptrap fireguard there crops out the
still more salient point of the politish leanings and town pursuits
of our forebeer, El Don De Dunelli, (may his ship thicked stick

[85] in the bottol of the river and all his crewsers stock locked in the
burral of the seas!) who, when within the black of your toenail,
sir, of being mistakenly ambushed by one of the uddahveddahs,
and as close as made no matter, mam, to being kayoed offhand
when the hyougono heckler with the Peter the Painter wanted
to hole him, was consistently practising the first of the primary
and imprescriptible liberties of the pacific subject by circulating
(be British, boys to your bellybone and chuck a chum a chance!)
alongst one of our umphrohibited semitary thrufahrts, open to
buggy and bike, to walk, Wellington Park road, with the curb
or quaker's quacknostrum under his auxter and his alpenstuck in
his redhand, a highly commendable exercise, or, number two of
our acta legitima plebeia, on the brink (beware to baulk a man at
his will!) of taking place upon a public seat, to what, bare by
Butt's, most easterly (but all goes west!) of blackpool bridges, as
a public protest and naturlikevice, without intent to annoy either,
being praisegood thankfully for the wrathbereaved ringdove and
the fearstung boaconstrictor and all the more right jollywell
pleased, which he was, at having other people's weather.
But to return to the atlantic and Phenitia Proper. As if that
were not to be enough for anyone but little headway, if any, was
made in solving the wasnottobe crime cunundrum when a child
of Maam, Festy King, of a family long and honourably associ-
ated with the tar and feather industries, who gave an address in
old plomansch Mayo of the Saxons in the heart of a foulfamed
potheen district, was subsequently haled up at the Old Bailey
on the calends of Mars, under an incompatibly framed indictment
of both the counts (from each equinoxious points of view, the one
fellow's fetch being the other follow's person) that is to see, flying
cushats out of his ouveralls and making fesses immodst his forces
on the field. Oyeh! Oyeh! When the prisoner, soaked in methyl-
ated, appeared in dry dock, appatently ambrosiaurealised, like
Kersse's Korduroy Karikature, wearing, besides stains, rents and
patches, his fight shirt, straw braces, souwester and a policeman's
corkscrew trowswers, all out of the true (as he had purposely torn
up all his cymtrymanx bespokes in the mamertime), deposing for

[86] his exution with all the fluors of sparse in the royal Irish vocabulary
how the whole padderjagmartin tripiezite suet and all the sulfeit
of copperas had fallen off him quatz unaccountably like the
chrystalisations of Alum on Even while he was trying for to stick
fire to himcell, (in feacht he was dripping as he found upon strip-
ping for a pipkin ofmalt as he feared the coold raine) it was
attempted by the crown (P.C. Robort) to show that King, elois
Crowbar, once known as Meleky, impersonating a climbing boy,
rubbed some pixes of any luvial peatsmoor o'er his face, plucks
and pussas, with a clanetourf as the best means of disguising him-
self and was to the middlewhite fair in Mudford of a Thoorsday,
feishts of Peeler and Pole, under the illassumed names of
Tykingfest and Rabworc picked by him and Anthony out of a
tellafun book, ellegedly with a pedigree pig (unlicensed) and a
hyacinth. They were on that sea by the plain of Ir nine hundred
and ninetynine years and they never cried crack or ceased from
regular paddlewicking till that they landed their two and a
trifling selves, amadst camel and ass, greybeard and suckling,
priest and pauper, matrmatron and merrymeg, into the meddle
of the mudstorm. The gathering, convened by the Irish Angri-
cultural and Prepostoral Ouraganisations, to help the Irish muck
to look his brother dane in the face and attended thanks to
Larry by large numbers, of christies and jew's totems, tospite of
the deluge, was distinctly of a scattery kind when the bally-
bricken he could get no good of, after cockofthewalking through
a few fancyfought mains ate some of the doorweg, the pikey
later selling the gentleman ratepayer because she, Francie's sister,
that is to say, ate a whole side of his (the animal's) sty, on a
struggle Street, Qui Sta Troia, in order to pay off, hiss or lick,
six doubloons fifteen arrears of his, the villain's not the rumbler's
rent.
[End of excerpt]

Adam Seelig: That was Richard Harte reading pages 81 to 86 of Chapter 4 from Finnegans Wake, recorded live at Type Books on Queen Street West in Toronto on January 22nd, 2024.

Join us for Episode 18 in a fortnight when Richard continues Chapter 4 of Finnegans Wake. In the meantime, to be sure you don’t miss the episode, why not follow or subscribe to this podcast?

[Music: Instrumental of “Roll, Jordan, Roll” with Adam Seelig on piano and Brandon Bak on drums, from the film of Finnegans Wake Ch03.]

Finnegans Wake is made possible by Friends of One Little Goat Theatre Company and the Emigrant Support Programme of the government of Ireland. Thank you for your support!

And thank you to the artists for this episode: Richard Harte; Sound by William Bembridge; Stage Management by Sandi Becker; Directed by yours truly, Adam Seelig.

Thank you for listening!

[Music fades out]
[End of Ep017]

Mentioned: Pip Dwyer, John Cage “Experimental Music,” “a purposeful purposelessness or a purposeless play,” the fourth and final confrontation between two men (the Cad and HCE), perhaps HCE is both attacker and attacked?, merging of identities, Charles Baudelaire’s “Let’s Beat Up the Poor,” the trial, Festy King, crown attorney P.C. Robort, synopsis.

Cited: John Cage. Silence: Lectures and Writings (50th anniversary edition). Wesleyan, 2013.
Charles Baudelaire, “Assomons les pauvres !” (1865).

Episode 016: Reality While We Sleep (75:1-81:11, Start of Ch04)

October 23, 2025 Adam Seelig

JAMES JOYCE’S FINNEGANS WAKE
Episode 016: REALITY WHILE WE SLEEP

PAGE 75:1-81:11 | START OF CHAPTER 4 | 2025-10-23

PODCAST AUDIO

PODCAST TRANSCRIPT

[Music: Instrumental of “The Ballad of Persse O’Reilly” with Adam Seelig on piano and Brandon Bak on drums, from the film of Finnegans Wake Ch03. Music fades out]

Adam Seelig: Welcome to James Joyce’s divine and delirious comedy, Finnegans Wake. In this episode, number 16, we’ll hear Irish-Canadian actor — and my good friend and colleague — Richard Harte performing pages 75 to 81 to begin Chapter 4 of Joyce’s last novel. I’m Adam Seelig, the director of the reading you’ll soon hear.

Thanks to all of you lovely listeners in Canada, the US, Ireland, England, Germany, Australia and beyond who have written to One Little Goat Theatre Company by email and through our YouTube channel with enthusiastic comments on our Finnegans Wake film and podcast series. We really appreciate your eyes and ears and are delighted to be with you again with this new podcast episode.

The complete films of Finnegans Wake chapters 1 & 2 are available on One Little Goat’s website and YouTube channel, and more recently we released an album of music from our film series, available through streaming services (like Spotify, Apple, etc.) under the highly descriptive title “Finnegans Wake: Music from the Film Series,” which includes “The Ballad of Persse O’Reilly” and the 19th-century folk song that gave Finnegans Wake its title.

I have good news to share that in Tokyo, Japan on October 31st I’ll be screening and discussing excerpts from One Little Goat’s film series with Japanese Joyceans Yuta Imazeki and Kaori Hirashige. The event will be in both Japanese and English and will feature excerpts from the new Japanese translation of Finnegans Wake by Dublin-based Kenji Hayakawa. Kenji has just completed his translation of Book I Chapter 2 — an accomplishment that deserves a huge mazel tov to Kenji and his editor, Yuta. For details on this event in Tokyo, please visit One Little Goat’s website at www.OneLittleGoat.org.

And some sad news: Roland McHugh, whose Annotations to Finnegans Wake is hands down the book we turn to most for this project, died on October 9. His last home was in County Wicklow, not far from the Wicklow Mountains, the very source of the River Liffey that flows throughout Finnegans Wake.

American John Gordon, whose online annotations to Finnegans Wake build on Roland McHugh’s, paid tribute to McHugh in an email he sent to me. Gordon wrote, “One thing that keeps impressing me about Roland's Annotations is how tight it is — there's virtually nothing there that is wrong, or even might be wrong. Fritz Senn says that everything ever written about Joyce, from his birth certificate to his tombstone, contains at least one error, so probably there's a wrong date or something somewhere in the book, but one definitely learns to trust it.”

Thank you, Roland McHugh, for your indispensable Annotations, without which we could not interpret Finnegans Wake as we have — this episode is dedicated to you.

[Music: Adam Seelig plays piano]

Adam Seelig: Finnegans Wake is a production of One Little Goat Theatre Company. For the next five years, One Little Goat will film and record all 17 chapters (roughly 30 Hours) of Joyce’s Finnegans Wake before live audiences in various locations, screening and releasing them along along the way, with the aim of completing the entire book in time for its 90th birthday, May 4, 2029. One Little Goat Theatre Company is an official charity in Canada and the United States — if you’d like to support our work, please visit us online at www.OneLittleGoat.org to make a charitable donation. To get in touch, you’ll find our email address on the One Little Goat Theatre Company website and we’d love to hear from you.

[Music fades out]

Adam Seelig: A recent poem by Canadian Kaitlyn Perrin complements the end of Finnegans Wake Chapter 3, where we concluded our previous podcast episode (Ep015), with protagonist HCEarwicker sleeping deeply as rain falls on Dublin. The poem is titled “Rainmancer”:

Dreams are raindrops into
Other universes
And reality only leaks
While we're asleep

The fluidity of dreams not only reflects reality but, like every drop of rain, is a reality in itself. It’s as if Perrin’s poem, like Finnegans Wake, is building on William Blake’s celebrated line — “To see a world in a grain of sand” — by saying yes, and every grain of sand is a world.

Dreams mix and remix our realities, much as the dream novel that is the Wake is an extended remix of its central themes, elements and characters — hence the “recirculation” of the novel’s opening page overture.

A recent novel from Brooklynite Anna Moschovakis expands on this remixing and “recirculation” of dreams, providing us with a way of viewing Chapter 4 and the Wake as a whole. I’ll just add that it’s fitting to talk about Chapter 4 with the help of Moschovakis’s novel because I picked it up at Type Books on Queen Street West after the author’s Toronto reading and conversation with translator Claire Foster, and it’s at the very same bookstore that we filmed and recorded Chapter 4. Here’s the unnamed narrator of Moschovakis’s An Earthquake Is a Shaking of the Surface of the Earth (2024):

At some point I accepted as fact a theory I read once: it claimed that dreams take the experiences from our lives and disassemble them, then neutralize them through recombination. Through making them into new stories, like a montage of the scraps that would otherwise be left on the cutting-room floor. (I don’t know whose metaphor this is. Maybe it’s mine.)

The important thing is that the new stories don’t always displace the old ones, they just reduce their authority. They de-authorize them. By confusing the signal, the new stories can at least partially cancel the old ones out. The important thing is—according to my memory, though of course neither my memory nor the theory is sure to be trustworthy—that it doesn’t seem to matter if the new stories are, themselves, equally disturbing, or even if they are more disturbing than the experienced events they are attempting to replace. Their role isn’t to lighten things up; the work they do is only the work of dis-attachment, of insisting on multiplicity. (105-106)

Chapter 4, now deep in the dream of Finnegans Wake — and given the sleeping state of HCE, perhaps also deep in the dream of Earwicker himself — certainly insists on such multiplicity as it takes us from HCE’s surreal musings to Dublin’s Phoenix Park; to a bar brawl in which attacker and defender become hard to tell apart (the dream language fluid as ever); to a showy trial (or show trial?) complete with witnesses and cross-examination; to a brief and intriguing glance at the letter by ALP that might vindicate HCE; to a series of telecommunications about HCE where the signals certainly get confused; to a sex scene of ALP and HCE; to a closing description of Dublin’s River Liffey and invocation of the Biblical Psalm “By the rivers of Babylon.” Get ready, in other words, for some fun and fascinating stuff.

**Lions of Qasr El Nil Bridge, the oldest bridge on the Nile, Egypt.**

Chapter 4 ends with the rivers of Babylon and begins with the Nile. The opening sentence “asserts that, as the lion in the zoo may remember the waterlilies of the Nile, so the comatose HCE may have been dreaming of the temptresses of his past.” (Epstein 48) Or in the language of the Wake itself: “As the lion in our teargarten remembers the nenuphars of his Nile…” It helps to know that “Tiergarten” is German for zoo, here spelled like “tears” from one’s eyes.

Something I love in this opening paragraph is the repetition of the phrase “it may be” (75:3 & 11), firstly because it suggests that there may be other possibilities to consider, and possibility is the gateway to the multiplicity of dreams, and secondly because this is the kind of rhythmic motif we encounter on the opening page of Finnegans Wake with its repetition of the phrase “not yet” (3:10 & 11, Ep002), a phrase that similarly casts tantalizing doubt on the when and what of the narrative.

HCE imagines his posthumous reputation as a “distinguished dynasty” (75:24) and fantasizes for a moment that he is the head of a criminal family enterprise that can crack safes in addition to eggs. Somehow, though, he now finds himself in a glass-panelled coffin. A local “public [body]” (76:14) — think of them as a kind of Lions or Rotary Club — generously offers him the gift of a grave in which to bury that coffin, with HCE presumably inside. How thoughtful of them. But no, HCE blasts his way out of the unusual casket using TNT with a dynamism that would make characters known for getting into and out of tight jams, from Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner to MacGyver, proud.

We then find HCE living “all safeathomely the presenile days of his life of opulence,” (78:1-2) in solitude, surrounded by various tchotchkes.

He should get up, get out and go hunting, as survival often dictates, but instead finds himself living off “his own misplaced fat.” (79:13)

**Shiva, 11th-century India, Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY.**

Our favourite charwoman, Kate, from “the museyroom” of Chapter 1 (Ep003), makes an appearance on a pile of litter, described here as a “filthdump”, in Dublin’s Phoenix Park. Then from the mundane and low-to-the-ground we move to the metaphysical and up-on-high when voices of gods emerge — “hear Allhighest sprack” (80:20) — including cameos by Krishna and Shiva. This is the low-to-high, down-to-up kind of motion we’ve experienced throughout the Wake, especially when it comes to Phoenix Park, named after the mythical bird that rises from its own fallen ashes. Lest the narrative fly too high, it reminds us, in the Wake’s indefatigably inventive way, that we are all mortal and of this earth: “every morphyl man of us, pome by pome, falls back into this terrine” (80:22-23).

— “every morphyl man of us”: mortal man, Irishman (as in, Murphy man), ever morphing into multiplicity through reality’s dream-like fluidity.

— “pome by pome”: apple by apple, a sure way, as we know from Adam and Eve, to fall; unless these pommes are pommes de terre, that is potatoes, already down in the dirt of Phoenix Park; or perhaps they’re poems eulogizing our lives and deaths.

— “falls back into this terrine”: ashes to ashes, apple by apple, potato by potato, poem by poem, we all fall down into this terrain, this terroir, this ‘large earthenware pot’ (which is the etymology of ‘terrine’) this ‘large earthenware pot’ known as planet earth, which can be at times delicious and at others, disgusting, depending on the ingredients.

“every morphyl man of us, pome by pome, falls back into this terrine”.

It’s just one of the many evocative and irreverent lines you’re about to hear.

Now it’s time for Richard’s performance of James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake, page 75 line 1 to page 81 line 11 for the beginning of Chapter 4. The performance was filmed and recorded at Type Books on Queen Street West in Toronto on January 22nd, 2024 with a live audience.

[Richard Harte reads Finnegans Wake 75:1-81:11.]

[75] As the lion in our teargarten remembers the nenuphars of his
Nile (shall Ariuz forget Arioun or Boghas the baregams of the
Marmarazalles from Marmeniere?) it may be, tots wearsense full
a naggin in twentyg have sigilposted what in our brievingbust,
the besieged bedreamt him stil and solely of those lililiths un-
deveiled which had undone him, gone for age, and knew not
the watchful treachers at his wake, and theirs to stay. Fooi, fooi,
chamermissies! Zeepyzoepy, larcenlads! Zijnzijn Zijnzijn! It may
be, we moest ons hasten selves te declareer it, that he reglimmed?
presaw? the fields of heat and yields of wheat where corngold
Ysit? shamed and shone. It may be, we habben to upseek a bitty
door our good township's courants want we knew't, that with
his deepseeing insight (had not wishing oftebeen but good time
wasted), within his patriarchal shamanah, broadsteyne 'bove citie
(Twillby! Twillby!) he conscious of enemies, a kingbilly white-
horsed in a Finglas mill, prayed, as he sat on anxious seat, (kunt
ye neat gift mey toe bout a peer saft eyballds!) during that three
and a hellof hours' agony of silence, ex profundis malorum, and
bred with unfeigned charity that his wordwounder (an engles to
the teeth who, nomened Nash of Girahash, would go anyold where
in the weeping world on his mottled belly (the rab, the kreepons-
kneed!) for milk, music or married missusses) might, mercy to
providential benevolence's who hates prudencies' astuteness, un-
fold into the first of a distinguished dynasty of his posteriors,

[76] blackfaced connemaras not of the fold but elder children of his
household, his most besetting of ideas (pace his twolve predama-
nant passions) being the formation, as in more favoured climes,
where the Meadow of Honey is guestfriendly and the Mountain
of Joy receives, of a truly criminal stratum, Ham's cribcracking
yeggs, thereby at last eliminating from all classes and masses with
directly derivative decasualisation: sigarius (sic!) vindicat urbes
terrorum (sicker!): and so, to mark a bank taal she arter, the
obedience of the citizens elp the ealth of the ole.
Now gode. Let us leave theories there and return to here's here.
Now hear. 'Tis gode again. The teak coffin, Pughglasspanelfitted,
feets to the east, was to turn in later, and pitly patly near the
porpus, materially effecting the cause. And this, liever, is the
thinghowe. Any number of conservative public bodies, through
a number of select and other committees having power to add to
their number, before voting themselves and himself, town, port
and garrison, by a fit and proper resolution, following a koorts
order of the groundwet, once for all out of plotty existence, as
a forescut, so you maateskippey might to you cuttinrunner on a
neuw pack of klerds, made him, while his body still persisted,
their present of a protem grave in Moyelta of the best Lough
Neagh pattern, then as much in demand among misonesans as
the Isle of Man today among limniphobes. Wacht even! It was
in a fairly fishy kettlekerry, after the Fianna's foreman had taken
his handful, enriched with ancient woods and dear dutchy deep-
linns mid which were an old knoll and a troutbeck, vainyvain of
her osiery and a chatty sally with any Wilt or Walt who would
ongle her as Izaak did to the tickle of his rod and watch her
waters of her sillying waters of and there now brown peater
arripple (may their quilt gild lightly over his somnolulutent
form!) Whoforyou lies his last, by the wrath of Bog, like the
erst curst Hun in the bed of his treubleu Donawhu.
Best. This wastohavebeen underground heaven, or mole's
paradise which was probably also an inversion of a phallopharos,
intended to foster wheat crops and to ginger up tourist trade
(its architecht, Mgr Peurelachasse, having been obcaecated lest

[77] he should petrifake suchanevver while the contractors Messrs
T. A. Birkett and L. O. Tuohalls were made invulnerably vener-
able) first in the west, our misterbilder, Castlevillainous, openly
damned and blasted by means of a hydromine, system, Sowan and
Belting, exploded from a reinvented T.N.T. bombingpost up
ahoy of eleven and thirty wingrests (circiter) to sternbooard out
of his aerial thorpeto, Auton Dynamon, contacted with the ex-
pectant minefield by tins of improved ammonia lashed to her
shieldplated gunwale, and fused into tripupcables, slipping
through tholse 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 the Ryan vogt it was Dane to pfife. He afterwards whaan-
ever his blaetther began to fail off him and his rough bark was
wholly husky and, stoop by stoop, he neared it (wouldmanspare!)
carefully lined the ferroconcrete result with rotproof bricks and
mortar, fassed to fossed, and retired beneath the heptarchy of
his towerettes, the beauchamp, byward, bull and lion, the white,
the wardrobe and bloodied, so encouraging (insteppen, alls als
hats beliefd!) additional useful councils public with hoofd off-
dealings which were welholden of ladykants te huur out such as the
Breeders' Union, the Guild of Merchants of the Staple et, a.u.c. to
present unto him with funebral pomp, over and above that, a stone
slab with the usual Mac Pelah address of velediction, a very fair-
worded instance of falsemeaning adamelegy: We have done ours
gohellt with you, Heer Herewhippit, overgiven it, skidoo!
But t'house and allaboardshoops! Show coffins, winding sheets,
goodbuy bierchepes, cinerary urns, liealoud blasses, snuffchests,
poteentubbs, lacrimal vases, hoodendoses, reekwaterbeckers,
breakmiddles, zootzaks for eatlust, including upyourhealthing
rookworst and meathewersoftened forkenpootsies and for that
matter, javel also, any kind of inhumationary bric au brac for
the adornment of his glasstone honophreum, would, met these
trein of konditiens, naturally follow, halas, in the ordinary course,
enabling that roundtheworlder wandelingswight, did suches pass

[78] him, to live all safeathomely the presenile days of his life of
opulence, ancient ere decrepitude, late lents last lenience, till
stuffering stage, whaling away the whole of the while (hypnos
chilia eonion!) lethelulled between explosion and reexplosion
(Donnaurwatteur! Hunderthunder!) from grosskopp to megapod,
embalmed, of grand age, rich in death anticipated.
But abide Zeit's sumonserving, rise afterfall. Blueblitzbolted
from there, knowing the hingeworms of the hallmirks of habita-
tionlesness, buried burrowing in Gehinnon, to proliferate through
all his Unterwealth, seam by seam, sheol om sheol, and revisit
our Uppercrust Sideria of Utilitarios, the divine one, the hoar-
der hidden propaguting his plutorpopular progeniem of pots and
pans and pokers and puns from biddenland to boughtenland, the
spearway fore the spoorway.
The other spring offensive on the heights of Abraham may
have come about all quite by accidence, Foughtarundser (for
Breedabrooda had at length presuaded him to have himself to be
as septuply buried as the murdered Cian in Finntown), had not
been three monads in his watery grave (what vigilantes and ridings
then and spuitwyne pledges with aardappel frittling!) when
portrifaction, dreyfussed as ever, began to ramp, ramp, ramp, the
boys are parching. A hoodenwinkle gave the signal and a bless-
ing paper freed the flood. Why did the patrizien make him scares
with his gruntens? Because the druiven were muskating at the
door. From both Celtiberian camps (granting at the onset for the
sake of argument that men on the two sides in New South Ire-
land and Vetera Uladh, bluemin and pillfaces, during the ferment
With the Pope or On the Pope, had, moors or letts, grant ideas,
grunted) all conditions, poor cons and dives mor, each, of course,
on the purely doffensive since the eternals were owlwise on their
side every time, were drawn toowards their Bellona's Black
Bottom, once Woolwhite's Waltz (Ohiboh, how becrimed,
becursekissed and bedumbtoit!) some for want of proper feeding
in youth, others already caught in the honourable act of slicing
careers for family and carvers in conjunction; and, if emaciated
nough, the person garrotted may have suggested to whomever he

[79] took the ham of, the plain being involved in darkness, low cirque
waggery, nay, even the first old wugger of himself in the flesh,
whiggissimus incarnadined, when falsesighted by the ifsuchhewas
bully on the hill for there had circulated freely fairly among his
opposition the feeling that in so hibernating Massa Ewacka, who,
previous to that demidetached life, had been known of barmi-
cidal days, cook said, between soups and savours, to get outside
his own length of rainbow trout and taerts atta tarn as no man
of woman born, nay could, like the great crested brebe, devour
his threescoreten of roach per lifeday, ay, and as many minnow a
minute (the big mix, may Gibbet choke him!) was, like the salmon
of his ladderleap all this time of totality secretly and by suckage
feeding on his own misplaced fat.
Ladies did not disdain those pagan ironed times of the first
city (called after the ugliest Danadune) when a frond was a friend
inneed to carry, as earwigs do their dead, their soil to the earth-
ball where indeeth we shall calm decline, our legacy unknown.
Venuses were gigglibly temptatrix, vulcans guffawably eruptious
and the whole wives' world frockful of fickles. Fact, any human
inyon you liked any erenoon or efter would take her bare godkin
out, or an even pair of hem, (lugod! lugodoo!) and prettily pray
with him (or with em even) everyhe to her taste, long for luck,
tapette and tape petter and take pettest of all. (Tip!) Wells she'd
woo and wills she's win but how the deer knowed where she'd
marry! Arbour, bucketroom, caravan, ditch? Coach, carriage,
wheelbarrow, dungcart?
Kate Strong, a widow (Tiptip!) — she pulls a lane picture for
us, in a dreariodreama setting, glowing and very vidual, of old
dumplan as she nosed it, a homelike cottage of elvanstone with
droppings of biddies, stinkend pusshies, moggies' duggies, rotten
witchawubbles, festering rubbages and beggars' bullets, if not
worse, sending salmofarious germs in gleefully through the
smithereen panes — Widow Strong, then, as her weaker had
turned him to the wall (Tiptiptip!), did most all the scavenging
from good King Hamlaugh's gulden dayne though her lean
besom cleaned but sparingly and her bare statement reads that

[80] there being no macadamised sidetracks on those old nekropolitan
nights in, barring a footbatter, Bryant's Causeway, bordered
with speedwell, white clover and sorrel a wood knows, which
left off, being beaten, where the plaintiff was struck, she
left down, as scavengers, who will be scavengers must, her
filthdump near the Serpentine in Phornix Park (at her time called
Finewell's Keepsacre but later tautaubapptossed Pat's Purge),
that dangerfield circling butcherswood where fireworker oh
flaherty engaged a nutter of castlemallards and ah for archer
stunned's turk, all over which fossil footprints, bootmarks,
fingersigns, elbowdints, breechbowls, a. s. o. were all succes-
sively traced of a most envolving description. What subtler
timeplace of the weald than such wolfsbelly castrament to will
hide a leabhar from Thursmen's brandihands or a loveletter,
lostfully hers, that would be lust on Ma, than then when ructions
ended, than here where race began: and by four hands of fore-
thought the first babe of reconcilement is laid in its last cradle
of hume sweet hume. Give over it! And no more of it! So pass
the pick for child sake! O men!
For hear Allhighest sprack for krischnians as for propagana
fidies and his nuptial eagles sharped their beaks of prey: and
every morphyl man of us, pome by pome, falls back into this
terrine: as it was let it be, says he! And it is as though where
Agni araflammed and Mithra monished and Shiva slew as maya-
mutras the obluvial waters of our noarchic memory withdrew,
windingly goharksome, to some hastyswasty timberman torch-
priest, flamenfan, the ward of the wind that lightened the fire that
lay in the wood that Jove bolt, at his rude word. Posidonius
O'Fluctuary! Lave that bloody stone as it is! What are you
doing your dirty minx and his big treeblock way up your path?
Slip around, you, by the rare of the ministers'! And, you, take
that barrel back where you got it, Mac Shane's, and go the way
your old one went, Hatchettsbury Road! 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?

[81] Yes, the viability of vicinals if invisible is invincible. And we
are not trespassing on his corns either. Look at all the plotsch!
Fluminian! If this was Hannibal's walk it was Hercules' work.
And a hungried thousand of the unemancipated slaved the way.
The mausoleum lies behind us (O Adgigasta, multipopulipater!)
and there are milestones in their cheadmilias faultering along
the tramestrack by Brahm and Anton Hermes! Per omnibus
secular seekalarum. Amain. But the past has made us this present
of a rhedarhoad. So more boher O'Connell! Though rainy-
hidden, you're rhinohide. And if he's not a Romeo you may
scallop your hat. Wereupunder in the fane of Saint Fiacre! Halte!
[End of excerpt]

Adam Seelig: That was Richard Harte reading the beginning of Finnegans Wake Chapter 4, recorded live at Type Books on Queen Street West in Toronto on January 22nd, 2024. Join us for Episode 17 in a fortnight when Richard continues Chapter 4 of Finnegans Wake. In the meantime, to be sure you don’t miss the episode, why not follow or subscribe to this podcast?

[Music: Instrumental of “Roll, Jordan, Roll” with Adam Seelig on piano and Brandon Bak on drums, from the film of Finnegans Wake Ch03.]

Thank you for listening!

[Music fades out]

[End of Ep016]

Mentioned: New Japanese translation of Finnegans Wake by Kenji Hayakawa edited by Yuta Imazeki, One Little Goat Wake screening in Tokyo, Roland McHugh (1945-2025), John Gordon, Kaitlyn Perrin’s rain-and-dreams poem “Rainmancer”, dream theory of narrator in Anna Moschovakis novel, dreams yield multiplicity, overview of Chapter 4, opening sentence of Chapter 4, repetition of “it may be”, HCE’s posthumous reputation, HCE blasting out of coffin, HCE living in opulence, Kate in Phoenix Park, voices of gods, a gloss on “every morphyl man of us, pome by pome, falls back into this terrine”, synopsis.

Cited: Kaitlyn Perrin. “Rainmancer”. Calgary, The Blasted Tree, 2023.
William Blake, “Auguries of Innocence” (1863): “To see a world in a grain of sand / And a heaven in a wild flower, / Hold infinity in the palm of your hand / And eternity in an hour.” https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43650/auguries-of-innocence
Anna Moschovakis. An Earthquake Is a Shaking of the Surface of the Earth: A Novel. New York, Soft Skull, 2024.

Episode 015: 111 Insults (p. 69:5-74:19, End of Ch03)

February 6, 2025 Adam Seelig

JAMES JOYCE’S FINNEGANS WAKE
Episode 015: 111 INSULTS

PAGE 69:5-74:19 | END OF CHAPTER 3 | 2025-02-06

PODCAST AUDIO

PODCAST TRANSCRIPT

[Music: Richard Harte sings “The Ballad of Persse O’Reilly” from Finnegans Wake]
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
[Music fades out]

Adam Seelig: Welcome to James Joyce’s divine and delirious comedy, Finnegans Wake. In this episode, number 15, we’ll hear Irish-Canadian actor — and my good friend and colleague — Richard Harte performing pages 69 to 74 to conclude Chapter 3 of Joyce’s last novel. I’m Adam Seelig, the director of the reading you’ll soon hear.

I’m recording this episode on February 2nd, 2025, James Joyce’s 143rd birthday. Happy birthday!

On the last weekend of March of 2025, the Toronto Irish Film Festival will screen excerpts from our film of Finnegans Wake Chapter 3 at TIFF (the Toronto International Film Festival theatres). We’ll announce the details in early March through our mailing list and on our website: www.OneLittleGoat.org. If you’re in Toronto in late March, come join us.

[Music: Adam Seelig plays piano]
Adam Seelig: Finnegans Wake is a production of One Little Goat Theatre Company. For the next five years, One Little Goat will film and record all 17 chapters (roughly 30 Hours) of Joyce’s Finnegans Wake before live audiences in various locations, screening and releasing them along along the way, with the aim of completing the entire book in time for its 90th birthday, May 4, 2029. One Little Goat Theatre Company is an official charity in Canada and the United States — if you’d like to support our work, please visit us online at www.OneLittleGoat.org to make a charitable donation. And if monetary support is not an option, you can still help this podcast by rating and reviewing it and by spreading the word. To get in touch, you’ll find our email address on the One Little Goat Theatre Company website and we’d love to hear from you.
[Music fades out]

Adam Seelig: To dream is to go beyond yourself. But to go beyond yourself is impossible.

So how about this: To dream is to go — impossibly — beyond yourself.

Through the dream language of Finnegans Wake Chapter 3, our protagonist, HCEarwicker, runs away from confrontation and slander, but ultimately fails, as you’ll soon hear in today’s excerpt, when confrontation and slander come knocking, literally and figuratively, in the form of a newspaper reporter hurling insults and stones at Earwicker’s door.

I want to share a discovery from rehearsal that enabled Richard and me to see the overall gestalt of Chapter 3 in one distilled image. (For those who want to see a drawing that gives the basic idea of the image, I’ve posted a sketch from my production notebook, which you can find in this episode’s transcript on the Podcast page of One Little Goat Theatre Company’s website.) I’ll describe what led us to the image, and then the image itself.

Chapter 3 begins in a cloud, “a poisoning volume of cloud barrage indeed” (48:5), a spit-fog, if you will, produced by the salacious and slanderous “Ballad of Persse O’Reilly” that ended Chapter 2. And since Persse O’Reilly is a Gallicization of Earwicker’s own name — perce-oreille is French for earwig — this toxic cloud that opens Chapter 3 is, perhaps, produced by Earwicker himself. Chapter 3 ends with rain, a rain preceded by its own “cloud barrage” of insults aimed at Earwicker in the form of 111 insults. So the beginning of Chapter 3 is inverted by the end: the fog of slander spat and sprayed out at the start transforms in the end into insults and rain falling on our sleeping protagonist. The toxic cloud in the beginning spreads out to many different people; the rain at the end falls down on only one.

**Gestalt of Chapter 3 — production notebook sketch, Adam Seelig.**

With this inverted precipitation in mind, the image Richard and I imagined for Chapter 3 looks like this: a man, HCE, spits up and out, only to have it rain down on him. Think of the image as the expectorating version of pissing in the wind. It’s a reminder that every element in this epic fugue that is Finnegans Wake circles and cycles again and again. We are always reading, as the book’s opening line tells us, “a commodius vicus of recirculation” (3:2, Ep002).

How could Earwicker ever escape the slander that hounds him when that slander may very well have issued from Earwicker himself? As the Bob Marley song we discussed at the beginning of Chapter 3 puts it (Ep011): “You’re running and you’re running and you’re running away/ But you can't run away from yourself.” Or to borrow a beloved phrase of my parents’ generation, often attributed to Rod Serling’s TV series, The Twilight Zone: “We have met the enemy, and the enemy is us.” Maybe Earwicker, ultimately, is his own worst enemy.

At the start of Chapter 3 (Ep011), we asked if Earwicker is purely victim or if he is also victimizer? My sense is that he’s both.

True, he’s hard to identify at times, especially when, as this chapter warns us early on, “the shape of the average human cloudyphiz […] frequently altered its ego with the possing of the showers […]. Whence it is a slopperish matter, given the wet and low visibility […] to idendifine the individuone” (50:36-51:6, Ep011). But identify him we have, and his name is HCEarwicker. There’s no escaping that.

**Phoenix Park pubs: Hole in the Wall in the north, Mullingar House in the south.**

In his final, futile attempt to escape slander and confrontation at the end of Chapter 3, Earwicker locks himself up in a pub near Dublin’s Phoenix Park, although this time, rather than the Mullingar House on the south side of the park, which we usually associate with HCE and his family, it appears to be the Hole in the Wall Pub on the north side of the park, as the second sentence of today’s excerpt indicates. This sentence also has a once-upon-a-time ring to it that echoes the opening line of Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man: “There was once upon a wall and a hooghoog wall a was and such a wall-hole did exist” (69:6-8).

The very first sentence that opens today’s excerpt sets the stage for Earwicker locking himself away and for the confrontational scene that unfolds soon after — it begins, “Now by memory inspired […]” (69:5). “By Memory Inspired” is an Irish Ballad that pays tribute to heroes who died in the Irish Rebellion of 1798, suggesting confrontation; it also influenced W. B. Yeats’s poem “September 1913,” which readers often relate to Ireland’s labour strike of the same year known as the “Dublin lock-out.”

In our case, Earwicker, having fortified the pub’s front gate, is locked in, and his assailant, a version of the Cad from the first confrontation in Chapter 2 (Ep008), is locked out. The attacker is a German newspaper reporter, Herr Betreffender (69:32), who bangs on Earwicker’s gate for a couple of reasons: first, because he’s writing a story on the central theme of our novel, the fall of humanity, or in the Wake’s own words, Betreffender is “making his reporterage on Der Fall Adams” (70:4-5), and Earwicker certainly personifies that fall; the second reason, arguably more urgent, is that Betreffender badly needs a drink, even though it’s ten in the morning, threatening to pummel Earwicker if he doesn’t serve him alcohol right away (69:27-35). Betreffender even blows some quaker oats through Earwicker’s keyhole in an effort to get his attention (70:18-19), but to no avail, so he ratchets up his assault by unleashing an exhaustive litany of 111 insults against our protagonist. The indignant and undignified list of epithets is a blast, and I won’t spoil it for you; I’ll just mention that my favourite insult is also the audience’s favourite, as you’ll soon here from their laughter, and I’ll hint that, for those also peeking at the page, it’s a one-word insult beginning with the letter A that you’ll find on line 21 of page 71. Enjoy.

Following this offensive barrage, Betreffender adds injury to insult by by chucking some stones at Earwicker’s pub/fortress (72:27).

And there. The siege is over: “came to close that last stage in the siegings round our archicitadel” (73:23-24). Earwicker is finally by himself. As he settles into sleep, the dream language of Finnegans Wake conjures up an image of our protagonist as a hero returning — quite the opposite of the fleeing fraidy-cat we’ve been following until now — in words that invoke the title of our book: “(some Finn, some Finn avant!), he skall wake from earthsleep […] (lost leaders live! the heroes return!)” (74:1-3). This also invokes the Irish nationalist slogan, “Sinn Féin, Sinn Féin Amháin,” meaning “Ourselves, Ourselves Alone,” and Earwicker is indeed himself alone, at least until he is visited, à la Genesis, by God in an exchange reminiscent of Biblical dialogue between the Almighty and Abraham. In Wake-speak, Abraham becomes “Allprohome,” with “All” spelled A-L-L, as in Everyone, a fitting pseudonym for our multifarious protagonist HCE, also known as Here Comes Everybody. Here, in this second to last paragraph of Chapter 3, God’s voice disturbs Earwicker’s sleep, and Earwicker responds grumpily in Latin: “Animadiabolum, mene credidisti mortuum?” (74:8) which translates to, “Soul to the devil, did you believe me dead?”, a riff on the last line of the “Finnegan’s Wake” folk song that gives our book its title (Ep001): “By the thunderin’ Jaysus do you think I’m dead?” It reminds me of the irreverent exchange in History of the World, Part I (1981) between Mel Brooks as Moses and the Voice of God. In the movie, God calls down to his prophet in a booming, reverberant voice: “Do you hear me?” And Moses responds, “Yes, I hear you, I hear you,” followed by a short sharp kvetch under his breath: “A deaf man could hear you.”

Neither deaf nor dead, Earwicker is sleeping deeply. And now the rain falls, the rain that began this chapter in the latent form of cloud and fog, as HCE’s extremities seem to morph into Dublin itself, extending to four districts of the city: Finglas in the north west, Pembroke in the south east, Kilmainham in the south west, and Baldoyle in the north east — plus a fifth district, Rathfarnham, located south of them all. This last paragraph of Chapter 3 is, quite simply, a beauty. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

**“…his extremeties extremely so: Fengless, Pawmbroke, Chilblaimend and Baldowl. Humph is in his doge. Words weigh no no more to him than raindrips to Rethfernhim.” (74:15-17)**

So in Chapter 3 our protagonist reacts to slander — however real or perceived, however externally or internally generated — with more flight than fight, and now, at the end, with the third F-response to threats: by freezing, or more specifically, by sleeping.

Our fallen man has fallen asleep at the edge of Phoenix Park, where perhaps (and we can never say perhaps too often with Finnegans Wake, the ultimate book of possibilities), where perhaps, like the Phoenix itself, he will rise again.

Now it’s time for Richard’s performance of James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake, page 69 line 5 to page 74 line 19 for the conclusion of Chapter 3.

The performance was shot and recorded at my home in Toronto on October 2, 2023 with a live audience. The film will premiere in March of 2025 at the Toronto Irish Film Festival.

The opening music is my own arrangement of “By Memory Inspired,” referenced in the first sentence of today’s excerpt, with Brandon Bak on drums and Adam Seelig, yours truly, on piano.

[Richard Harte reads and sings Finnegans Wake 69:5-74:19.]

[69] Now by memory inspired, turn wheel again to the whole of
the wall. Where Gyant Blyant fronts Peannlueamoore There was
once upon a wall and a hooghoog wall a was and such a wall-
hole did exist. Ere ore or ire in Aaarlund. Or you Dair's Hair or
you Diggin Mosses or your horde of orts and oriorts to garble
a garthen of Odin and the lost paladays when all the eddams ended
with aves. Armen? The doun is theirs and still to see for menags
if he strikes a lousaforitch and we'll come to those baregazed
shoeshines if you just shoodov a second. And let oggs be good
old gaggles and Isther Estarr play Yesther Asterr. In the drema
of Sorestost Areas, Diseased. A stonehinged gate then was for
another thing while the suroptimist had bought and enlarged
that shack under fair rental of one yearlyng sheep, (prime) value
of sixpence, and one small yearlyng goat (cadet) value of eight-
pence, to grow old and happy (hogg it and kidd him) for the re-
minants of his years; and when everything was got up for the
purpose he put an applegate on the place by no means as some
pretext a bedstead in loo thereof to keep out donkeys (the pig-
dirt hanging from the jags to this hour makes that clear) and just
thenabouts the iron gape, by old custom left open to prevent
the cats from getting at the gout, was triplepatlockt on him on
purpose by his faithful poorters to keep him inside probably and
possibly enaunter he felt like sticking out his chest too far and
tempting gracious providence by a stroll on the peoplade's egg-
day, unused as he was yet to being freely clodded.
O, by the by, lets wee brag of praties, it ought to be always
remembered in connection with what has gone before that there
was a northroomer, Herr Betreffender, out for his zimmer hole-
digs, digging in number 32 at the Rum and Puncheon (Branch of
Dirty Dick's free house) in Laxlip (where the Sockeye Sammons
were stopping at the time orange fasting) prior to that, a Kom-
merzial (Gorbotipacco, he was wreaking like Zentral Oylrubber)

[70] from Osterich, the U.S.E. paying (Gaul save the mark!) 11/- in
the week (Gosh, these wholly romads!) of conscience money in
the first deal of Yuly wheil he was, swishing beesnest with bles-
sure, and swobbing broguen eeriesh myth brockendootsch, mak-
ing his reporterage on Der Fall Adams for the Frankofurto Siding,
a Fastland payrodicule, and er, consstated that one had on him
the Lynn O'Brien, meltoned lammswolle, disturbed, and wider
he might the same zurichschicken other he would, with tosend
and obertosend tonnowatters, one monkey's damages become.
Now you must know, franksman, to make a heart of glass, that
the game of gaze and bandstand butchery was merely a Patsy
O'Strap tissue of threats and obuses such as roebucks raugh at
pinnacle's peak and after this sort. Humphrey's unsolicited visitor,
Davy or Titus, on a burgley's clan march from the middle west,
a hikely excellent crude man about road who knew his Bullfoost
Mountains like a starling bierd, after doing a long dance untidled
to Cloudy Green, deposend his bockstump on the waityoumay-
wantme, after having blew some quaker's (for you! Oates!) in
through the houseking's keyhole to attract attention, bleated
through the gale outside which the tairor of his clothes was hog-
callering, first, be the hirsuiter, that he would break his bulshey-
wigger's head for him, next, be the heeltapper, that he would
break the gage over his lankyduckling head the same way he
would crack a nut with a monkeywrench and, last of all, be the
stirabouter, that he would give him his (or theumperom's or any-
bloody else's) thickerthanwater to drink and his bleday steppe-
brodhar's into the bucket. He demanded more wood alcohol to
pitch in with, alleging that his granfather's was all taxis and that
it was only after ten o'connell, and this his isbar was a public
oven for the sake of irsk irskusky, and then, not easily dis-
couraged, opened the wrathfloods of his atillarery and went on at
a wicked rate, weathering against him in mooxed metaphores
from eleven thirty to two in the afternoon without even a lunch-
eonette interval for House, son of Clod, to come out, you jew-
beggar, to be Executed Amen. Earwicker, that patternmind, that
paradigmatic ear, receptoretentive as his of Dionysius, longsuffer-

[71] ing although whitening under restraint in the sititout corner of
his conservatory, behind faminebuilt walls, his thermos flask and
ripidian flabel by his side and a walrus whiskerbristle for a tusk-
pick, compiled, while he mourned the flight of his wild guineese,
a long list (now feared in part lost) to be kept on file of all abusive
names he was called (we have been compelled for the rejoicement
of foinne loidies ind the humours of Milltown etcetera by Joseph-
ine Brewster in the collision known as Contrastations with Inker-
mann and so on and sononward, lacies in loo water, flee, celestials,
one clean turv): Firstnighter, Informer, Old Fruit, Yellow Whigger,
Wheatears, Goldy Geit, Bogside Beauty, Yass We've Had His
Badannas, York's Porker, Funnyface, At Baggotty's Bend He
Bumped, Grease with the Butter, Opendoor Ospices, Cainandabler,
Ireland's Eighth Wonderful Wonder, Beat My Price, Godsoilman,
Moonface the Murderer, Hoary Hairy Hoax, Midnight Sunburst,
Remove that Bible, Hebdromadary Publocation, Tummer the Lame
the Tyrannous, Blau Clay, Tight before Teatime, Read Your
Pantojoke, Acoustic Disturbance, Thinks He's Gobblasst the Good
Dook of Ourguile, W.D.'s Grace, Gibbering Bayamouth of Dublin,
His Farther was a Mundzucker and She had him in a Growler,
Burnham and Bailey, Artist, Unworthy of the Homely Protestant
Religion, Terry Cotter, You're Welcome to Waterfood, signed the
Ribbonmen, Lobsterpot Lardling, All for Arthur of this Town,
Hooshed the Cat from the Bacon, Leathertogs Donald, The Ace
and Deuce of Paupering, O'Reilly's Delights to Kiss the Man
behind the Borrel, Magogagog, Swad Puddlefoot, Gouty Ghibeline,
Loose Luther, Hatches Cocks' Eggs, Muddle the Plan, Luck before
Wedlock, I Divorce Thee Husband, Tanner and a Make, Go to
Hellena or Come to Connies, Piobald Puffpuff His Bride, Purged
out of Burke's, He's None of Me Causin, Barebarean, Peculiar
Person, Grunt Owl's Facktotem, Twelve Months Aristocrat,
Lycanthrope, Flunkey Beadle Vamps the Tune Letting on He's
Loney, Thunder and Turf Married into Clandorf, Left Boot Sent
on Approval, Cumberer of Lord's Holy Ground, Stodge Arschmann,
Awnt Yuke, Tommy Furlong's Pet Plagues, Archdukon Cabbanger,
Last Past the Post, Kennealey Won't Tell Thee off Nancy's Gown,

[72] Scuttle to Cover, Salary Grab, Andy Mac Noon in Annie's Room,
Awl Out, Twitchbratschballs, Bombard Street Bester, Sublime
Porter, A Ban for Le King of the Burgaans and a Bom for Ye Sur
of all the Ruttledges, O'Phelim's Cutprice, And at Number Wan
Wan Wan, What He Done to Castlecostello, Sleeps with Feathers
end Ropes, It is Known who Sold Horace the Rattler, Enclosed
find the Sons of Fingal, Swayed in his Falling, Wants a Wife and
Forty of Them, Let Him Do the Fair, Apeegeequanee Chimmuck,
Plowp Goes his Whastle, Ruin of the Small Trader, He — —
Milkinghoneybeaverbrooker, Vee was a Vindner, Sower Rapes,
Armenian Atrocity, Sickfish Bellyup, Edomite, — 'Man Devoyd of
the Commoner Characteristics of an Irish Nature, Bad Humborg,
Hraabhraab, Coocoohandler, Dirt, Miching Daddy, Born Burst Feet
Foremost, Woolworth's Worst, Easyathic Phallusaphist, Guiltey-
pig's Bastard, Fast in the Barrel, Boose in the Bed, Mister Fatmate,
In Custody of the Polis, Boawwll's Alocutionist, Deposed, but anar-
chistically respectsful of the liberties of the noninvasive individual,
did not respond a solitary wedgeword beyond such sedentarity,
though it was as easy as kissanywhere for the passive resistant in
the booth he was in to reach for the hello gripes and ring up Kim-
mage Outer 17.67, because, as the fundamentalist explained, when
at last shocked into speech, touchin his woundid feelins in the
fuchsiar the dominican mission for the sowsealist potty was on at
the time and he thought the rowmish devowtion known as the
howly rowsary might reeform ihm, Gonn. That more than
considerably unpleasant bullocky before he rang off drunkishly
pegged a few glatt stones, all of a size, by way of final mocks
for his grapes, at the wicket in support of his words that he was
not guilphy but, after he had so slaunga vollayed, reconnoi-
tring through his semisubconscious the seriousness of what he
might have done had he really polished off his terrible intentions
finally caused him to change the bawling and leave downg the
whole grumus of brookpebbles pangpung and, having sobered
up a bit, paces his groundould diablen lionndub, the flay the
flegm, the floedy fleshener, (purse, purse, pursyfurse, I'll splish
the splume of them all!) this backblocks boor bruskly put out

[73] his langwedge and quite quit the paleologic scene, telling how
by his selfdenying ordnance he had left Hyland on the dissenting
table, after exhorting Earwicker or, in slightly modified phrase-
ology, Messrs or Missrs Earwicker, Seir, his feminisible name of
multitude, to cocoa come outside to Mockerloo out of that for
the honour of Crumlin, with his broody old flishguds, Gog's
curse to thim, so as he could brianslog and burst him all dizzy,
you go bail, like Potts Fracture did with Keddle Flatnose and
nobodyatall with Wholyphamous and build rocks over him, or
if he didn't, for two and thirty straws, be Cacao Campbell, he
didn't know what he wouldn't do for him nor nobody else no-
more nor him after which, batell martell, a brisha a milla a stroka
a boola, so the rage of Malbruk, playing on the least change of
his manjester's voice, the first heroic couplet from the fuguall
tropical, Opus Elf, Thortytoe: My schemes into obeyance for This
time has had to fall: they bit goodbyte to their thumb and, his
bandol eer his solgier, dripdropdrap on pool or poldier, wishing
the loff a falladelfian in the morning, proceeded with a Hubble-
forth slouch in his slips backwords (Et Cur Heli!) in the directions
of the duff and demb institutions about ten or eleven hundred
years lurch away in the moonshiny gorge of Patself on the Bach.
Adyoe!
And thus, with this rochelly exetur of Bully Acre, came to
close that last stage in the siegings round our archicitadel which
we would like to recall, if old Nestor Alexis would wink the
worth for us, as Bar-le-Duc and Dog-an-Doras and Bangen-op-
Zoom.
Yed he med leave to many a door beside of Oxmanswold for
so witness his chambered cairns a cloudletlitter silent that are at
browse up hill and down coombe and on eolithostroton, at
Howth or at Coolock or even at Enniskerry, a theory none too
rectiline of the evoluation of human society and a testament of
the rocks from all the dead unto some the living. Olivers lambs
we do call them, skatterlings of a stone, and they shall be ga-
thered unto him, their herd and paladin, as nubilettes to cumule,
in that day hwen, same the lightning lancer of Azava Arthur-

[74] honoured (some Finn, some Finn avant!), he skall wake from
earthsleep, haught crested elmer, in his valle of briers of Green-
man's Rise O, (lost leaders live! the heroes return!) and o'er dun
and dale the Wulverulverlord (protect us!) his mighty horn skall
roll, orland, roll.
For in those deyes his Deyus shall ask of Allprohome and call
to himm: Allprohome! And he make answer: Add some. Nor
wink nor wunk. Animadiabolum, mene credidisti mortuum?
Silence was in thy faustive halls, O Truiga, when thy green
woods went dry but there will be sounds of manymirth on the
night's ear ringing when our pantriarch of Comestowntonobble
gets the pullover on his boots.
Liverpoor? Sot a bit of it! His braynes coolt parritch, his pelt
nassy, his heart's adrone, his bluidstreams acrawl, his puff but a
piff, his extremeties extremely so: Fengless, Pawmbroke, Chil-
blaimend and Baldowl. Humph is in his doge. Words weigh no
no more to him than raindrips to Rethfernhim. Which we all
like. Rain. When we sleep. Drops. But wait until our sleeping.
Drain. Sdops.
[End of excerpt]

Adam Seelig: That was Richard Harte reading the end of Finnegans Wake Chapter 3, recorded live in Toronto on October 2nd, 2023.

Join us for Episode 16 when Richard begins Chapter 4 of Finnegans Wake. This podcast series is taking a short break between chapters to focus on the film production of future chapters, so please note that the exact date of the next episode’s release is to be determined, and we’ll then resume our fortnightly podcast releases every other Thursday. In the meantime, to be sure you don’t miss the episode, why not follow or subscribe to this podcast? For more on One Little Goat’s Finnegans Wake project, including transcripts of this podcast and the complete film of Chapter 1, visit our website at OneLittleGoat.org. And to hear about upcoming performances and screenings, including the March 2025 screening of Chapter 3 at the Toronto Irish Film Festival, join our mailing list, also on our website.

[Music: Adam Seelig plays piano]
Finnegans Wake is made possible by Friends of One Little Goat Theatre Company and the Emigrant Support Programme of the government of Ireland. Thank you for your support!

And thank you to the artists for this episode: Richard Harte; Sound by William Bembridge; Podcast production by Sean Rasmussen; Stage Management by Sandi Becker; Directed by yours truly, Adam Seelig; Music arranged and performed on the piano by me, with Brandon Bak on drums, and recorded at Sound Department in Toronto. A big thanks to our wonderful live audience of Sandi Becker, David Mackett, Andrew Moodie, Cathy Murphy, Nomi Rotbard, Arlo Rotbard-Seelig, Adam Seelig, Aaron Tucker and Catherine Vaneri. Thank you to everyone at the Irish Consulate in Toronto. Thank you to Production Consultants Cathy Murphy and Andrew Moodie and to Music Consultants Warwick Harte and Kevin Kennedy. Thank you for listening!

[Music fades out]

[End of Ep015]

Mentioned: cloud and ‘spit-fog’ at start of Ch03 becomes rain at end, “recirculation,” Bob Marley’s “Running Away,” Twilight Zone ‘the enemy is us,’ Earwicker as his own worst enemy, The Hole in the Wall Pub near Phoenix Park, 1798 Irish Rebellion song “By Memory Inspired,” Dublin lock-out of 1913, HCE locked in his “archicitadel,” muckraker Herr Betreffender, fall of man, Betreffender’s 111 insults, dialogue of God and Abraham/“Allprohome,” Mel Brooks History of the World, Dublin anthropomorphized as HCE’s body, rain, sleep, synopsis.

Episode 014: reel world! (p. 63:20-69:4)

January 23, 2025 Adam Seelig

JAMES JOYCE’S FINNEGANS WAKE
Episode 014: REEL WORLD!

PAGE 63:20-69:4 | 2025-01-23

PODCAST AUDIO

PODCAST TRANSCRIPT

Adam Seelig: Welcome to James Joyce’s divine and delirious comedy, Finnegans Wake. In this episode, number 14, we’ll hear Irish-Canadian actor — and my good friend and colleague — Richard Harte performing pages 63 to 69 from Chapter 3 of Joyce’s last novel. I’m Adam Seelig, the director of the reading you’ll soon hear.
[Music: Adam Seelig plays piano]

Adam Seelig: Finnegans Wake is a production of One Little Goat Theatre Company. For the next five years, One Little Goat will film and record all 17 chapters (roughly 30 Hours) of Joyce’s Finnegans Wake before live audiences in various locations, screening and releasing them along along the way, with the aim of completing the entire book in time for its 90th birthday, May 4, 2029. One Little Goat Theatre Company is an official charity in Canada and the United States — if you’d like to support our work, please visit us online at www.OneLittleGoat.org to make a charitable donation. And if monetary support is not an option, you can still help this podcast by rating and reviewing it and by spreading the word. To get in touch, you’ll find our email address on the One Little Goat Theatre Company website and we’d love to hear from you.
[Music fades out]

Adam Seelig: Let’s go to the movies, or in the words of today’s excerpt, “the reel world,” spelled r-e-e-l, as in a reel of film.

**Kathleen Ferrier sings “The Keel Row”.**

Echoing the chorus of “The Keel Row,” a Scottish traditional that goes something like… “weel may the keel row,/ The keel row, the keel row,/ O weel may the keel row/ That my laddie's in,” today’s Finnegans Wake excerpt transports this 18th-century shanty from the River Tyne to the modern world of the cinema: “roll away the reel world, the reel world, the reel world!” (25:6)

Joyce was seriously interested in the new medium of film, and was instrumental, if not entirely successful, in bringing cinema to Ireland in early last century. In 1909, while living in Trieste, Joyce persuaded several Italian businessmen to open a movie theatre in Dublin by hooking them with this clever sales pitch: “I know a city of 500,000 inhabitants,” he said, “where there is not a single cinema” (Ellmann 301). By 1910, thanks to Joyce’s efforts, Dublin’s first movie theatre, named the Volta, was screening films. Joyce’s affiliation with the Volta was short-lived, lasting less than a year, but it attests to his enthusiasm for the growing medium of film. (The screening room at the James Joyce Centre in Dublin, incidentally, where One Little Goat’s films of Finnegans Wake have played, is naturally named The Volta Room.)

It's also worth noting Joyce’s influence on, admiration for, and meetings with a titan of cinematic art, Sergei Eisenstein (1898–1948), who directed the 1925 landmark film Battleship Potemkin and invented that essential film technique known as the montage. Joyce’s Ulysses was one of Eisenstein’s favourite books, a risky aesthetic preference for the Russian filmmaker given official Soviet hostility toward Joyce. One Soviet functionary dismissed Joyce’s writing as “a heap of dung” (Bergan 261) — a not entirely inaccurate characterization had it referred to Finnegans Wake in light of the “tip” or mound of crap we encounter in “the museyroom” of Chapter 1 (Ep003) — while Moscow’s official newspaper, Pravda, got far more specific and nasty in its denunciation of Ulysses, equally applicable to Finnegans Wake, as “written in English that can hardly be understood by Englishmen… Its style reminds one of the delirious babblings of a mad philosopher who has mixed all the known languages into one monstrous mess” (Bergan 280). What Eisenstein loved in Joyce’s work — to the point where he considered Ulysses “the Bible of the new Cinema” (Bergan 185) — was the “exceptionally musical prose” and technique of simultaneity, the verbal fugue of it all (Ep002 & Ep003), or, in Eisenstein’s own words, “unfolding the display of events simultaneously with a particular manner in which these events pass through the consciousness and feelings, the associations and emotions” of a character (Bergan 185). It’s no wonder, then, that Eisenstein yearned to adapt Ulysses to the screen and that Joyce once commented that if Ulysses were ever filmed, the Russian was one of only two filmmakers who could pull it off (Bergan 185).

Like all art, film can be an escape not merely from but into reality. The r-e-e-l “reel world” is in itself an r-e-a-l ‘real world.’

If the short “reel” we’re about to watch, so to speak, in today’s excerpt had a title, it would be “a strawberry frolic” (64:28), and like so much in the Wake, the “frolic” in question is sexual in nature. Before the reel begins, we’re exhorted to cherchez la femme (here it’s “Cherchons la flamme!” (64:28)), the French expression that literally means ‘look for the woman’ and figuratively means that at the heart of the story, there’s a woman to blame for a man’s misdeeds and downfall. Look, in other words, for the femme fatale. Is this suggesting Eve and her apple, and her man Adam who took the bait, corresponding respectively to our protagonists Annalivia and Earwicker? As the film reel loads onto the projector, we hear the sound of a French woman, or femme, not once, but twice: “Fammfamm! Fammfamm!” (64:28-9) So there are two women involved? This is starting to sound scandalous, and where there’s scandal, HCEarwicker can’t be far away. That’s because the film we’re about to watch is an entertaining adaptation of Earwicker’s alleged sin involving two girls in Phoenix Park (Ep008).

**Benny Hill and two unnamed women in The Daily Mail.**

We don’t have to go as far back as the original sin of Adam/Earwicker in the Garden of Eden/Phoenix Park to follow this scandal; its inspiration is contemporary to Joyce, as Edmund Epstein explains: “another scandal is uncovered — the great Daddy and Peaches Browning scandal of the 1920s in New York. Daddy Browning, a retired taxi-company millionaire, took up with a pudgy 16-year-old whom he nicknamed Peaches. The scandal sheet the New York Graphic (the PornoGraphic, some called it) picked up the juicy morsel and ran with it” (Epstein 44–45). The suggested ménage à trois in the short reel we’ll soon hear also anticipates the horny hijinks of English entertainer Benny Hill (1925–92), whose favourite form of sketch comedy involved young, scantily clad women flirtatiously surrounding the older Hill (over the hill?) himself. Recently, England’s Daily Mail, no stranger to salacious tabloid journalism, sanctimoniously described Hill’s comedy as sexist, to which the character Nigel in the 1984 cult film Spinal Tap might innocently ask, “What’s wrong with being sexy?” (On a side note, this may be the first and only time Battleship Potemkin and Spinal Tap are mentioned in the same piece.)

Going back to our 1939 novel, the “reel world” risqué comedy sketch in today’s excerpt is one page long and a lot of fun to hear Richard read. It ends with “Finny” (65:33), as if to announce “the end” in Italian while echoing the name of Earwicker’s avatar, our book’s eponymous Tim “Finnegan,” who ends (and begins), falls (and rises), again and again.

Here’s a quick synopsis of the rest of today’s excerpt before we get to Richard’s reading.

We left off last episode with our protagonist, HCEarwicker, fleeing “the terror of Errorland” (62:25) only to be subjected to new terrors, with a tall, masked assailant pulling a gun on him.

Now our protagonist appears to be both inside-and-outside a pub both attacking-and-defending himself, somewhat drunkenly; or maybe the attacker is the Cad from Chapter 2 (Ep008) banging at the pub’s door after closing, with the pub appearing to be back in Dublin since its name, “the Mullingcan Inn” (64:9), bears near perfect resemblance to the Mullingar Inn (Ep003), which backs onto Phoenix Park.

We then take “Just one moment” (64:22) to set up the short film reel mentioned earlier and we’re off to the movies to encounter the threesome scandal. The reel ends with “Finny”, and is followed by “Ack, ack, ack” (65:34), which Epstein suggests is the sound of the film flapping once it’s reached the end of its reel (55). (For those accustomed to our current, quieter digital era of movie projection, I have linked in this episode’s transcript to an ‘end-of-film-reel’ “ack-ack-ack-ish” sound effect.)

We then learn that a letter in defence of HCE written by his spouse ALP should land at any moment and vindicate him, clearing him of the scandal that constantly surrounds him. This vital letter will appear in Chapter 5, which we can look forward to.

We then seem to go deeper into HCE’s unconscious, where we find him blaming women for his alleged sins — they teased him, he was pranked (68:22), etc. — but the last two words of today’s excerpt, “whispered sins” (69:4), remind us of the merciless rumours HCE is trying and repeatedly failing to escape.

Now it’s time for Richard’s performance of James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake, page 63 line 20 to page 69 line 4 for the continuation of Chapter 3. The performance was shot and recorded at my home in Toronto on October 2, 2023 with a live audience. The film premiered at the Toronto Irish Film Festival, European Union Film Festival, and Bloomsday Film Festival at the James Joyce Centre in Dublin. The opening music you’ll hear is my own arrangement of “The Keel Row,” the 18th-century Scottish traditional referenced in the “reel world” in today’s excerpt, with Brandon Bak on drums and Adam Seelig, yours truly, on piano.

[Richard Harte reads and sings Finnegans Wake 63:20-69:4.]

[63] Fifthly, how parasoliloquisingly truetoned on his first time of
hearing the wretch's statement that, muttering Irish, he had had
had o'gloriously a'lot too much hanguest or hoshoe fine to
drink in the House of Blazes, the Parrot in Hell, the Orange Tree,
the Glibt, the Sun, the Holy Lamb and, lapse not leashed, in
Ramitdown's ship hotel since the morning moment he could
dixtinguish a white thread from a black till the engine of the
laws declosed unto Murray and was only falling fillthefluthered
up against the gatestone pier which, with the cow's bonnet
a'top o'it, he falsetook for a cattlepillar with purest peaceablest
intentions. Yet how lamely hobbles the hoy of his then pseudo-
jocax axplanation how, according to his own story, he vas a
process server and was merely trying to open zozimus a bottlop
stoub by mortially hammering his magnum bonum (the curter the
club the sorer the savage) against the bludgey gate for the boots
about the swan, Maurice Behan, who hastily into his shoes with
nothing his hald barra tinnteack and came down with homp,

[64] shtemp and jumphet to the tiltyard from the wastes a'sleep in his
obi ohny overclothes or choker, attracted by the norse of guns
playing Delandy is cartager on the raglar rock to Dulyn, said
war' prised safe in bed as he dreamed that he'd wealthes in mor-
mon halls when wokenp by a fourth loud snore out of his land
of byelo while hickstrey's maws was grazing in the moonlight
by hearing hammering on the pandywhank scale emanating from
the blind pig and anything like it (oonagh! oonagh!) in the
whole history of the Mullingcan Inn he never. This battering
babel allower the door and sideposts, he always said, was not in
the very remotest like the belzey babble of a bottle of boose
which would not rouse him out o'slumber deep but reminded
him loads more of the martiallawsey marses of foreign musi-
kants' instrumongs or the overthrewer to the third last days of
Pompery, if anything. And that after this most nooningless
knockturn the young reine came down desperate and the old
liffopotamus started ploring all over the plains, as mud as she
cud be, ruinating all the bouchers' schurts and the backers'
wischandtugs so that be the chandeleure of the Rejaneyjailey
they were all night wasching the walters of, the weltering walters
off. Whyte.
Just one moment. A pinch in time of the ideal, musketeers!
Alphos, Burkos and Caramis, leave Astrelea for the astrollajerries
and for the love of the saunces and the honour of Keavens pike
puddywhackback to Pamintul. And roll away the reel world, the
reel world, the reel world! And call all your smokeblushes,
Snowwhite and Rosered, if you will have the real cream! Now for
a strawberry frolic! Filons, filoosh! Cherchons la flamme! Famm-
famm! Fammfamm!
Come on, ordinary man with that large big nonobli head, and
that blanko berbecked fischial ekksprezzion Machinsky Scapolo-
polos, Duzinascu or other. Your machelar's mutton leg's getting
musclebound from being too pulled. Noah Beery weighed stone
thousand one when Hazel was a hen. Now her fat's falling fast.
Therefore, chatbags, why not yours? There are 29 sweet reasons
why blossomtime's the best. Elders fall for green almonds when

[65] they're raised on bruised stone root ginger though it winters on
their heads as if auctumned round their waistbands. If you'd had
pains in your hairs you wouldn't look so orgibald. You'd have
Colley Macaires on your lump of lead. Now listen, Mr Leer!
And stow that sweatyfunnyadams Simper! Take an old geeser
who calls on his skirt. Note his sleek hair, so elegant, tableau
vivant. He vows her to be his own honeylamb, swears they will
be papa pals, by Sam, and share good times way down west in a
guaranteed happy lovenest when May moon she shines and they
twit twinkle all the night, combing the comet's tail up right and
shooting popguns at the stars. Creampuffs all to dime! Every
nice, missymackenzies! For dear old grumpapar, he's gone on
the razzledar, through gazing and crazing and blazing at the stars.
Compree! She wants her wardrobe to hear from above by return
with cash so as she can buy her Peter Robinson trousseau and cut
a dash with Arty, Bert or possibly Charley Chance (who knows?)
so tolloll Mr Hunker you're too dada for me to dance (so off she
goes!) and that's how half the gels in town has got their bottom
drars while grumpapar he's trying to hitch his braces on to his
trars. But old grum he's not so clean dippy between sweet you
and yum (not on your life, boy! not in those trousers! not by a
large jugful!) for someplace on the sly, where Furphy he isn't by,
old grum has his gel number two (bravevow, our Grum!) and he
would like to canoodle her too some part of the time for he is
downright fond of his number one but O he's fair mashed on
peaches number two so that if he could only canoodle the two,
chivee chivoo, all three would feel genuinely happy, it's as simple
as A. B. C., the two mixers, we mean, with their cherrybum
chappy (for he is simply shamming dippy) if they all were afloat
in a dreamlifeboat, hugging two by two in his zoo-doo-you-doo,
a tofftoff for thee, missymissy for me and howcameyou-e'enso for
Farber, in his tippy, upindown dippy, tiptoptippy canoodle, can
you? Finny.
Ack, ack, ack. With which clap, trap and soddenment, three to
a loaf, our mutual friends the fender and the bottle at the gate seem
to be implicitly in the same bateau, so to singen, bearing also

[66] several of the earmarks of design, for there is in fact no use in
putting a tooth in a snipery of that sort and the amount of all
those sort of things which has been going on onceaday in and
twiceaday out every other nachtistag among all kinds of pro-
miscious individuals at all ages in private homes and reeboos
publikiss and allover all and elsewhere throughout secular
sequence the country over and overabroad has been particularly
stupendous. To be continued. Federals' Uniteds' Transports'
Unions' for Exultations' of Triumphants' Ecstasies.
But resuming inquiries. Will it ever be next morning the postal
unionist's (officially called carrier's, Letters Scotch, Limited)
strange fate (Fierceendgiddyex he's hight, d.e., the losel that
hucks around missivemaids' gummibacks) to hand in a huge
chain envelope, written in seven divers stages of ink, from blanch-
essance to lavandaiette, every pothook and pancrook bespaking
the wisherwife, superscribed and subpencilled by yours A Laugh-
able Party, with afterwite, S.A.G., to Hyde and Cheek, Eden-
berry, Dubblenn, WC? Will whatever will be written in lappish
language with inbursts of Maggyer always seem semposed, black
looking white and white guarding black, in that siamixed twoa-
talk used twist stern swift and jolly roger? Will it bright upon us,
nightle, and we plunging to our plight? Well, it might now, mircle,
so it light. Always and ever till Cox's wife, twice Mrs Hahn, pokes
her beak into the matter with Owen K. after her, to see whawa
smutter after, will this kiribis pouch filled with litterish frag-
ments lurk dormant in the paunch of that halpbrother of a herm,
a pillarbox? The coffin, a triumph of the illusionist's art, at first
blench naturally taken for a handharp (it is handwarp to tristin-
guishjubabe from jabule or either from tubote when all three
have just been invened) had been removed from the hardware
premises of Oetzmann and Nephew, a noted house of the gone-
most west, which in the natural course of all things continues to
supply funeral requisites of every needed description. Why nee-
ded, though? Indeed needed (wouldn't you feel like rattanfowl
if you hadn't the oscar!) because the flash brides or bride in
their lily boleros one games with at the Nivynubies' finery ball

[67]and your upright grooms that always come right up with you
(and by jingo when they do!) what else in this mortal world,
now ours, when meet there night, mid their nackt, me there na-
ket, made their nought the hour strikes, would bring them right-
came back in the flesh, thumbs down, to their orses and their
hashes.
To proceed. We might leave that nitrience of oxagiants to take
its free of the air and just analectralyse that very chymerical com-
bination, the gasbag where the warderworks. And try to pour
somour heiterscene up thealmostfere. In the bottled heliose case
continuing, Long Lally Tobkids, the special, sporting a fine breast
of medals, and a conscientious scripturereader to boot in the brick
and tin choorch round the coroner, swore like a Norewheezian
tailliur on the stand before the proper functionary that he was up
against a right querrshnorrt of a mand in the butcher of the blues
who, he guntinued, on last epening after delivering some car-
casses mattonchepps and meatjutes on behalf of Messrs Otto
Sands and Eastman, Limericked, Victuallers, went and, with his
unmitigated astonissment, hickicked at the dun and dorass against
all the runes and, when challenged about the pretended hick (it
was kickup and down with him) on his solemn by the imputant
imputed, said simply: I appop pie oath, Phillyps Captain. You
did, as I sostressed before. You are deepknee in error, sir, Madam
Tomkins, let me then tell you, replied with a gentlewomanly
salaam MackPartland, (the meatman's family, and the oldest in
the world except nick, name.) And Phelps was flayful with his
peeler. But his phizz fell.
Now to the obverse. From velveteens to dimities is barely a
fivefinger span and hence these camelback excesses are thought
to have been instigated by one or either of the causing causes of
all, those rushy hollow heroines in their skirtsleeves, be she ma-
gretta be she the posque. Oh! Oh! Because it is a horrible thing
to have to say to say to day but one dilalah, Lupita Lorette, short-
ly after in a fit of the unexpectednesses drank carbolic with all
her dear placid life before her and paled off while the other
soiled dove that's her sister-in-love, Luperca Latouche, finding

[68] one day while dodging chores that she stripped teasily for binocu-
lar man and that her jambs were jimpjoyed to see each other, the
nautchy girly soon found her fruitful hat too small for her and
rapidly taking time, look, she rapidly took to necking, partying
and selling her spare favours in the haymow or in lumber closets
or in the greenawn ad huck (there are certain intimacies in all
ladies' lavastories we just lease to imagination) or in the sweet
churchyard close itself for a bit of soft coal or an array of thin
trunks, serving whom in fine that same hot coney a la Zingara
which our own little Graunya of the chilired cheeks dished up
to the greatsire of Oscar, that son of a Coole. Houri of the coast
of emerald, arrah of the lacessive poghue, Aslim-all-Muslim, the
resigned to her surrender, did not she, come leinster's even, true
dotter of a dearmud, (her pitch was Forty Steps and his perch old
Cromwell's Quarters) with so valkirry a licence as sent many a
poor pucker packing to perdition, again and again, ay, and again
sfidare him, tease fido, eh tease fido, eh eh tease fido, toos top-
ples topple, stop, dug of a dog of a dgiaour, ye! Angealousmei!
And did not he, like Arcoforty, farfar off Bissavolo, missbrand
her behaveyous with iridescent huecry of down right mean false
sop lap sick dope? Tawfulsdreck! A reine of the shee, a shebeen
quean, a queen of pranks. A kingly man, of royal mien, regally
robed, exalted be his glory! So gave so take: Now not, not now!
He would just a min. Suffering trumpet! He thought he want.
Whath? Hear, O hear, living of the land! Hungreb, dead era,
hark! He hea, eyes ravenous on her lippling lills. He hear her voi
of day gon by. He hears! Zay, zay, zay! But, by the beer of his
profit, he cannot answer. Upterputty till rise and shine! Nor needs
none shaft ne stele from Phenicia or Little Asia to obelise on
the spout, neither pobalclock neither folksstone, nor sunkenness
in Tomar's Wood to bewray how erpressgangs score off the rued.
The mouth that tells not will ever attract the unthinking tongue
and so long as the obseen draws theirs which hear not so long
till allearth's dumbnation shall the blind lead the deaf. Tatcho,
tawney yeeklings! The column of lumps lends the pattrin of the
leaves behind us. If violence to life, limb and chattels, often as

[69] not, has been the expression, direct or through an agent male, of
womanhid offended, (ah! ah!), has not levy of black mail from
the times the fairies were in it, and fain for wilde erthe blothoms
followed an impressive private reputation for whispered sins?

[End of excerpt]

Adam Seelig: That was Richard Harte reading pages 63 to 69 of Chapter 3 from Finnegans Wake, recorded live in Toronto on October 2nd, 2023.

Join us for Episode 15 in a fortnight when Richard concludes his reading of Chapter 3. To be sure you don’t miss the episode, why not follow or subscribe to this podcast? For more on One Little Goat’s Finnegans Wake project, including transcripts of this podcast and the complete film of Chapter 1, visit our website at OneLittleGoat.org. And to hear about upcoming performances and screenings, join our mailing list, also on our website.

See you in two weeks!
[Music: Adam Seelig plays piano]

Finnegans Wake is made possible by Friends of One Little Goat Theatre Company and the Emigrant Support Programme of the government of Ireland. Thank you for your support! And thank you to the artists for this episode: Richard Harte; Sound by William Bembridge; Podcast production by Sean Rasmussen; Stage Management by Sandi Becker; Directed by yours truly, Adam Seelig; Music arranged and performed on the piano by me, with Brandon Bak on drums, and recorded at Sound Department in Toronto. A big thanks to our wonderful live audience of Sandi Becker, David Mackett, Andrew Moodie, Cathy Murphy, Nomi Rotbard, Arlo Rotbard-Seelig, Adam Seelig, Aaron Tucker and Catherine Vaneri. Thank you to everyone at the Irish Consulate in Toronto. Thank you to Production Consultants Cathy Murphy and Andrew Moodie and to Music Consultants Warwick Harte and Kevin Kennedy. Thank you for listening!
[Music fades out]

[End of Ep014]

Mentioned: “the reel world,” “The Keel Row” song, James Joyce and cinema, film, Dublin’s first movie theatre the Volta, Sergei Eisenstein, “a strawberry frolic,” cherchez la femme, ménage à trois, Peaches and Daddy Browning scandal, Benny Hill, synopsis.

Cited: Ronald Bergan. Sergei Eisenstein: A Life in Conflict (1997). New York, Arcade, 2016.

Episode 013: I dream therefore I become (p. 58:23-63:19)

January 9, 2025 Adam Seelig

JAMES JOYCE’S FINNEGANS WAKE
Episode 013: I DREAM THEREFORE I BECOME

PAGE 58:23-63:19 | 2025-01-09

PODCAST AUDIO

PODCAST TRANSCRIPT

Adam Seelig: Welcome to James Joyce’s divine and delirious comedy, Finnegans Wake. In this episode, number 13, we’ll hear Irish-Canadian actor — and my good friend and colleague — Richard Harte performing pages 58 to 63 from Chapter 3 of Joyce’s last novel. I’m Adam Seelig, the director of the reading you’ll soon hear.

[Music: Adam Seelig plays piano]
Adam Seelig: Finnegans Wake is a production of One Little Goat Theatre Company. For the next five years, One Little Goat will film and record all 17 chapters (roughly 30 Hours) of Joyce’s Finnegans Wake before live audiences in various locations, screening and releasing them along along the way, with the aim of completing the entire book in time for its 90th birthday, May 4, 2029. One Little Goat Theatre Company is an official charity in Canada and the United States — if you’d like to support our work, please visit us online at www.OneLittleGoat.org to make a charitable donation. And if monetary support is not an option, you can still help this podcast by rating and reviewing it and by spreading the word. To get in touch, you’ll find our email address on the One Little Goat Theatre Company website and we’d love to hear from you.
[Music fades out]

Adam Seelig: I dream, therefore I become.

I’ll soon describe how this statement relates to today’s excerpt and to Finnegans Wake in general.

In pursuit of our ever-elusive protagonist, H. C. Earwicker, we left off last episode with “strongers” versus “softsies,” two opposing groups of Dubliners. The former are in favour of punishing HCE for his alleged misdemeanors, the latter prefer to defend him, seeing his actions as “human, erring and condonable” (58:16-19) — note here the initials for each word, H, E & C, drawing on HCE’s monogram. While “the unfacts… are too imprecisely few” (57:16-17) about the wrongs Earwicker may have committed and where he may have escaped, Finnegans Wake is still determined to find out.

**Banksy’s first artwork in Ireland? This photo of ‘lost boy’ was posted in spring 2024 by Galway Tourism.**

Today’s excerpt opens with a fact-finding mission, the narrative moving door-to-door and person-to-person to gather information on our protagonist. We saw in Chapter 2 how gossip spread across Dublin about Earwicker’s alleged misdemeanour in Phoenix Park — a hazy event involving a cad, two girls and three soldiers (Ep008). Now we’re going to get the word on the street, so to speak. Think of it as journalistic reportage, the result being a series of soundbites from a series of interviews, much as you might encounter on the nightly news. Or more specifically, think of the media’s many street interviews over the years in search of one of the world’s most mysterious people, the graffiti artist Banksy. The more testimony gathered, it seems, the less identifiable the person in question.

Here we have 20 different Dubliners providing 20 different takes on Earwicker, some attacking him (the “strongers”), others defending (the “softsies”), all of them comically contradictory and unreliable, including soundbites from three soldiers, an actress, an Irish jaunting car driver, a sweaty-and-out-of-breath tennis player, “a wouldbe martyr” (60:16), a teenage revivalist, a girl detective terrifically named Sylvia Silence (61:1) and many others. Adaline Glasheen elegantly observes that this reportage opens with three soldiers blaming two girls for Earwicker’s fall, and closes the other way around, with two girls indicating three soldiers are behind it (xxxiii). Ultimately, this mishmash of testimony brings us no closer to finding Earwicker and the sin he may have committed, but it does clearly testify to James Joyce’s — not to mention Richard Harte’s — exceptional ear and register for Dublin dialogue.

When I first read this reportage section along with Richard, I was curious about its many Buddhist references woven throughout. Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha himself, is mentioned, although this being Joyce, he merges with Sir Arthur Guinness of Guinness brewing fame to become “Sid Arthar” (59:7). Other Buddhist references here include Maya-prajapati, Buddha’s stepmother (59:14); Arata-Kalama and Asita, two Buddhist hermits (59:24 & 60:16); Buddha’s sister teaching the Buddha to wear bracelets (60:17); Sakya Muni, another name for the Buddha (60:19); the tree where Buddha meditated (60:20); Apsaras, the maidens who entertained the young Buddha (60:20); and nirvana, Buddhism’s celebrated concept of enlightenment, which here becomes “nearvanashed” (61:18).

Why so much about this 2,500-year-old religious figure, the Buddha (c.563–c.460 BCE)?

I can answer that question with the help of Karen Armstrong’s biography on the Buddha, appropriately titled Buddha. The following quote from Armstrong’s outstanding book not only provides a key to the Buddhist motif vis-à-vis the ever-shifting identity of Earwicker, it also provides a key to the ever-shifting narrative of Finnegans Wake as a whole. Here’s Armstrong:

The terms “self” and “myself” were simply conventions. The personality had no fixed or changeless core. […] Every sentient being was in a state of constant flux; he or she was merely a succession of temporary, mutable states of existence.

The Buddha pressed this message home throughout his life. Where the seventeenth-century French philosopher René Descartes (1596-1650) would declare “I think, therefore I am,” the Buddha came to the opposite conclusion. The more he thought, in the mindful, yogic way he had developed, the clearer it seemed that what we call the “self” is a delusion. In his view, the more closely we examine ourselves, the harder it becomes to find anything that we can pinpoint as a fixed entity. The human personality was not a static being to which things happened. Put under the microscope of yogic analysis, each person was a process. The Buddha liked to use such metaphors as a blazing fire or a rushing stream to describe the personality; it had some kind of identity, but was never the same from one moment to another. At each second, a fire was different; it had consumed and re-created itself, just as people did. In a particularly vivid simile, the Buddha compared the human mind to a monkey ranging through the forest: “it grabs one branch, and then, letting that go, seizes another.” What we experience as the “self” is really just a convenience-term, because we are constantly changing. In the same way, milk can become, successively, curds, butter, ghee, and fine-extract of ghee. There is no point in calling any one of these transformations “milk,” even though there is a sense in which it is correct to do so. (111-112)

**René Descartes, engraving by unknown artist, 17th century,** **National Portrait Gallery** **London.**

As we heard from ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus in the previous podcast episode (Ep012), “No one ever steps in the same river twice.” So too, as we just heard Armstrong describe, “the Buddha liked to use such metaphors as a […] a rushing stream to describe the personality; it had some kind of identity, but was never the same from one moment to another.” And Buddhism’s conception of a person as a flexible process rather than fixed-and-finished now leads me to adapt Descartes’ famous cogito ergo sum (“I think, therefore I am”) to the riverrunning stream of unconsciousness that comprises the flowing dream language of Finnegans Wake: I dream, therefore I become.

**Nora Barnacle, photo by Berenice Abbott, 1926.**

Following this reportage section with its Buddhist motif, we learn of Earwicker’s flight from the terror of Ireland/Errorland with a female Catholic (or “papishee”), much as Joyce eloped with Nora Barnacle (1884-1951) in 1904.

The next paragraph opens with one of my favourite sentences, a sentence that addresses and includes us, the audience collectively reading the Wake, as the narrative conveys us to a zone reminiscent of the 3,500-year-old Egyptian Book of the Dead. It’s a zone most fitting for anyone attending a wake: “We seem to us (the real Us!) to be reading our Amenti in the sixth sealed chapter of the going forth by black.” (62:26-27)

**Spells of Coming Forth by Day, the original Egyptian name for the Book of The Dead (Wikipedia**).

We then hear about a tall, masked man pulling a gun on HCE, although this anecdote, as another one of my favourite sentences indicates, is likely spurious: “But how transparingly nontrue, gentlewriter!” (63:9-10)

Now it’s time for Richard’s performance of James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake, page 58 line 23 to page 63 line 19 for the continuation of Chapter 3.

The performance was shot and recorded at my home in Toronto on October 2, 2023 with a live audience. The film premiered at the Toronto Irish Film Festival, European Union Film Festival, and Bloomsday Film Festival at the James Joyce Centre in Dublin.

The brief opening music you’ll hear is my own arrangement of “We Be Soldiers Three,” a 17th-century folk song referenced in the first sentence of today’s excerpt, with Brandon Bak on drums and Adam Seelig, yours truly, on piano.

[Richard Harte reads and sings Finnegans Wake 58:23-63:19.]

[58] Tap and pat and tapatagain, (fire firstshot, Missiers the Refusel-
eers! Peingpeong! For saxonlootie!) three tommix, soldiers free,
cockaleak and cappapee, of the Coldstream. Guards were walking,
in (pardonnez-leur, je vous en prie, eh?) Montgomery Street. One
voiced an opinion in which on either wide (pardonnez!), nod-
ding, all the Finner Camps concurred (je vous en prie, eh?). It
was the first woman, they said, souped him, that fatal wellesday,
Lili Coninghams, by suggesting him they go in a field. Wroth
mod eldfar, ruth redd stilstand, wrath wrackt wroth, confessed
private Pat Marchison retro. (Terse!) Thus contenters with san-
toys play. One of our coming Vauxhall ontheboards who is
resting for the moment (she has been callit by a noted stagey ele-
cutioner a wastepacket Sittons) was interfeud in a waistend pewty
parlour. Looking perhaps even more pewtyflushed in her cherry-

[59] derry padouasoys, girdle and braces by the halfmoon and Seven
Stars, russets from the Blackamoor's Head, amongst the climbing
boys at his Eagle and Child and over the corn and hay emptors
at their Black and All Black, Mrs F . . . A . . . saidaside, half in
stage of whisper to her confidante glass, while recoopering her
cartwheel chapot (ahat! — and we now know what thimbles a
baquets on lallance a talls mean), she hoped Sid Arthar would
git a Chrissman's portrout of orange and lemonsized orchids with
hollegs and ether, from the feeatre of the Innocident, as the
worryld had been uncained. Then, while it is odrous comparison-
ing to the sprangflowers of his burstday which was a virid-
able goddinpotty for the reinworms and the charlattinas and all
branches of climatitis, it has been such a wanderful noyth untirely,
added she, with many regards to Maha's pranjapansies. (Tart!)
Prehistoric, obitered to his dictaphone an entychologist: his pro-
penomen is a properismenon. A dustman nocknamed Seven-
churches in the employ of Messrs Achburn, Soulpetre and
Ashreborn, prairmakers, Glintalook, was asked by the sisterhood
the vexed question during his midday collation of leaver and
buckrom alternatively with stenk and kitteney phie in a hash-
housh and, thankeaven, responsed impulsively: We have just been
propogandering his nullity suit and what they took out of his ear
among my own crush. All our fellows at O'Dea's sages with
Aratar Calaman he is a cemented brick, buck it all! A more nor
usually sober cardriver, who was jauntingly hosing his runabout,
Ginger Jane, took a strong view. Lorry hosed her as he talked
and this is what he told rewritemen: Irewaker is just a plain pink
joint reformee in private life but folks all have it by brehemons
laws he has parliamentary honours. Eiskaffier said (Louigi's, you
know that man's, brillant Savourain): Mon foie, you wish to ave
some homelette, yes, lady! Good, mein leber! Your hegg he must
break himself. See, I crack, so, he sit in the poele, umbedimbt!
A perspirer (over sixty) who was keeping up his tennises panted
he kne ho har twa to clect infamatios but a diffpair flannels climb
wall and trespassing on doorbell. After fullblown Braddon hear
this fresky troterella! A railways barmaid's view (they call her

[60] Spilltears Rue) was thus expressed: to sympathisers of the Dole
Line, Death Avenue, anent those objects of her pity-prompted
ministrance, to wet, man and his syphon. Ehim! It is ever too
late to whissle when Phyllis floods her stable. It would be skar-
lot shame to jailahim in lockup, as was proposed to him by the
Seddoms creature what matter what merrytricks went off with
his revulverher in connections with ehim being a norphan and
enjoining such wicked illth, ehim! Well done, Drumcollakill!
Kitty Tyrrel is proud of you, was the reply of a B.O.T. official
(O blame gnot the board!) while the Daughters Benkletter mur-
mured in uniswoon: Golforgilhisjurylegs! Brian Lynsky, the cub
curser, was questioned at his shouting box, Bawlonabraggat, and
gave a snappy comeback, when saying: Paw! Once more I'll
hellbowl! I am for caveman chase and sahara sex, burk you! Them
two bitches ought to be leashed, canem! Up hog and hoar hunt!
Paw! A wouldbe martyr, who is attending on sanit Asitas where
he is being taught to wear bracelets, when grilled on the point,
revealed the undoubted fact that the consequence would be that
so long as Sankya Moondy played his mango tricks under the
mysttetry, with shady apsaras sheltering in his leaves' licence and
his shadowers torrifried by the potent bolts of indradiction, there
would be fights all over Cuxhaven. (Tosh!) Missioner Ida Womb-
well, the seventeenyearold revivalist, said concerning the coinci-
dent of interfizzing with grenadines and other respectable and
disgusted peersons using the park: That perpendicular person is
a brut! But a magnificent brut! 'Caligula' (Mr Danl Magrath,
bookmaker, wellknown to Eastrailian poorusers of the Sydney
Parade Ballotin) was, as usual, antipodal with his: striving todie,
hopening tomellow, Ware Splash. Cobbler. We have meat two
hourly, sang out El Caplan Buycout, with the famous padre's
turridur's capecast, meet too ourly, matadear! Dan Meiklejohn,
precentor, of S.S. Smack and Olley's was probiverbal with his
upsiduxit: mutatus mutandus. Dauran's lord ('Sniffpox') and Moir-
gan's lady ('Flatterfun') took sides and crossed and bowed to
each other's views and recrossed themselves. The dirty dubs upin
their flies, went too free, echoed the dainly drabs downin their

[61] scenities, una mona. Sylvia Silence, the girl detective (Meminerva,
but by now one hears turtlings all over Doveland!) when supplied
with informations as to the several facets of the case in her cozy-
dozy bachelure's flat, quite overlooking John a'Dream's mews,
leaned back in her really truly easy chair to query restfully through
her vowelthreaded syllabelles: Have you evew thought, wepow-
tew, that sheew gweatness was his twadgedy? Nevewtheless ac-
cowding to my considewed attitudes fow this act he should pay
the full penalty, pending puwsuance, as pew Subsec. 32, section
II, of the C. L. A. act 1885, anything in this act to the contwawy
notwithstanding. Jarley Jilke began to silke for he couldn't get
home to Jelsey but ended with: He's got the sack that helped him
moult instench of his gladsome rags. Meagher, a naval rating,
seated on one of the granite cromlech setts of our new fish-
shambles for the usual aireating after the ever popular act, with
whom were Questa and Puella, piquante and quoite, (this had a
cold in her brain while that felt a sink in her summock, wit's
wat, wot's wet) was encouraged, although nearvanashed himself,
by one of his co-affianced to get your breath, Walt, and gobbit
and when ther chidden by her fastra sastra to saddle up your
pance, Naville, thus cor replied to her other's thankskissing: I
lay my two fingerbuttons, fiancee Meagher, (he speaks!) he was
to blame about your two velvetthighs up Horniman's Hill — as
hook and eye blame him or any other piscman? — but I also
think, Puellywally, by the siege of his trousers there was some-
one else behind it — you bet your boughtem blarneys — about
their three drummers down Keysars Lane. (Trite!).
Be these meer marchant taylor's fablings of a race referend
with oddman rex? Is now all seenheard then forgotten? Can it
was, one is fain in this leaden age of letters now to wit, that so
diversified outrages (they have still to come!) were planned and
partly carried out against so staunch a covenanter if it be true
than any of those recorded ever took place for many, we trow,
beyessed to and denayed of, are given to us by some who use
the truth but sparingly and we, on this side ought to sorrow for
their pricking pens on that account. The seventh city, Urovivla,

[62] his citadear of refuge, whither (would we believe the laimen and
their counts), beyond the outraved gales of Atreeatic, changing
clues with a baggermalster, the hejirite had fled, silentioussue-
meant under night's altosonority, shipalone, a raven of the wave,
(be mercy, Mara! A he whence Rahoulas!) from the ostmen's
dirtby on the old vic, to forget in expiating manslaughter and,
reberthing in remarriment out of dead seekness to devine previ-
dence, (if you are looking for the bilder deep your ear on the
movietone!) to league his lot, palm and patte, with a papishee.
For mine qvinne I thee giftake and bind my hosenband I thee
halter. The wastobe land, a lottuse land, a luctuous land, Emerald-
illuim, the peasant pastured, in which by the fourth commandment
with promise his days apostolic were to be long by the abundant
mercy of Him Which Thundereth From On High, murmured,
would rise against him with all which in them were, franchisab-
les and inhabitands, astea as agora, helotsphilots, do him hurt,
poor jink, ghostly following bodily, as were he made a curse for
them, the corruptible lay quick, all saints of incorruption of an
holy nation, the common or ere-in-garden castaway, in red re-
surrection to condemn so they might convince him, first pha-
roah, Humpheres Cheops Exarchas, of their proper sins. Busi-
ness bred to speak with a stiff upper lip to all men and most occa-
sions the Man we wot of took little short of fighting chances but
for all that he or his or his care were subjected to the horrors of
the premier terror of Errorland. (perorhaps!)
We seem to us (the real Us !) to be reading our Amenti in the
sixth sealed chapter of the going forth by black. It was after the
show at Wednesbury that one tall man, humping a suspicious
parcel, when returning late amid a dense particular on his home
way from the second house of the Boore and Burgess Christy
Menestrels by the old spot, Roy's Corner, had a barkiss revolver
placed to his faced with the words: you're shot, major: by an un-
knowable assailant (masked) against whom he had been jealous
over, Lotta Crabtree or Pomona Evlyn. More than that Whenn
the Waylayer (not a Lucalizod diocesan or even of the Glenda-
lough see, but hailing fro' the prow of Little Britain), mention-

[63] ing in a bytheway that he, the crawsopper, had, in edition to
Reade's cutless centiblade, a loaded Hobson's which left only twin
alternatives as, viceversa, either he would surely shoot her, the
aunt, by pistol, (she could be okaysure of that!) or, failing of such,
bash in Patch's blank face beyond recognition, pointedly asked
with gaeilish gall wodkar blizzard's business Thornton had with
that Kane's fender only to be answered by the aggravated
assaulted that that that was the snaps for him, Midweeks, to sultry
well go and find out if he was showery well able. But how trans-
paringly nontrue, gentlewriter! His feet one is not a tall man, not
at all, man. No such parson. No such fender. No such lumber. No
such race. Was it supposedly in connection with a girls, Myramy
Huey or Colores Archer, under Flaggy Bridge (for ann there is
but one liv and hir newbridge is her old) or to explode his
twelvechamber and force a shrievalty entrance that the heavybuilt
Abelbody in a butcherblue blouse from One Life One Suit (a
men's wear store), with a most decisive bottle of single in his
possession, seized after dark by the town guard at Haveyou-
caught-emerod's temperance gateway was there in a gate's way.

[End of excerpt]

Adam Seelig: That was Richard Harte reading pages 58 to 63 of Chapter 3 from Finnegans Wake, recorded live in Toronto on October 2nd, 2023.

Join us for Episode 14 in a fortnight when Richard continues with the next five pages of Chapter 3, including the delightful “strawberry frolic” paragraph. To be sure you don’t miss the episode, why not follow or subscribe to this podcast? For more on One Little Goat’s Finnegans Wake project, including transcripts of this podcast, the complete film of Chapter 1, visit our website at OneLittleGoat.org. And to hear about upcoming performances and screenings, join our mailing list, also on our website.

See you in two weeks!

[Music: Adam Seelig plays piano]

Finnegans Wake is made possible by Friends of One Little Goat Theatre Company and the Emigrant Support Programme of the government of Ireland. Thank you for your support! And thank you to the artists for this episode: Richard Harte; Sound by William Bembridge; Podcast production by Sean Rasmussen; Stage Management by Sandi Becker; Directed by yours truly, Adam Seelig; Music arranged and performed on the piano by me, with Brandon Bak on drums, and recorded at Sound Department in Toronto. A big thanks to our wonderful live audience of Sandi Becker, David Mackett, Andrew Moodie, Cathy Murphy, Nomi Rotbard, Arlo Rotbard-Seelig, Adam Seelig, Aaron Tucker and Catherine Vaneri. Thank you to everyone at the Irish Consulate in Toronto. Thank you to Production Consultants Cathy Murphy and Andrew Moodie and to Music Consultants Warwick Harte and Kevin Kennedy. Thank you for listening!

[Music fades out]

[End of Ep013]

Mentioned: “I dream, therefore I become,” “strongers” vs. “softsies,” reportage, 20 Dubliners, HCE as Banksy, Buddhism motif, Karen Armstrong’s Buddha biography, “self” as process in flux, identity as changing stream, Heraclitus, Descartes, Nora Barnacle, Book of the Dead, “the real Us!”, synopsis.

Cited: Karen Armstrong, Buddha. Toronto, Penguin, 2001.

Episode 012: This river I step in (p. 53:7-58:22)

December 26, 2024 Adam Seelig

JAMES JOYCE’S FINNEGANS WAKE
Episode 012 THIS RIVER I STEP IN

PAGE 53:7-58:22 | 2024-12-26

PODCAST AUDIO

PODCAST TRANSCRIPT

Adam Seelig: Welcome to James Joyce’s divine and delirious comedy, Finnegans Wake. In this episode, number 12, we’ll hear Irish-Canadian actor — and my good friend and colleague — Richard Harte performing pages 53 to 58 from Chapter 3 of Joyce’s last novel. I’m Adam Seelig, the director of the reading you’ll soon hear.

As I record this in the last days of 2024, One Little Goat Theatre Company, a registered charity in the United States and Canada, is fundraising so we can keep offering our programming. For over 20 years we have been producing poetic theatre of the highest calibre, which wouldn’t be possible without the generous support of individuals like you. We love producing these recordings and films of Finnegans Wake — at the same time, they require money to produce. So please, if you’re financially able, take a moment to donate through our website, www.OneLittleGoat.org, and click on “Contact & Donate.” All donations will receive an official tax receipt. Many many thanks to all of you who have already donated to One Little Goat — we really appreciate your support.

[Music: Adam Seelig plays piano]

Adam Seelig: Finnegans Wake is a production of One Little Goat Theatre Company. For the next five years, One Little Goat will film and record all 17 chapters (roughly 30 Hours) of Joyce’s Finnegans Wake before live audiences in various locations, screening and releasing them along along the way, with the aim of completing the entire book in time for its 90th birthday, May 4, 2029. One Little Goat Theatre Company is an official charity in Canada and the United States — if you’d like to support our work, please visit us online at www.OneLittleGoat.org to make a charitable donation. And if monetary support is not an option, you can still help this podcast by rating and reviewing it and by spreading the word. To get in touch, you’ll find our email address on the One Little Goat Theatre Company website and we’d love to hear from you.

[Music fades out]

“This river I step in is not the river I stand in” — Eldon Garnet sculpture (“Time: and a Clock” 1995), Queen Street East bridge over the Don River in Toronto. Still from One Little Goat’s “*Finnegans Wake* Chapter 1” film (2023).

Adam Seelig: “This river I step in is not the river I stand in.”

These words feature prominently across a bridge over Toronto’s Don River in a public art work by sculptor Eldon Garnet (“Time: and a Clock” 1995). The sculpted sentence, which you can see for yourself online in the opening montage of our Finnegans Wake Chapter 1 film, is a variation on the ancient aphorism of pre-Socratic Greek philosopher Heraclitus (c.6th century BCE):

“No one ever steps in the same river twice.”

**Heraclitus (detail) as depicted by Raphael in *The School of Athens*, c.1510.**

It’s a fitting way to think of the Wake’s everflowing (and sometimes overflowing) riverrun of words, languages, dreams, time and of course Dublin’s river Liffey itself, which, by very definition of a river, always runs. Everything, after all, changes; or as I often hear said succinctly, change is constant; or if we jump back once more to Heraclitus for another of his evocative phrases: “everything flows.”

Becoming over being. Heraclitus and Finnegans Wake emphasize the former over the latter, favouring flow and process over fixed product. The very language of the Wake, with its seemingly endless evocations of meaning — and also, let’s be honest, confusions and opacities of meaning — enacts this process, this flow, this becoming, this riverrun on every page.

In Music at the Heart of Thinking, Vancouver poet and former Poet Laureate of Canada Fred Wah (b.1939) writes about the elusiveness of linguistic signification in a way that can help us hear, look at and ultimately experience the many meanings generated by the Wake.

As Wah describes, meaning is not predictable. “As a sure thing, it eludes us.” It won’t “stand still long enough to get caught.”

While this describes Wah’s own writing, it could just as easily describe a reader’s experience of Finnegans Wake, especially because it anticipates one of the most pervasive questions from new and experienced readers alike, namely: What does this mean? Here, if you will, is Wah’s answer:

To say: “I don’t understand what this means,” is, at least, to recognize that “this” means. The problem is that meaning is not a totality of sameness and predictability. Within each word, each sentence, meaning has slipped a little out of sight and all we have are traces, shadows, still warm ashes. The meaning available from language goes beyond the actual instance of this word, that word. A text is a place where a labyrinth of continually revealing meanings are available, a place that offers more possibility than we can be sure we know, sometimes more than we want to know. It isn’t a container, static and apparent. […] As a sure thing, it eludes us. It arouses us to attempt an understanding, to interpret. […] No single meaning is the right one because no “right ones” stand still long enough to get caught. But because we do not know does not mean we are lost. Something that’s strangely familiar, not quite what we expect, but familiar, is present. That quick little gasp in the daydream, a sudden sigh of recognition, a little sock of baby breath. [… Meaning] can only be found hiding between the words and lines and in a margin large enough for further thought, music at the heart of thinking, go ahead (1-2)

And that’s how Fred Wah’s opening entry to Music at the Heart of Thinking leaves off: open ended without a closing period.

Just as the riverrun-language of the Wake often “eludes us,” so too does the character of Earwicker in Chapter 3; or to put it the other way around, just as Earwicker often eludes us in Chapter 3, so too does the language that follows him, reminding us that form and content in Finnegans Wake are one. As Samuel Beckett insisted, Finnegans Wake “is not about something; it is that something itself.”

So if Earwicker is on the lam in Chapter 3, the language is running away too. To borrow the words of Wah, the language will not “stand still long enough to get caught.” And perhaps there’s no better example of this in today’s excerpt than in the Casaconcordia paragraph on page 54, which presents such an extreme and obscene mashup of languages that it’s almost guaranteed to throw us off Earwicker’s trail. The Casaconcordia paragraph, as I promised at the end of last episode, presents Finnegans Wake at its polyglottal, ludicrous best.

“Casaconcordia” is a Joycean invention in Italian meaning “house of peace.” Edmund Epstein interprets it as a version of the United Nations (then known as the League of Nations); if so, this paragraph seems designed to take the piss out of the UN, figuratively and literally, as it starts off in a tearoom and ends up in the bathroom. The paragraph describes people at “sixes and seventies,” i.e. in disarray, and then invokes the parliaments of Bulgaria, Norway and Russia (the Sobranje, Storting and Duma, respectively, forgive my pronunciations), before entering the Casaconcordia/UN. Here’s how that setup sounds in Richard’s reading:

Any dog's life you list you may still hear them at it, like sixes
and seventies as eversure as Halley's comet, ulemamen, sobran-
jewomen, storthingboys and dumagirls, as they pass its bleak and
bronze portal of your Casaconcordia (54:7-10)

Once we are in the Casaconcordia, we encounter languages that strike me, contrary to the building’s harmonious name, as more discordant than concordant, a kind of Tower of Babel that might represent more of a Divided than United Nations. On the other hand, the people conversing here ultimately end their interactions politely with expressions of thanks, so maybe while the 17 different languages of this linguistic mashup don’t always agree with each other, the people expressing them sometimes do. In any event, you have to love Finnegans Wake for substituting and subverting the stately bronze doors that open onto the UN’s hallowed Assembly Hall with a “bleak… bronze portal” that eventually leads us to the toilet. The Wake is nothing if not irreverent. Here’s Richard reading the opening lines in this Tower of Babel / UN dialogue:

Huru more Nee, minny
frickans? Hwoorledes har Dee det? Losdoor onleft mladies, cue.
Millecientotrigintadue scudi. Tippoty, kyrie, tippoty. Cha kai
rotty kai makkar, sahib? (54:10-13)

Drawing on Swedish, Danish, English, Old English, Italian, Greek, Pan-Slavonic and Hindi, the phrases here are the kinds you might find in a guidebook for tourists , such as How are you?, or a phrase offering simple directions, or one asking about tea and teapots. Going on:

Despenseme Usted, senhor, en son suc-
co, sabez. O thaw bron orm, A'Cothraige, thinkinthou gaily?
Lick-Pa-flai-hai-pa-Pa-li-si-lang-lang. (54:13-15)

The first sentence here, which Epstein calls “a Romance language puzzle,” mentions “succo” or sugar, further suggesting a tearoom. This is followed by a question in pseudo-Irish that might translate into “O, I am sorry, Patrick, do you understand Gaelic?” (McHugh), which is followed by a possible riff on Hawaiian that could translate to “We took a long, long flight to Paris” (Epstein). Saving the best for last, here are the final phrases, taking us from tearoom to bathroom:

Epi alo, ecou, Batiste, tu-
vavnr dans Lptit boing going. Ismeme de bumbac e meias de por-
tocallie. O.O. Os pipos mios es demasiada gruarso por O pic-
colo pocchino. Wee fee? Ung duro. Kocshis, szabad? Mercy, and
you? Gomagh, thak. (54:15-19)

The first sentence here is something like, “Well then, listen, Baptiste, you’re going to go to the toilet.” The double ‘O’ that follows is the symbol for a toilet in parts of Europe, which is then followed by the sentence starting with “Os pipos mios…,” for which I’m going to turn to Epstein because he’s done an amazing job at decoding it. Here’s his interpretation:

A mixture of demotic Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian, combining to make a truly outrageous phrase about fellatio: “My prick is much too big for your little mouth.” Os pipos mios is “my bird” in some Mediterranean languages, but the identification of the bird with the penis is a feature of Mediterranean culture from ancient times, probably going back at least as far as Aristophanes. Demasiado grueso is “much too thick” in Spanish; por o is Portuguese “for the”; piccolo pocchino is Italian for, literally, “little pocket,” but a similar word, bochino, also means, besides a cigarette holder, an act of fellatio. Has one of the tourists encountered a willing accomplice in one of the toilets of the League of Nations? (42)

So although Earwicker may be absent from the Casaconcordia paragraph with its welter of languages briefly shaking us off his trail, salacious acts and the scandalous rumours they can engender are never far away from our protagonist.

Before we get to Richard’s reading, a quick synopsis of today’s excerpt.

**“The Irish Jaunting Car” by Valentine Vousden, cover page for** **sheet music published in Dublin and London, 1854**.

We begin with a Jehu driver, or coach driver, “jauntyjogging” through Dublin’s Phoenix Park, passing by Wellington’s Monument (Ep003), “the monolith rising stark from the moonlit pinebarren” (53:15-16).

The three aggressive cheers that follow, “Chee chee cheers” (53:36), conjure up the three fusiliers from Earwicker’s Cad confrontation in Phoenix Park (Ep008), which provoked the gossip and slander from which Earwicker is trying to escape; and when we hear the soldiers yell something that sounds like ‘Up and at him’ (54:1), it’s clear that Earwicker should run faster and further.

This is followed by the Casaconcordia paragraph, which is then followed by Earwicker offering a stuttering defense of his respectability [for more on the stuttering motif, visit Ep008].

Earwicker’s fall resulting from his alleged sin in the Park then adopts a tragic, epic tone: “The house of Atreox is fallen indeedust (Ilyam, Ilyum!” (55:2), but as with all falls in Finnegans Wake, “deeds bounds going arise again” (55:5), yet another cyclical fall and rise that honours the perpetually falling and rising mythical bird that gives Phoenix Park its name, and gives Finnegans Wake its main motion and theme.

You’ll then hear a sentence both light and profound on life, death and their cycles, which I’ll simply paraphrase as “life is a wake” and let you enjoy Richard’s reading of that wonderful passage (55:5-10).

A central question returns: Who exactly is Earwicker, our elusive protagonist? “Who was he to whom?” (56:32)

It’s clear we won’t have an answer soon as “the unfacts… are too imprecisely few” (57:16-17).

**Alice Liddell, photo by Charles Dodgson (aka Lewis Carroll), 1858 (at** **The Met, New York)**

Charles Dodgson, aka Lewis Carroll, whose proclivity for photographing nude children came up in Chapter 2 (Ep008), makes an appearance in an ingenious and appropriately disconcerting passage (57: 23-29) that suggests Earwicker’s “exposure” (the perfect word to couple sin with photography), his “maugdleness” (Dodgson taught at Oxford’s Magdalen College) and his fatherly—and by extension, incestuous—proximity to the adolescent Alice Liddell (1852-1934), muse and inspiration for Alice in Wonderland: “the tata of a tiny victorienne, Alys, pressed by his limper looser.”

Today’s excerpt closes with two opposing groups, the “strongers” versus the “softies” (58:16-17), the former inclined to judge Earwicker harshly based on the scandal that surrounds him, the latter preferring to excuse and condone. We will hear more from these characters in our next episode.

Now it’s time for Richard’s performance of James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake, page 53 line 7 to page 58 line 22 for the continuation of Chapter 3. The performance was shot and recorded at my home in Toronto on October 2, 2023 with a live audience. The film premiered at the Toronto Irish Film Festival, European Union Film Festival, and Bloomsday Film Festival at the James Joyce Centre in Dublin. The brief opening music you’ll hear is my own arrangement of “The Irish Jaunting Car,” a 19th-century folk song referenced in the first sentence of today’s excerpt, with Brandon Bak on drums and Adam Seelig, yours truly, on piano.

[Richard Harte reads and sings Finnegans Wake 53:7-58:22.]

[53] And there oftafter, jauntyjogging, on an Irish visavis, instea-
dily with shoulder to shoulder Jehu will tell to Christianier, saint
to sage, the humphriad of that fall and rise while daisy winks at
her pinker sister among the tussocks and the copoll between the
shafts mocks the couple on the car. And as your who may look
like how on the owther side of his big belttry your tyrs and cloes
your noes and paradigm maymay rererise in eren. Follow we up
his whip vindicative. Thurston's! Lo bebold! La arboro, lo
petrusu. The augustan peacebetothem oaks, the monolith rising
stark from the moonlit pinebarren. In all fortitudinous ajaxious
rowdinoisy tenuacity. The angelus hour with ditchers bent upon
their farm usetensiles, the soft belling of the fallow deers (doereh-
moose genuane!) advertising their milky approach as midnight
was striking the hours (letate!), and how brightly the great tri-
bune outed the sharkskin smokewallet (imitation!) from his
frock, kippers, and by Joshua, he tips un a topping swank
cheroot, none of your swellish soide, quoit the reverse, and how
manfally he says, pluk to pluk and lekan for lukan, he was to just
pluggy well suck that brown boyo, my son, and spend a whole
half hour in Havana. Sorer of the kreeksmen, would not thore be
old high gothsprogue! Wherefore he met Master, he mean to say,
he do, sire, bester of redpublicans, at Eagle Cock Hostel on
Lorenzo Tooley street and how he wished his Honour the ban-
nocks of Gort and Morya and Bri Head and Puddyrick, yore
Loudship, and a starchboxsitting in the pit of his St Tomach's,
— a strange wish for you, my friend, and it would poleaxe your
sonson's grandson utterly though your own old sweatandswear
floruerunts heaved it hoch many as the times, when they were
turrified by the hitz.
Chee chee cheers for Upkingbilly and crow cru cramwells

[54] Downaboo! Hup, boys, and hat him! See! Oilbeam they're lost
we've fount rerembrandtsers, their hours to date link these heirs
to here but wowhere are those yours of Yestersdays? Farseeinge-
therich and Poolaulwoman Charachthercuss and his Ann van
Vogt. D.e.e.d! Edned, ended or sleeping soundlessly? Favour
with your tongues! Intendite!
Any dog's life you list you may still hear them at it, like sixes
and seventies as eversure as Halley's comet, ulemamen, sobran-
jewomen, storthingboys and dumagirls, as they pass its bleak and
bronze portal of your Casaconcordia: Huru more Nee, minny
frickans? Hwoorledes har Dee det? Losdoor onleft mladies, cue.
Millecientotrigintadue scudi. Tippoty, kyrie, tippoty. Cha kai
rotty kai makkar, sahib? Despenseme Usted, senhor, en son suc-
co, sabez. O thaw bron orm, A'Cothraige, thinkinthou gaily?
Lick-Pa-flai-hai-pa-Pa-li-si-lang-lang. Epi alo, ecou, Batiste, tu-
vavnr dans Lptit boing going. Ismeme de bumbac e meias de por-
tocallie. O.O. Os pipos mios es demasiada gruarso por O pic-
colo pocchino. Wee fee? Ung duro. Kocshis, szabad? Mercy, and
you? Gomagh, thak.
And, Cod, says he with mugger's tears: Would you care to
know the prise of a liard? Maggis, nick your nightynovel! Mass
Tavener's at the mike again! And that bag belly is the buck
to goat it! Meggeg, m'gay chapjappy fellow, I call our univalse
to witness, as sicker as moyliffey eggs is known by our good
househalters from yorehunderts of mamooth to be which they
commercially are in ahoy high British quarters (conventional!)
my guesthouse and cowhaendel credits will immediately stand
ohoh open as straight as that neighbouring monument's fabrica-
tion before the hygienic gllll (this was where the reverent sab-
both and bottlebreaker with firbalk forthstretched touched upon
his tricoloured boater, which he uplifted by its pickledhoopy (he
gave Stetson one and a penny for it) whileas oleaginosity of an-
cestralolosis sgocciolated down the both pendencies of his mut-
sohito liptails (Sencapetulo, a more modestuous conciliabulite
never curled a torn pocketmouth), cordially inwiting the adul-
lescence who he was wising up to do in like manner what all did

[55] so as he was able to add) lobe before the Great Schoolmaster's.
(I tell you no story.) Smile!
The house of Atreox is fallen indeedust (Ilyam, Ilyum! Mae-
romor Mournomates !) averging on blight like the mundibanks of
Fennyana, but deeds bounds going arise again. Life, he himself
said once, (his biografiend, in fact, kills him verysoon, if yet not,
after) is a wake, livit or krikit, and on the bunk of our bread-
winning lies the cropse of our seedfather, a phrase which the
establisher of the world by law might pretinately write across
the chestfront of all manorwombanborn. The scene, refreshed,
reroused, was never to be forgotten, the hen and crusader ever-
intermutuomergent, for later in the century one of that puisne
band of factferreters, (then an excivily (out of the custom huts)
(retired), (hurt), under the sixtyfives act) in a dressy black modern
style and wewere shiny tan burlingtons, (tam, homd and dicky,
quopriquos and peajagd) rehearsed it, pippa pointing, with a
dignified (copied) bow to a namecousin of the late archdeacon
F. X. Preserved Coppinger (a hot fellow in his night, may the
mouther of guard have mastic on him!) in a pullwoman of our
first transhibernian with one still sadder circumstance which is a
dirkandurk heartskewerer if ever to bring bouncing brimmers
from marbled eyes. Cycloptically through the windowdisks and
with eddying awes the round eyes of the rundreisers, back to back,
buck to bucker, on their airish chaunting car, beheld with in-
touristing anterestedness the clad pursue the bare, the bare the
green, the green the frore, the frore the cladagain, as their convoy
wheeled encirculingly abound the gigantig's lifetree, our fire-
leaved loverlucky blomsterbohm, phoenix in our woodlessness,
haughty, cacuminal, erubescent (repetition!) whose roots they be
asches with lustres of peins. For as often as the Archicadenus,
pleacing aside his Irish Field and craving their auriculars to re-
cepticle particulars before they got the bump at Castlebar (mat
and far!) spoke of it by request all, hearing in this new reading
of the part whereby, because of Dyas in his machina, the new
garrickson's grimacing grimaldism hypostasised by substintua-
tion the axiomatic orerotundity of that once grand old elrington

[56] bawl, the copycus's description of that fellowcommuter's play
upon countenants, could simply imagine themselves in their bo-
som's inmost core, as pro tem locums, timesported acorss the yawn-
ing (abyss), as once they were seasiders, listening to the cockshy-
shooter's evensong evocation of the doomed but always ventri-
loquent Agitator, (nonot more plangorpound the billows o'er
Thounawahallya Reef!) silkhouatted, a whallrhosmightiadd, a-
ginsst the dusk of skumring, (would that fane be Saint Muezzin's
calling — holy places! — and this fez brimless as brow of faithful
toucher of the ground, did wish it were — blessed be the bones!
— the ghazi, power of his sword.) his manslayer's gunwielder
protended towards that overgrown leadpencil which was soon,
monumentally at least, to rise as Molyvdokondylon to, to be, to
be his mausoleum (O'dan stod tillsteyne at meisies aye skould
show pon) while olover his exculpatory features, as Roland rung,
a wee dropeen of grief about to sillonise his jouejous, the ghost
of resignation diffused a spectral appealingness, as a young man's
drown o'er the fate of his waters may gloat, similar in origin and
akkurat in effective to a beam of sunshine upon a coffin plate.
Not olderwise Inn the days of the Bygning would our Travel-
ler remote, unfriended, from van Demon's Land, some lazy
skald or maundering pote, lift wearywilly his slowcut snobsic
eyes to the semisigns of his zooteac and lengthily lingering along
flaskneck, cracket cup, downtrodden brogue, turfsod, wild-
broom, cabbageblad, stockfisch, longingly learn that there at the
Angel were herberged for him poteen and tea and praties and
baccy and wine width woman wordth warbling: and informally
quasi-begin to presquesm'ile to queasithin' (Nonsense! There
was not very much windy Nous blowing at the given moment
through the hat of Mr Melancholy Slow!)
But in the pragma what formal cause made a smile of that to-
think? Who was he to whom? (O'Breen's not his name nor the
brown one his maid.) Whose are the placewheres? Kiwasti, kis-
ker, kither, kitnabudja? Tal the tem of the tumulum. Giv the gav
of the grube. Be it cudgelplayers' country, orfishfellows' town or
leeklickers' land or panbpanungopovengreskey. What regnans

[57] raised the rains have levelled but we hear the pointers and can
gauge their compass for the melos yields the mode and the mode
the manners plicyman, plansiman, plousiman, plab. Tsin tsin tsin
tsin! The forefarther folkers for a prize of two peaches with
Ming, Ching and Shunny on the lie low lea. We'll sit down on
the hope of the ghouly ghost for the titheman troubleth but his
hantitat hies not here. They answer from their Zoans; Hear the
four of them! Hark torroar of them! I, says Armagh, and a'm
proud o'it. I, says Clonakilty, God help us! I, says Deansgrange,
and say nothing. I, says Barna, and whatabout it? Hee haw! Be-
fore he fell hill he filled heaven: a stream, alplapping streamlet,
coyly coiled um, cool of her curls: We were but thermites then,
wee, wee. Our antheap we sensed as a Hill of Allen, the Barrow
for an People, one Jotnursfjaell: and it was a grummelung amung
the porktroop that wonderstruck us as a thunder, yunder.
Thus the unfacts, did we possess them, are too imprecisely
few to warrant our certitude, the evidencegivers by legpoll too
untrustworthily irreperible where his adjugers are semmingly
freak threes but his judicandees plainly minus twos. Neverthe-
less Madam's Toshowus waxes largely more lifeliked (entrance,
one kudos; exits, free) and our notional gullery is now com-
pletely complacent, an exegious monument, aerily perennious.
Oblige with your blackthorns; gamps, degrace! And there many
have paused before that exposure of him by old Tom Quad, a
flashback in which he sits sated, gowndabout, in clericalease ha-
bit, watching bland sol slithe dodgsomely into the nethermore,
a globule of maugdleness about to corrugitate his mild dewed
cheek and the tata of a tiny victorienne, Alys, pressed by his
limper looser.
Yet certes one is. Eher the following winter had overed the
pages of nature's book and till Ceadurbar-atta-Cleath became
Dablena Tertia, the shadow of the huge outlander, maladik, mult-
vult, magnoperous, had bulked at the bar of a rota of tribunals in
manor hall as in thieves' kitchen, mid pillow talk and chithouse
chat, on Marlborough Green as through Molesworth Fields, here
sentenced pro tried with Jedburgh justice, there acquitted con-

[58] testimony with benefit of clergy. His Thing Mod have undone
him: and his madthing has done him man. His beneficiaries are
legion in the part he created: they number up his years. Greatwheel
Dunlop was the name was on him: behung, all we are his bisaacles.
As hollyday in his house so was he priest and king to that: ulvy
came, envy saw, ivy conquered. Lou! Lou! They have waved his
green boughs o'er him as they have torn him limb from lamb.
For his muertification and uxpiration and dumnation and annu-
hulation. With schreis and grida, deprofound souspirs. Steady,
sullivans! Mannequins pause! Longtong's breach is fallen down
but Graunya's spreed's abroad. Ahdostay, feedailyones, and feel
the Flucher's bawls for the total of your flouts is not fit to fan his
fettle, O! Have a ring and sing wohl! Chin, chin! Chin, chin!
And of course all chimed din width the eatmost boviality. Swip-
ing rums and beaunes and sherries and ciders and negus and cit-
ronnades too. The strongers. Oho, oho, Mester Begge, you're
about to be bagged in the bog again. Bugge. But softsies seuf-
sighed: Eheu, for gassies! But, lo! lo! by the threnning gods,
human, erring and condonable, what the statues of our kuo, who
is the messchef be our kuang, ashu ashure there, the unforgettable
treeshade looms up behind the jostling judgements of those, as
all should owe, malrecapturable days.

[End of excerpt]

Adam Seelig: That was Richard Harte reading pages 53 to 58 of Chapter 3 from Finnegans Wake, recorded live in Toronto on October 2nd, 2023.

Join us for Episode 13 in a fortnight when Richard continues with the next five pages of Chapter 3, including a terrific, multi-character reportage-like section in search of our protagonist, Earwicker. To be sure you don’t miss the episode, why not follow or subscribe to this podcast? For more on One Little Goat’s Finnegans Wake project, including transcripts of this podcast, the complete film of Chapter 1, visit our website at OneLittleGoat.org. And to hear about upcoming performances and screenings, join our mailing list, also on our website.

See you in two weeks — wishing you happy holidays and a healthy new year!

[Music: Adam Seelig plays piano]

Finnegans Wake is made possible by Friends of One Little Goat Theatre Company and the Emigrant Support Programme of the government of Ireland. Thank you for your support!

[Music fades out]

[End of Ep012]

Mentioned: Eldon Garnet sculpture on Don River Toronto, Heraclitus river aphorism, becoming, Fred Wah on elusive meaning, Earwicker and language running away, Casaconcordia, League of Nations, United Nations, polyglotism, Babel, “Irish Jaunting Car,” Phoenix Park, Cad confrontation, who is Earwicker?, Charles Dodgson and Alice Liddell, “strongers” vs. “softies,” synopsis.

Resources: Transcript for this episode, including the text of Finnegans Wake pages 48-53.
Finnegans Wake (1939) by James Joyce: there are many free copies of FW to read online or download, e.g. finwake.com
James Joyce Digital Archive, “Chicken Guide” to Finnegans Wake provides a ‘plain English’ paraphrase of each chapter by Danis Rose.
Richard Ellmann’s biography of James Joyce. Oxford University Press, 1982.
Edmund Epstein, A Guide through Finnegans Wake. University Press of Florida, 2009.
Adaline Glasheen, Third Census of Finnegans Wake: An Index of the Characters and Their Roles, University of California Press, 1977.
John Gordon’s annotations on his Finnegans Wake blog.
Roland McHugh, Annotations to Finnegans Wake (4th edition). Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016.
Raphael Slepon, fweet.org
William York Tindall, A Reader’s Guide to Finnegans Wake. Syracuse University Press, 1996.

Cited: Fred Wah, Music at the Heart of Thinking. Vancouver, Talonbooks, 2020.

Episode 011: Running Away (p. 48:1-53:6, start of Ch03)

December 12, 2024 Adam Seelig

JAMES JOYCE’S FINNEGANS WAKE
Episode 011 RUNNING AWAY

PAGE 48:1-53:6 | 2024-12-12

PODCAST AUDIO

PODCAST TRANSCRIPT

Adam Seelig: Welcome to James Joyce’s divine and delirious comedy, Finnegans Wake. In this episode, number 11, we’ll hear Irish-Canadian actor — and my good friend and colleague — Richard Harte performing pages 48 to 53, to begin Chapter 3 of Joyce’s last novel. I’m Adam Seelig, the director of the reading you’ll soon hear.

I’m sharing the good news that One Little Goat Theatre Company recently released our film of “Finnegans Wake Chapter 1” online this fall. After several festival screenings last year, it’s now out for all to watch. You can find it on YouTube or through our website, and I’ll link to it in the podcast transcript, which is also on our website, www.OneLittleGoat.org. For the listeners who’ve enjoyed Richard reading Chapter 1 on our podcast, you can now enjoy seeing the face and body that go with the voice. The film also contains a handful of montages shot in Toronto, where the reading took place, thematically connecting some places in the city with some moments in the chapter. Happy watching and listening.

And some more good news that we recently wrapped our film shoot of “Finnegans Wake, Chapter 5,” shot with a wonderful live audience at the Thomas Fisher Rare Books Library in Toronto. Surrounded by dozens of volumes related to Chapter 5 and the Wake, from an original King James Bible to Sir Edward Sullivan’s The Book of Kells, it was a special evening that will make for a terrific podcast and film in future. I want to extend a special thanks to the two regular podcast listeners who schlepped up from New Jersey and Massachusetts to join us for the reading — I’m delighted you were with us on that night.

And finally, as I record this in December of 2024, One Little Goat, a registered charity in the United States and Canada, is fundraising so we can keep offering our programming. For over 20 years we have been producing poetic theatre of the highest calibre, which wouldn’t be possible without the generous support of individuals like you. We love producing these recordings and films of Finnegans Wake — at the same time, they require money to produce. So please, if you’re financially able, take a moment to donate through our website, www.OneLittleGoat.org, and click on “Contact & Donate.” All donations made by December 31 will receive an official tax receipt. Many many thanks to all of you who have already donated to One Little Goat — we really appreciate your support.
[Music: Adam Seelig plays piano]

Adam Seelig: Finnegans Wake is a production of One Little Goat Theatre Company. For the next five years, One Little Goat will film and record all 17 chapters (roughly 30 Hours) of Joyce’s Finnegans Wake before live audiences in various locations, screening and releasing them along along the way, with the aim of completing the entire book in time for its 90th birthday, May 4, 2029. One Little Goat Theatre Company is an official charity in Canada and the United States — if you’d like to support our work, please visit us online at www.OneLittleGoat.org to make a charitable donation. And if monetary support is not an option, you can still help this podcast by rating and reviewing it and by spreading the word. To get in touch, you’ll find our email address on the One Little Goat Theatre Company website and we’d love to hear from you.
[Music fades out]

Adam Seelig: Here we are at Chapter 3 of Finnegans Wake. I’m going touch on the chapter’s theme of fleeing, then highlight how the 19th-century Irish Nationalist Charles Stewart Parnell informs the character of Earwicker and the Wake, and then offer a quick synopsis of the five pages you’ll soon hear Richard Harte read. As I’ve said in previous episodes, if you’d like to jump straight to Richard’s performance, by all means skip ahead.

Chapter 1 served as an overture to Finnegans Wake, sounding out, among its many motifs, the cyclical fall and rise of humanity. Chapter 2 introduced us to Earwicker, or HCE, including his alleged sin in Phoenix Park and the wildfire rumours that consequently spread across Dublin and Ireland, culminating in the salacious and slanderous public performance of “The Ballad of Persse O’Reilly” by the muckraking street busker, Hosty.

In Chapter 3 we’ll find Earwicker trying to run and hide from all the earwigging gossip surrounding and hounding him. As a lyric from Bob Marley’s 1978 Kaya puts it,
”You’re running and you’re running and you’re running away
But you can't run away from yourself.”
Earwicker is not only running away, perhaps he’s running away from himself. As Joyce’s admirer and occasional amanuensis Samuel Beckett said of his own work, “perhaps” might be the most important word. Likewise with Finnegans Wake. Perhaps Chapter 3 is an evocation of Earwicker’s unconscious, his own dream state, and he’s not only being chased, but also the one doing the chasing through invented characters of his own imagining. In this way, in addition to the cyclical rise and fall at the core of the novel, which we can picture vertically as Tim Finnegan’s rise and fall from the ladder or Humpty Dumpty’s wall fall or the phoenix up from the ashes or Adam and Eve’s Biblical apple grab, Finnegans Wake adds a similar, cyclical loop, which we can picture horizontally as Earwicker running away, perhaps from himself, across Dublin.

Could Earwicker be his own worst enemy, chasing and biting his own tail, a self-persecuting ouroboros? Consider for a moment that Hosty’s caustic ballad, which utterly defames Earwicker at the end of Chapter 2, is titled “The Ballad of Persse O’Reilly.” Perce-oreille is French for earwig, leading us to “The Ballad of Earwig” and by extension to “The Ballad of Earwicker,” which we can now hear in two ways: “The Ballad about Earwicker” and “The Ballad by Earwicker.” The title’s ingenious preposition, “of,” “The Ballad of Persse O’Reilly,” allows us to hear and experience the song as a throwdown that could be simultaneously about and by Earwicker, the deliverer and recipient, the subject and object of the musical invective, with Hosty an invention of Earwicker’s own imagination. Perhaps. Regardless of whether Earwicker is persecuted by others or by himself, one thing is (perhaps!) for sure: Earwicker in Chapter 3 is “subjected to the horrors of the premier terror of Errorland. (perorhaps!)” (62:24-25).

So is he purely victim or is he also victimizer? Who is Earwicker? As you’ll hear in today’s excerpt, the narrative of Chapter 3 pursues the answer by attempting to tease out the identity of our elusive protagonist from the scandalous fog that surrounds him, “given the wet and low visibility” and “the average human cloudyphiz” it’s a considerable challenge to “idendifine the individuone” (51:1-6).

In short, as Earwicker runs and hides, Chapter 3 will be asking not only where he is, but who.

An elusive protagonist hounded by scandal — this may serve as a description of Earwicker, but it could just as easily describe the 19th-century Irish nationalist, Charles Stewart Parnell. Earwicker is the talk of the town; Parnell was (and in many ways still is) the talk of the Irish nation. Since Parnell’s political rise and ignominious fall provide another facet for understanding Earwicker and the Wake, I’m going to share Adaline Glasheen’s brilliant entry on this larger-than-life figure of modern Irish history.

*Charles Parnell (1846-1891) and Katherine O’Shea (1846-1921)*

Charles Stewart Parnell, born in 1846, died in 1891 — betrayed Irish leader […] who haunts Joyce’s works […] just about everywhere. In [Joyce,] Parnell is not a character, but a presence, ghost, shade […] There was a legend that Parnell would return magically, like the Phoenix, Finn, Christ, or unmagically, like Ulysses, Tim Finnegan.
Parnell was an Anglo-Irish landowner, a skilled political boss who led the Irish nationalist party in the British Parliament. He frightened the British and they set out to destroy him; their first try, the Pigott affair, failed; but they succeeded when Captain William O’Shea sued his wife [Katherine, or Kitty, O’Shea, with whom Parnell had an affair and three children] for divorce. Parnell was revealed as an adulterer, a user of false names, a sneaker down fire-escapes or ladders. The rest [Glasheen writes] may be quoted from “The Shade of Parnell”:
“He was deposed in obedience to Gladstone’s orders. Of his 83 representatives only 8 remained faithful.... The high and low clergy entered the lists to finish him off. The Irish press emptied on him and the woman he loved the vials of their envy. The citizens of Castlecomer threw quicklime in his eyes. He went from county to county, from city to city, ‘like a hunted deer’, a spectral figure. . . within a year he died...’’ […]
[Glasheen goes on:] He was by no means innocent of forging his own destruction; whether from hubris or from not changing his wet socks, he died, and note all the “idol with feet of clay” jokes in Ulysses and FW. […]
Parnell pervades and appears in moments of intensity, but he is not, after all, often named in FW. Parnell’s presence is, then, indicated by indirection, by quoting, by recreating one of his scenes, by using certain words - e.g., treeshade, chief, Fox - which call him up, even when those words are used in ways that do not directly apply to him.
Parnell was elusive. He is elusive on Joyce’s pages. (222-23)

Richard Harte (left) and Adam Seelig at the Parnell Monument, Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin, June 2023.

Chapter 3 opens with applause for Hosty’s “Ballad of Persse O’Reilly,” which closed Chapter 2, with particular praise for the street busker’s impressive “Chest Cee!”, a high-C sung by old-fashioned tenors. And indeed in my co-arrangement of the ballad with Richard in Chapter 2, when Richard, as Hosty, sings the song’s last word, “Cain,” he ultimately ends on a high concert C. (Aren’t we clever.) And since C can stand for Cain, Abel’s lethal brother, it may come as no surprise that issuing from the exhalation of that final Cain-charged chest C is a deadly, toxic cloud, “a poisoning volume of cloud barrage indeed.” (48:5)

This fog, or spit-fog if you will, clouds the beginning of this chapter. It’s a fog so thick that even my regular trusted guides (Epstein, Tindall and company) seem to differ on what is happening here, so don’t worry in the least if we get a little lost as we try to discern a thing or two in the foggy and fascinating paragraphs ahead!

I’ll also quickly add that Chapter 3 opens with fog and closes with rain. I’ll come back to this drizzle that bookends Chapter 3 when we reach its conclusion in episode 15.

As the poisonous cloud spreads, we hear of how various scandal mongers who sang the toxic ballad ultimately expire, starting with Hosty, here described singsongily—or maybe amid all the fog sing-soggily?!—as “poor Osti-Frosti” (48:19). I don’t believe this series of men, from Hosty to “A’Hara” to “Paul Horan” to “Sordid Sam” and so on, dies as a result of having sung the ballad—the correlation strikes me as more coincidental than causal—but the association between the song and their deaths reminds me of Monty Python’s “Killer Joke” sketch, also known as “The Funniest Joke in the World,” which I would love to tell you but of course anyone who reads or hears the joke promptly dies from laughter, so I will prudently link to it online in this podcast’s transcript — enjoy at your own risk.

*Ireland legalizes gay marriage in 2015.*

There are a few choice phrases that I’d like to point out as you listen. “his husband” (49:2) always catches my ear — it’s not uncommon to hear these two words together today in Ireland and beyond where gay marriage is legal, but when Joyce combined them, “his husband” was unheard of and arguably ridiculous yet a century ahead of its time. “loquacity lunacy” (49:17) is another favourite phrase that seems to address this hyper verbal logomaniacal world in which we find ourselves. And we’ll hear a euphemistic description for a central theme of Finnegans Wake: gossip, that social phenomenon by which people like Earwicker and Parnell are “semiprivately convicted” (50:28).

Following this string of histrionic obituaries, we can discern within the fog a hazy remix of Earwicker’s confrontation in Phoenix Park from Chapter 2, a recurring event in the novel that plays out through different iterations of the Cad, the two girls, and the three soldiers, the male actors intimating violence, the females, temptation, and all suggesting the ambiguous sin committed, if committed at all, by Earwicker. Here the controversial contingent of 1 Cad, 2 girls and 3 soldiers will appear as “the Haberdasher, the two Curchies and the three Enkelchums” (51:9-10), the main initials of which, incidentally, form Earwicker’s monogram, HCE.

On the same page, page 51, the seven-items-of-clothing motif, which occurs in Chapters 1 and 2 as well, will invoke Earwicker, dressed “in scratch wig, squarecuts, stock, lavaleer, regattable oxeter, baggy pants and shufflers” (6-8).

In the paragraph beginning with, “Sport’s a common thing” (51:21), we will hear about Earwicker’s “regifugium persecutorum” (51:31), a term that provides a key to this chapter. Roland McHugh’s indispensable Annotations to Finnegans Wake breaks it down as follows:

regifugium is an ancient Roman ceremony celebrating the expulsion of kings that literally means ‘flight of the king’;
refugium peccatorum means ‘refuge of sinners’, from the Roman Catholic Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary; and
persecutorum means ‘of the persecuted’.

So Earwicker’s “regifugium persecutorum” represents his expulsion and his refuge, his sin and his persecution, his running and his hiding. Indeed by chapter’s end, we will find our protagonist holed up behind some fortification, seeking refuge from 111 expulsive, and expletive, insults hurled his way (that will be Ep015).

We then experience an early newsreel via television, still a young technology at the time of Joyce’s writing, and again we’ll encounter Earwicker in another seven articles of clothing, including “the refaced unmansionables of gingerine hue” (52:26), which sounds to me like his patched up, reddish underwear. The newsreel also briefly introduces the “brothers’ broil” that plays out between HCE and ALP’s oppositional sons, Shaun and Shem, in Chapter 6 onward.

*Wyndham Lewis in 1929, photo by George Beresford.*

One last note before we get to Richard’s reading: we have a heckler in the house, or at least in the text of Chapter 3. Wyndham Lewis (1882-1957), the brilliant (Canadian-born) English modernist author and painter and foil of sorts to James Joyce, makes his first intrusions in today’s excerpt. (Lewis, incidentally, escaped during the Second World War to a regifugium persecutorum of his own in Canada, including a stint in my town of Toronto, which he considered, perhaps justifiably, a miserable backwater.) Lewis butts in throughout Chapter 3 (and can barely keep his mouth shut later on in Chapter 6). For today’s excerpt, he limits his contributions to two parenthetical monosyllabic insults, or what my kids would call ‘sick burns’: the first is “cogged!”, i.e. fraudulent, and the second, which also serves as the last word of today’s reading, is “Prigged!”, i.e. stolen.

Now it’s time for Richard’s performance of James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake, page 48 line 1 to page 53 line 6 for the beginning of Chapter 3.

The opening music for the chapter is my own arrangement of “The Ballad of Persse O’Reilly,” with Brandon Bak on drums and yours truly on piano.

[Richard Harte reads and sings Finnegans Wake 48:1-53:6.]

[48] Chest Cee! 'Sdense! Corpo di barragio! you spoof of visibility
in a freakfog, of mixed sex cases among goats, hill cat and plain
mousey, Bigamy Bob and his old Shanvocht! The Blackfriars
treacle plaster outrage be liddled! Therewith was released in that
kingsrick of Humidia a poisoning volume of cloud barrage indeed.
Yet all they who heard or redelivered are now with that family
of bards and Vergobretas himself and the crowd of Caraculacticors
as much no more as be they not yet now or had they then not-
ever been. Canbe in some future we shall presently here amid
those zouave players of Inkermann the mime mumming the mick
and his nick miming their maggies, Hilton St Just (Mr Frank
Smith), Ivanne Ste Austelle (Mr J. F. Jones), Coleman of Lucan
taking four parts, a choir of the O'Daley O'Doyles doublesixing
the chorus in Fenn Mac Call and the Seven Feeries of Loch Neach,
Galloper Troppler and Hurleyquinn the zitherer of the past with his
merrymen all, zimzim, zimzim. Of the persins sin this Eyrawyg-
gla saga (which, thorough readable to int from and, is from tubb
to buttom all falsetissues, antilibellous and nonactionable and this
applies to its whole wholume) of poor Osti-Frosti, described as
quite a musical genius in a small way and the owner of an
exceedingly niced ear, with tenorist voice to match, not alone,
but a very major poet of the poorly meritary order (he began
Tuonisonian but worked his passage up as far as the we-all-
hang-together Animandovites) no one end is known. If they

[49] whistled him before he had curtains up they are whistling him
still after his curtain's doom's doom. Ei fù. His husband, poor old
A'Hara (Okaroff?) crestfallen by things and down at heels at the
time, they squeak, accepted the (Zassnoch!) ardree's shilling at
the conclusion of the Crimean war and, having flown his wild
geese, alohned in crowds to warnder on like Shuley Luney,
enlisted in Tyrone's horse, the Irish whites, and soldiered a bit
with Wolsey under the assumed name of Blanco Fusilovna Buck-
lovitch (spurious) after which the cawer and the marble halls
of Pump Court Columbarium, the home of the old seakings,
looked upon each other and queth their haven evermore for it
transpires that on the other side of the water it came about that on
the field of Vasileff's Cornix inauspiciously with his unit he
perished, saying, this papal leafless to old chap give, rawl chaw-
clates for mouther-in-louth. Booil. Poor old dear Paul Horan,
to satisfy his literary as well as his criminal aspirations, at the
suggestion thrown out by the doomster in loquacity lunacy, so
says the Dublin Intelligence, was thrown into a Ridley's for
inmates in the northern counties. Under the name of Orani he
may have been the utility man of the troupe capable of sustain-
ing long parts at short notice. He was. Sordid Sam, a dour decent
deblancer, the unwashed, haunted always by his ham, the unwished,
at a word from Israfel the Summoner, passed away painlessly
after life's upsomdowns one hallowe'en night, ebbrous and in
the state of nature, propelled from Behind into the great Beyond
by footblows coulinclouted upon his oyster and atlas on behanged
and behooved and behicked and behulked of his last fishandblood
bedscrappers, a Northwegian and his mate of the Sheawolving
class. Though the last straw glimt his baring this stage thunkhard
is said (the pitfallen gagged him as 'Promptboxer') to have
solemnly said — as had the brief thot but fell in till his head like
a bass dropt neck fust in till a bung crate (cogged!): Me drames,
O'Loughlins, has come through! Now let the centuple celves of
my egourge as Micholas de Cusack calls them, — of all of whose
I in my hereinafter of course by recourse demission me — by
the coincidance of their contraries reamalgamerge in that indentity

[50] of undiscernibles where the Baxters and the Fleshmans may
they cease to bidivil uns and (but at this poingt though the iron
thrust of his cockspurt start might have prepared us we are well-
nigh stinkpotthered by the mustardpunge in the tailend) this
outandin brown candlestock melt Nolan's into peese! Han var.
Disliken as he was to druriodrama, her wife Langley, the prophet,
and the decentest dozendest short of a frusker whoever stuck his
spickle through his spoke, disappeared, (in which toodooing he
has taken all the French leaves unveilable out of Calomne-
quiller's Pravities) from the sourface of this earth, that austral
plain he had transmaried himself to, so entirely spoorlessly (the
mother of the book with a dustwhisk tabularasing his obliteration
done upon her involucrum) as to tickle the speculative to all but
opine (since the Levey who might have been Langley may have
really been a redivivus of paganinism or a volunteer Vousden)
that the hobo (who possessed a large amount of the humoresque)
had transtuled his funster's latitat to its finsterest interrimost. Bhi
she. Again, if Father San Browne, tea and toaster to that quaint-
esttest of yarnspinners is Padre Don Bruno, treu and troster to
the queen of Iar-Spain, was the reverend, the sodality director,
that eupeptic viceflayer, a barefaced carmelite, to whose palpi-
tating pulpit (which of us but remembers the rarevalent and
hornerable Fratomistor Nawlanmore and Brawne.) sinning society
sirens (see the [Roman Catholic] presspassim) fortunately became
so enthusiastically attached and was an objectionable ass who very
occasionally cockaded a raffles ticket on his hat which he wore all
to one side like the hangle of his pan (if Her Elegance saw him
she'd have the canary!) and was semiprivately convicted of mal-
practices with his hotwashed tableknife (glossing over the cark
in his pocket) that same snob of the dunhill, fully several year-
schaums riper, encountered by the General on that redletter
morning or maynoon jovesday and were they? Fuitfuit.
When Phishlin Phil wants throws his lip 'tis pholly to be fortune
flonting and whoever's gone to mix Hotel by the salt say water
there's nix to nothing we can do for he's never again to sea. It
is nebuless an autodidact fact of the commonest that the shape of

[51] the average human cloudyphiz, whereas sallow has long daze
faded, frequently altered its ego with the possing of the showers
(Not original!). Whence it is a slopperish matter, given the wet
and low visibility (since in this scherzarade of one's thousand one
nightinesses that sword of certainty which would indentifide the
body never falls) to idendifine the individuone in scratch wig,
squarecuts, stock, lavaleer, regattable oxeter, baggy pants and
shufflers (he is often alluded to as Slypatrick, the llad in the llane)
with already an incipience (lust!) in the direction of area baldness
(one is continually firstmeeting with odd sorts of others at all
sorts of ages!) who was asked by free boardschool shirkers in
drenched coats overawall, Will, Conn and Otto, to tell them
overagait, Vol, Pov and Dev, that fishabed ghoatstory of the
haardly creditable edventyres of the Haberdasher, the two Cur-
chies and the three Enkelchums in their Bearskin ghoats! Girles
and jongers, but he has changed alok syne Thorkill's time! Ya, da,
tra, gathery, pimp, shesses, shossafat, okodeboko, nine! Those
many warts, those slummy patches, halfsinster wrinkles, (what
has come over the face on wholebroader E?), and (shrine of
Mount Mu save us!) the large fungopark he has grown! Drink!
Sport's a common thing. It was the Lord's own day for damp
(to wait for a postponed regatta's eventualising is not of Battlecock
Shettledore - Juxta - Mare only) and the request for a fully
armed explanation was put (in Loo of Pat) to the porty (a native
of the sisterisle — Meathman or Meccan? — by his brogue, ex-
race eyes, lokil calour and lucal odour which are said to have
been average clownturkish (though the capelist's voiced nasal
liquids and the way he sneezed at zees haul us back to the craogs
and bryns of the Silurian Ordovices) who, the lesser pilgrimage
accomplished, had made, pats' and pigs' older inselt, the south-
east bluffs of the stranger stepshore, a regifugium persecutorum,
hence hindquarters) as he paused at evenchime for some or so
minutes (hit the pipe dannyboy! Time to won, barmon. I'll take
ten to win.) amid the devil's one duldrum (Apple by her blossom
window and Charlotte at her toss panomancy his sole admirers,
his only tearts in store) for a fragrend culubosh during his week-

[52] end pastime of executing with Anny Oakley deadliness (the con-
summatory pairs of provocatives, of which remained provokingly
but two, the ones he fell for, Lili and Tutu, cork em!) empties
which had not very long before contained Reid's family (you ruad
that before, soaky, but all the bottles in sodemd histry will not
soften your bloodathirst!) stout. Having reprimed his repeater
and resiteroomed his timespiece His Revenances, with still a life
or two to spare for the space of his occupancy of a world at a time,
rose to his feet and there, far from Tolkaheim, in a quiet English
garden (commonplace!), since known as Whiddington Wild, his
simple intensive curolent vocality, my dearbraithers, my most
dearbrathairs, as he, so is a supper as is a sipper, spake of the
One and told of the Compassionate, called up before the triad of
precoxious scaremakers (scoretaking: Spegulo ne helpas al mal-
bellulo, Mi Kredas ke vi estas prava, Via dote la vizago rispondas
fraulino) the now to ushere mythical habiliments of Our Farfar
and Arthor of our doyne.
Television kills telephony in brothers' broil. Our eyes de-
mand their turn. Let them be seen! And wolfbone balefires blaze
the trailmost if only that Mary Nothing may burst her bibby
buckshee. When they set fire then she's got to glow so we may
stand some chances of warming to what every soorkabatcha,
tum or hum, would like to know. The first Humphrey's latitu-
dinous baver with puggaree behind, (calaboose belong bigboss
belong Kang the Toll) his fourinhand bow, his elbaroom surtout,
the refaced unmansionables of gingerine hue, the state slate
umbrella, his gruff woolselywellesly with the finndrinn knopfs
and the gauntlet upon the hand which in an hour not for him
solely evil had struck down the might he mighthavebeen d'Est-
erre of whom his nation seemed almost already to be about to
have need. Then, stealing his thunder, but in the befitting le-
gomena of the smaller country, (probable words, possibly said, of
field family gleaming) a bit duskish and flavoured with a smile,
seein as ow his thoughts consisted chiefly of the cheerio, he aptly
sketched for our soontobe second parents (sukand see whybe!)
the touching seene. The solence of that stilling! Here one might

[53] a fin fell. Boomster rombombonant! It scenes like a landescape
from Wildu Picturescu or some seem on some dimb Arras, dumb
as Mum's mutyness, this mimage of the seventyseventh kusin of
kristansen is odable to os across the wineless Ere no oedor nor
mere eerie nor liss potent of suggestion than in the tales of the
tingmount. (Prigged!)

[End of excerpt]

Adam Seelig: That was Richard Harte reading the beginning of Chapter 3 from Finnegans Wake, pages 48 to 53, recorded live in Toronto on October 2nd, 2023.

Join us for Episode 12 in a fortnight when Richard continues with the next five pages of Chapter 3, including the “Casaconcordia” paragraph, one of my favourites, which features Finnegans Wake at its polyglottally ludicrous best. To be sure you don’t miss the episode, why not follow or subscribe to this podcast? For more on One Little Goat’s Finnegans Wake project, including transcripts of this podcast, the complete film of Chapter 1, and trailers for others, visit our website at OneLittleGoat.org. And to hear about upcoming performances and screenings, join our mailing list, also on our website.

See you in two weeks and wishing you happy holidays!

[Music: Adam Seelig plays piano]

Finnegans Wake is made possible by Friends of One Little Goat Theatre Company and the Emigrant Support Programme of the government of Ireland. Thank you for your support!

A big thanks to our wonderful live audience of Sandi Becker, David Mackett, Andrew Moodie, Cathy Murphy, Nomi Rotbard, Arlo Rotbard-Seelig, Adam Seelig, Aaron Tucker and Catherine Vaneri.

Thank you to everyone at the Irish Consulate in Toronto. Thank you to Production Consultants Cathy Murphy and Andrew Moodie and to Music Consultants Warwick Harte and Kevin Kennedy.

Thank you for listening!

[Music fades out]

[End of Ep011]

Mentioned: Earwicker running and hiding from gossip, Bob Marley’s “Running Away,” “perhaps,” vertical and horizontal cycles, Earwicker as his own worst enemy, “The Ballad of Persse O’Reilly” possibly both about and by Earwicker, where and who is Earwicker, Irish nationalist Charles Parnell, “Chest Cee!”, poisonous cloud, ‘spit-fog,’ Monty Python’s “Killer Joke,” “his husband” and other phrases, Cad confrontation redux, seven-items-of-clothing motif, regifugium persecutorum, TV newsreel, Wyndham Lewis, synopsis.

Resources: Transcript for this episode, including the text of Finnegans Wake pages 48-53.
Finnegans Wake (1939) by James Joyce: there are many free copies of FW to read online or download, e.g. finwake.com
James Joyce Digital Archive, “Chicken Guide” to Finnegans Wake provides a ‘plain English’ paraphrase of each chapter by Danis Rose.
Edmund Epstein, A Guide through Finnegans Wake. University Press of Florida, 2009.
Adaline Glasheen, Third Census of Finnegans Wake: An Index of the Characters and Their Roles, University of California Press, 1977.
William York Tindall, A Reader’s Guide to Finnegans Wake. Syracuse University Press, 1996.
Roland McHugh, Annotations to Finnegans Wake (4th edition). Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016.
John Gordon’s annotations on his Finnegans Wake blog.
Richard Ellmann’s biography of James Joyce. Oxford University Press, 1982.

Cited: “Running Away,” Bob Marley and the Wailers, Kaya, Island Studios, London, 1978.
“The Funniest Joke in the World,” Monty Python’s Flying Circus, BBC, 1969.

Episode 010: Ballad of Persse O’Reilly (p. 44:7-47:34, End of Ch02)

October 10, 2024 Adam Seelig

JAMES JOYCE’S FINNEGANS WAKE
Episode 010 BALLAD OF PERSSE O’REILLY

PAGE 44:07-47:34 | 2024-10-10

PODCAST AUDIO

PODCAST TRANSCRIPT

*“Humpty Dumpty on the wall,” Sir John Tenniel, 1872*

Adam Seelig: Welcome to James Joyce’s divine and delirious comedy, Finnegans Wake. In this episode, number 10, we’ll hear Irish-Canadian actor — and my good friend and colleague — Richard Harte performing pages 44 to 47, featuring the song, “The Ballad of Persse O’Reilly,” to conclude Chapter 2 of Joyce’s last novel. I’m Adam Seelig, the director of the reading you’ll soon hear, and in today’s case, also Richard’s piano accompanist.

I’m sharing the good news that One Little Goat Theatre Company is releasing our film of “Finnegans Wake Chapter 1” online this fall of 2024 and I encourage you to sign up for our mailing list on our website, www.OneLittleGoat.org, so you’re among the first to know when the movie goes live.

Will you be in Toronto on Monday, October 21st? If so, join us at the Fisher Rare Books Library in the University of Toronto for a very special live taping of Chapter 5 of Finnegans Wake, which will also feature a display of rare books related to the novel, including Marshall McLuhan’s heavily annotated first edition of the Wake and Sir Edward Sullivan’s landmark study, The Book of Kells. The event is free. For more details and to reserve a seat, visit our website at www.OneLittleGoat.org.

[Music: Adam Seelig plays piano]

Adam Seelig: Finnegans Wake is a production of One Little Goat Theatre Company. For the next five years, One Little Goat will film and record all 17 chapters (roughly 30 Hours) of Joyce’s Finnegans Wake before live audiences in various locations, screening and releasing them along along the way, with the aim of completing the entire book in time for its 90th birthday, May 4, 2029. One Little Goat Theatre Company is an official charity in Canada and the United States — if you’d like to support our work, please visit us online at www.OneLittleGoat.org to make a charitable donation. And if monetary support is not an option, you can still help this podcast by rating and reviewing it and by spreading the word. To get in touch, you’ll find our email address on the One Little Goat Theatre Company website and we’d love to hear from you.

[Music fades out]

Adam Seelig: The previous episode of this podcast series (Ep009) introduced us to the scandalmongering busker, Hosty, and left off with Hosty about to sing a slanderous song about protagonist HCEarwicker. This “longawaited Messiagh of roaratorios” (41:28) is titled “The Ballad of Persse O’Reilly,” with Persse O’Reilly playing on the name of Earwicker, since perce-oreille is French for ‘earwig.’ So while Chapter 2 of Finnegans Wake opened with Earwicker and the origins of his name, often attesting to his honourable nature, it now closes with both his name and character perversely distorted. “[O]ur good and great and no ordinary Southron Earwicker, that homogenius man, as a pious author called him,” (34:13-14) is now the salacious and sordid stuff of tabloids — or more precisely, the salacious and sordid stuff of Hosty’s caustic ballad.

*Drake (left) vs. Kendrick Lamar, “the toxic feud dominating the world of hip hop.*”

Chapter 2 so far has introduced us to Earwicker, described his encounter with the Cad in Phoenix Park, then followed the rumours about Earwicker that spread from that event, spreading initially across Dublin through the highly lubricated medium of “Irish saliva” (37:25), then throughout the Emerald Isle through the printing of Hosty’s “Ballad of Persse O’Reilly.” As you’ll hear in today’s episode, Chapter 2 climaxes and closes with Hosty’s performance of the ballad for a large, eager crowd. The recent rap battle, in the spring of 2024, between hip hop luminaries Drake and Kendrick Lamar, described in the Toronto Star as “the toxic feud dominating the world of hip hop,” proves that the public has an insatiable appetite for a throwdown, showdown, no-holds-barred evisceration of someone’s character. Hosty’s hostile song with its knack for crowd-pleasing malice may predate the hip hop icons of Toronto and L.A. by a century, but ingenious shit-talking has clearly never gone out of fashion. It’s always handy to have a scapegoat or simply someone to kick around.

Joyce wrote the melody for “The Ballad of Persse O’Reilly” and included the notation in Finnegans Wake at the bottom of page 44 (which you can also find in the transcript for this podcast episode published on One Little Goat Theatre Company’s website). As Edmund Epstein points out, the melody of the ballad resembles the familiar Italian tune “Carnival of Venice,” popularized by the composer and violinist Niccolò Paganini (we’ll also link on One Little Goat’s website to Paganini’s variations). The Wake’s version, however, bears a significant difference: it starts in A major, like Paganini’s version, but then — in Epstein’s words — “modulates to A minor, and ends up in A modal; that is, the melody slumps downward, mirroring the Fall of Man, and the tone of the ballad turns grim as the hero of the ballad is identified twice as the runaway Cain.” (38)

*Niccolò Paganini by Andrea Cefaly (1827)*

In my co-arrangement of the song with Richard, we begin not in A but in E major for three reasons: (1) the song felt good in that key vis-à-vis Richard’s tenor range (incidentally, Joyce himself was a tenor); (2) this gave us room to modulate upward for a number of verses, creating some variation in what could otherwise be a fairly plodding song, the music ironically rising as Earwicker’s reputation goes down; and (3) this ultimately enabled Richard to end the song on a high C. Now for people like me who keep track of such things, this third reason, the ultimate high-C, is very exciting because the very next chapter of the Wake opens with the exclamatory words, “Chest Cee!” — that is, words praising a “chest C” or high-C sung by old-fashioned tenors (McHugh 48:1).

We’re going to start today’s excerpt by repeating the paragraph from the previous episode so we can all enjoy the Wake’s spirited introduction to Hosty’s ballad and then continue into the song uninterrupted. So, as at the end of Episode 9 you’ll hear Hosty’s introduction to and the audience’s anticipation of the ballad; you’ll hear the 100-letter ‘thunderword’ that contains multilingual phonemes conveying clapping and crapping, which perfectly sets up Hosty to sing/talk crap about Earwicker; you’ll then hear my piano introduction to the song (during which, in the film for Chapter 2, from which the podcast audio is taken, I included a montage of various music venues — so wherever you may be listening to this excerpt, be it the US or Canada or Ireland etc., feel free to imagine Hosty taking the stage at your own favourite music venue as the piano intro plays); and finally, we are into the song itself, “The Ballad of Persse O’Reilly.”

I’m going to let Hosty’s merciless and highly entertaining evisceration of Earwicker speak/sing for itself. I’d just like to point out that the third verse begins with a stutter, always so important to the Wake as a form of visceral, elemental speech and as a potential sign of guilt (for more on such stuttering, please visit Episode 8 of this podcast series).

Now it’s time to welcome you back to Noonan’s Irish Pub for Richard’s performance of James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake, page 44 line 7 to page 47 line 34 for the conclusion of Chapter 2. Richard’s singing is accompanied on the piano by yours truly, Adam Seelig.

Our performance was shot and recorded in Toronto at Noonan’s Irish Pub on June 26th, 2023 with a lovely live audience. The film premiered at the Toronto Irish Film Festival, European Union Film Festival, and Bloomsday Film Festival at the James Joyce Centre in Dublin.

[Richard Harte reads and sings Finnegans Wake 44:7-47:34.]

[44] And aroud the lawn the rann it rann and this is the rann that
Hosty made. Spoken. Boyles and Cahills, Skerretts and Pritchards,
viersefied 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. To-
gether. 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 (klikkaklakkaklaskaklopatzklatschabattacreppycrotty-
graddaghsemmihsammihnouithappluddyappladdypkonpkot!).

Ardite, arditi!
Music cue.

[Adam Seelig plays piano accompaniment for Richard’s singing.]

"The Ballad of Persse O’Reilly."

[45] 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 fafafather 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 soffsoaping salesman.

[46] Small wonder He’ll Cheat E’erawan our local lads nicknamed him
When Chimpden first took the floor
(Chorus) With his bucketshop 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 hammerfast 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.

Where from? roars Poolbeg. Cookingha’pence, he bawls Donnez-
                                           [moi scampitle, wick an wipin’fampiny
Fingal Mac Oscar Onesine Bargearse Boniface
Thok’s min gammelhole Norveegickers moniker
Og as ay are at gammelhore 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!

[47] He ought to blush for himself, the old hayheaded 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 hippopopotamuns
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?
(Chorus) Big earwigs on the green,
The largest ever you seen.

Suffoclose! Shikespower! Seudodanto! Anonymoses!

Then we’ll have a free trade Gaels’ band and mass meeting
For to sod the brave son of Scandiknavery.
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.

[End of excerpt]

Adam Seelig: That was Richard Harte as Hosty singing “The Ballad of Persse O’Reilly” to conclude Chapter 2 of Finnegans Wake, pages 44 to 47, recorded with a live audience at Noonan’s Irish Pub in Toronto on June 26th, 2023.

Join us for Episode 11 when Richard begins Chapter 3 of Finnegans Wake. This podcast series is taking a short break between chapters to focus on the film production of future chapters, so please note that the next episode, Episode 11, will release later this fall, exact date to be determined, and we’ll then resume our fortnightly podcast releases every other Thursday. In the meantime, why not follow or subscribe to this podcast so you’re alerted for upcoming episodes. For more on One Little Goat’s Finnegans Wake project, including transcripts of this podcast and trailers for the films, visit our website at OneLittleGoat.org. And to hear about upcoming performances and screenings, join our mailing list, also at OneLittleGoat.org.

To those of you celebrating the Jewish New Year, Shanah Tovah.

And don’t forget to keep an eye out for our film of “Finnegans Wake Chapter 1” releasing online this fall — again, join One Little Goat’s mailing list to be among the first to know.

[Music: Adam Seelig plays piano]

Finnegans Wake is made possible by Friends of One Little Goat Theatre Company and the Emigrant Support Programme of the government of Ireland. Thank you for your support!

And thank you to the artists for this episode: Richard Harte; Sound by William Bembridge; Podcast production by Sean Rasmussen; Stage Management by Jobina Sitoh; Directed by yours truly, Adam Seelig.

A big thanks to Jane Noonan and the staff at Noonan’s Irish Pub, as well as to our wonderful live audience. Thank you to everyone at the Irish Consulate in Toronto. And to Production Consultants Cathy Murphy and Andrew Moodie.

One Little Goat Theatre Company is a nonprofit, artist-driven, registered charity. To donate or find out more or to join our mailing list please visit www.OneLittleGoat.org

Thank you for listening!

[Music fades out]

[End of Ep010]

Mentioned: “The Ballad of Persse O’Reilly,” Hosty the scandalmongering busker, ‘perce-oreille’ is ‘earwig’ in French, Drake vs. Kendrick Lamar rap battle, scapegoat, “Carnival of Venice” melody, Paganini, Seelig and Harte new arrangement of “Ballad of PO’R,” stutter, synopsis.

Resources: Transcript for this episode, including the text of Finnegans Wake pages 44-47.
Finnegans Wake (1939) by James Joyce: there are many free copies of FW to read online or download, e.g. finwake.com
James Joyce Digital Archive, “Chicken Guide” to Finnegans Wake provides a ‘plain English’ paraphrase of each chapter by Danis Rose.
Edmund Epstein, A Guide through Finnegans Wake. University Press of Florida, 2009.
William York Tindall, A Reader’s Guide to Finnegans Wake. Syracuse University Press, 1996.
Roland McHugh, Annotations to Finnegans Wake (4th edition). Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 2016.
John Gordon’s annotations on his Finnegans Wake blog.
Richard Ellmann’s biography of James Joyce. Oxford University Press, 1982.

Episode 009: : Hosty the Busker (p. 39:14-44:24)

September 26, 2024 Adam Seelig

JAMES JOYCE’S FINNEGANS WAKE
Episode 009 HOSTY THE BUSKER

PAGE 39:14-44:24 | 2024-09-26

PODCAST AUDIO

PODCAST TRANSCRIPT

Adam Seelig: Welcome to James Joyce’s divine and delirious comedy, Finnegans Wake. In this episode, number 9, we’ll hear Irish-Canadian actor—and my good friend and colleague—Richard Harte reading pages 39 to 44 from Chapter 2 of Joyce’s last novel. I’m Adam Seelig, the director of the reading you’ll soon hear.

[Music: Adam Seelig plays piano]

Adam Seelig: Finnegans Wake is a production of One Little Goat Theatre Company. For the next five years, One Little Goat will film and record all 17 chapters (roughly 30 Hours) of Joyce’s Finnegans Wake before live audiences in various locations, screening and releasing them along along the way, with the aim of completing the entire book in time for its 90th birthday, May 4, 2029. One Little Goat Theatre Company is an official charity in Canada and the United States — if you’d like to support our work, please visit us online at www.OneLittleGoat.org to make a charitable donation. And if monetary support is not an option, you can still help this podcast by rating and reviewing it and by spreading the word. To get in touch, you’ll find our email address on the One Little Goat Theatre Company website and we’d love to hear from you.

[Music fades out]

Adam Seelig:

Barrie Phillip Nichol, better known as bpNichol, a patron saint of Canadian poetry, would have been 80 years old this September 30th, 2024. He was born in Vancouver in 1944 and died in Toronto at far too early an age, just shy of his 44th birthday.

In Episode 2 of this podcast series, we discussed the sounds and meanings emerging from the evocative opening word of Finnegans Wake, “riverrun”, including reverence, a river’s flow, a stream, a stream of consciousness, and a stream of unconsciousness conveying the dream language of Joyce’s night novel, hence “riverrun” as a dream (from rêverons in French) and as a ‘round dream’ (from the French, rêve rond), reminding us that the novel, like Shakespeare’s Tempest, like us, is “such stuff/ As dreams are made on, and our little life/ Is rounded with a sleep.”

In opening bpNichol’s recently published notebook excerpts — beautifully assembled by Coach House Books under the title, Some Lines of Poetry — I was delighted to discover on the first page a poem called “a river” (1980), a mostly visual poem comprised of the letters in the word “river”, which allowed me, for the first time, to see and hear not only the nocturnal dream of the Wake’s opening word, “riverrun,” but the daydream in it, too, its ‘reverie’. ‘Reverie’: the musing unconsciousness of waking hours. And tracing ‘reverie’ to its etymological roots, I found two words, ‘revelry’ and ‘rejoicing’, the latter, ‘re-Joyce-ing’, echoing the author’s name, and the former, ‘revelry’, a reminder that what we have before us is — in the end and from its beginning — lots of fun.

I’ve posted a photo of bp’s poem on One Little Goat’s website, so you can enjoy it in bp’s own handwriting — you’ll find that at www.onelittlegoat.org/podcast, or better yet, pick up a copy of the book from Coach House. It’s a beauty.

riveri veriveriveriver
iveri veriveriveriveri
verive riveriveriveriv
eriveri veriveriverive
riverive riveriveriver
iveriveri veriveriveri
veriveri veriveriveriv
eriveri veriveriverive
riveri veriveriveriver
iveriv eviveriveriveri

bpNichol, *some lines of poetry: from the notebooks of bpNichol*. Coach House Books, Toronto, 2024.

"a river" (May 9, 1980), bpNichol, *from the notebooks of bpNichol*. Coach House Books, Toronto, 2024.

Now as this is a podcast, I’ll at least attempt to sound out the opening two lines of the 10-line poem, “a river”:

riveri veriveriveriver
iveri veriveriveriveri

This sound helped me hear one more element in the Wake’s “riverrun” of words, and that is ‘ever’, its ever-ness, foreverness and, famously, its never-ending-ness, the novel’s last page continuous with the first. The ever-present “riverrun” of Finnegans Wake is always now — it ever-runs.

Thank you bpNichol for that poem, and happy 80th birthday!

At the heart of today’s episode is one of the Wake’s outstanding characters, the scandalmongering balladeer—or in today’s terms, the caustic singer-songwriter—by the name of Hosty. We’ll get to him in a moment.

Jumping back into the stream where we left off last time in Chapter 2 on page 39…

The Brazen Head, The Liberties' landmark pub.

The zigzagging relay of gossip about HCEarwicker from the previous episode (Episode 008) that ended up galloping around at the racetrack now reaches the ears of two down-and-out Dubliners, recently out of jail, the brothers Treacle Tom and Frisky Shorty. Treacle Tom gets seriously drunk in the historically disreputable distillery district known as The Liberties — I love how the text itself becomes positively slurred and alcoholic in Treacle Tom’s section. Treacle Tom then crashes in a rooming-house, and during a bad night’s sleep, talks in his sleep, repeating the rumours about HCE, which are heard by a trio of homeless men, the last of whom is the scandalous street busker, Hosty.

That name, Hosty, aside from being a mononymous musician anticipating the likes of Elvis, Prince and Beyoncé, is another case where the Wake can be suggesting both ‘it and its opposite’. On the one hand, the name “Hosty” can suggest welcoming, as a host would be, while on the other, someone who’s hostile, from the Latin hostis, meaning ‘stranger’ and ‘enemy.’ There’s also a faint echo of our protagonist, “HCE”, in the sound “Hosty” — more on that in the next episode.

That same cold night, Hosty, unlucky in life, considers suicide, but the gossip about Earwicker, having reached his ears, rejuvenates him by morning (41:13) and inspires him to write a new ballad, after some morning drinking with his buddies.

In the last two paragraphs of today’s reading, Hosty, through his scandalous song about Earwicker, spreads the gossip further. We are told that he sings it to “a singleminded supercrowd, easily representative” (42:22) of every social strata in Dublin — and here the Wake describes the full range of this audience/mob with a level of detail comparable to a Bruegel painting of a village packed with people or a busy scene in a Where’s Waldo book. The shocking song then makes its way into print, and before you know it, the wind blows sheets of it from village to village across all of Ireland.

A Village Festival in honour of St. Hubert and St. Anthony. Pieter Brueghel II, 1627.

So in Chapter 2, what started as a seemingly straightforward encounter between Earwicker and the cad in Dublin’s Phoenix Park (Episode 8) has blown up into a nation-wide scandal. As the text puts it, turning the Irish nationalist song, ‘A Nation Once Again,’ into something rubbernecky and salacious, “a nation wants a gaze” (43:21-30).

A large crowd has assembled to hear Hosty sing his widely distributed song, the text gives him a full-throated, bouncing introduction, and the audience breaks out in wild applause. So thunderous is this clapping, and so like a “Glass crash” (44:15-16) that it morphs into one of the Wake’s ‘thunderwords’ containing 100 letters. This particular ‘thunderword’, the third of ten in the novel, is comprised of phonemes and words that mean ‘clapping’ or ‘applause’, with the final syllable, “kot”, intriguingly suggesting ‘shit’— kot in German means ‘feces’. It’s a fitting end for the thunderous applause of this 100-letter ‘thunderword’ in light of the slander-filled shitstorm that Hosty, the ultimate shit-talker, unleashes on Earwicker through his song, “The Ballad of Persse O’Reilly”.

We’ll hear Richard Harte, as Hosty, sing that “longawaited Messiagh of roaratorios” (41:28) in the next episode, and we’ll also publish on our website the corresponding shit music, excuse me, sheet music, written by Joyce himself.

Right now, it’s time to welcome you back to Noonan’s Irish Pub for Richard’s reading of James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake, page 39 line 14 to page 44 line 24 for the continuation of Chapter 2.

Richard’s reading was shot and recorded in Toronto at Noonan’s Irish Pub on June 26th, 2023 with a live audience. The film premiered at the Toronto Irish Film Festival and Bloomsday Film Festival at the James Joyce Centre in Dublin.

[Richard Harte reads Finnegans Wake 39:14-44:24.]

[39] ‘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 tip-
ster, come off the hulks, both of them awful poor, what was out
on the bumaround for an oofbird game for a jimmy o’goblin or
a small thick un as chanced, while the Seaforths was making the
colleenbawl, 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 lodginghouses where
he slept in a nude state, hailfellow with meth, in strange men’s
cots) but on racenight, blotto after divers tots of hell fire, red
biddy, bull dog, blue ruin and creeping jenny, Eglandine’s choic-
est herbage, supplied by the Duck and Doggies, the Galop-
ping Primrose, Brigid Brewster’s, the Cock, the Postboy’s Horn,

[40] the Little Old Man’s and All Swell That Aimswell, the Cup and
the Stirrup, he sought his wellwarmed leababobed in a hous-
ingroom Abide With Oneanother 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 sub-
stance of the tale of the evangelical bussybozzy and the rusinur-
bean (the ‘girls’ he would keep calling them for the collarette
and skirt, the sunbonnet and carnation) in parts (it seemed he
was before the eyots of martas or otherwales the thirds of fossil-
years, he having beham with katya when lavinias had her mens
lease to sea in a psumpship doodly show whereat he was looking
for fight ------- with whilde roarses) oft in the chilly night (the
metagonistic! the epickthalamorous!) during uneasy slumber in
their hearings of a small and stonybroke cashdraper’s executive,
Peter Cloran (discharged), O’Mara, an exprivate 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 beachbusker, who,
sans rootie and sans scrapie, suspicioning as how he was setting
on a twoodstool on the verge of selfabyss, 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 ifidalicence 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 sidewheel dive somewhere off the Dullkey
Downlairy and Bleakrooky tramaline where he could throw true
and go and blow the sibicidal napper off himself for two bits to
boldywell 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

[41] these incurable welleslays among those uncarable wellasdays
through Sant Iago by his cocklehat, goot Lazar, deliver us!)
without after having been able to jerrywangle it anysides. Lisa
O’Deavis and Roche Mongan (who had so much incommon,
epipsychidically; if the phrase be permitted hostis et odor insuper
petroperfractus) as an understood thing slept their sleep of the
swimborne in the one sweet undulant mother of tumblerbunks
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 potlids, doorbrasses, scholars’ applecheeks
and linkboy’s metals when, ashhopperminded like no fella he go
make bakenbeggfuss longa white man, the rejuvenated busker (for
after a goodnight’s rave and rumble and a shinkhams topmorning
with his coexes he was not the same man) and his broadawake
bedroom suite (our boys, as our Byron called them) were up
and ashuffle from the hogshome 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 maniplumbs below the ober-
flake underrails and stations at this time of riding) to the thrum-
mings 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 fraiseberry beds,
heeding hardly cry of honeyman, soed lavender or foyneboyne
salmon alive, with their priggish mouths all open for the larger
appraisiation of this longawaited Messiagh of roaratorios, were
only halfpast atsweeeep and after a brisk pause at a pawnbroking
establishment for the prothetic purpose of redeeming the song-
ster’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

[42] along, the trio of whackfolthediddlers was joined by a further —
intentions — apply — tomorrow casual and a decent sort of the
hadbeen variety who had just been touching the weekly insult,
phewit, and all figblabbers (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 yester-
day, flushed with their firestufffostered 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 laughleaking 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 wouldbe 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 attrac-
tionable 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 shouldhavebeen legis-
lator (Eleutheriodendron! Spare, woodmann, spare!) to an over-
flow meeting of all the nations in Lenster fullyfilling the visional
area and, as a singleminded supercrowd, easily representative,
what with masks, whet with faces, of all sections and cross sections
(wineshop and cocoahouse poured out to brim up the broaching)
of our liffeyside people (to omit to mention of the mainland mino-
rity 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 eastanglian chroni-
cler and a landwester 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, weedulicet, jumbobricks, 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 snipehitting and
mallardmissing on Rutland heath, exchanging cold sneers, mass-

[43] going ladies from Hume Street in their chairs, the bearers baited,
some wandering hamalags out of the adjacent cloverfields of
Mosse’s Gardens, an oblate fater from Skinner’s Alley, brick-
layers, a fleming, in tabinet fumant, with spouse and dog, an aged
hammersmith who had some chisellers by the hand, a bout of
cudgel players, not a few sheep with the braxy, two bluecoat
scholars, four broke gents out of Simpson’s on the Rocks, a
portly and a pert still tassing Turkey Coffee and orange shrub in
tickeyes door, Peter Pim and Paul Fry and then Elliot and, O,
Atkinson, suffering hell’s delights from the blains of their annui-
tant’s 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 unkle’s place, were evidently under the spell of liquor, from the
wake of Tarry the Tailor a fair girl, a jolly postboy thinking off
three flagons and one, a plumodrole, a half sir from the weaver’s
almshouse who clings and clings and chatchatchat clings to her, a
wholedam’s cloudhued pittycoat, as child, as curiolater, 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 Poulichinello Artahut, stump-
stampaded on to a slip of blancovide 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 pussyfours green of the united states
of Scotia Picta — and he who denies it, may his hairs be rubbed
in dirt! To the added strains (so peacifold) of his majesty the
floote, that onecrooned king of inscrewments, Piggots’s purest, ciello
alsoliuto, which Mr Delaney (Mr Delacey?), horn, anticipating
a perfect downpour of plaudits among the rapsods, piped
out of his decentsoort hat, looking still more like his purseyful
namesake as men of Gaul noted, but before of to sputabout, the

[44] snowycrested 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 aroud the lawn the rann it rann and this is the rann that
Hosty made. Spoken. Boyles and Cahills, Skerretts and Pritchards,
viersefied 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. To-
gether. 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 (klikkaklakkaklaskaklopatzklatschabattacreppycrotty-
graddaghsemmihsammihnouithappluddyappladdypkonpkot!).
Ardite, arditi!
Music cue.

[End of reading excerpt]

Adam Seelig: That was Richard Harte reading from Chapter 2 of Finnegans Wake, pages 39 to 44, recorded with a live audience at Noonan’s Irish Pub in Toronto on June 26th, 2023.

Join us in two weeks for Episode 10 when Richard concludes Chapter 2 of Finnegans Wake with Hosty’s scandalous song, “The Ballad of Persse O’Reilly”. To be sure you don’t miss any episodes, why not follow or subscribe to this podcast? For more on One Little Goat’s Finnegans Wake project, including transcripts of this podcast and trailers for the films, visit our website at OneLittleGoat.org. And to hear about upcoming performances and screenings, join our mailing list, also at OneLittleGoat.org.

[Music: Adam Seelig plays piano]

Finnegans Wake is made possible by Friends of One Little Goat Theatre Company and the Emigrant Support Programme of the government of Ireland. Thank you for your support! And thank you to the artists for this episode: Richard Harte; Sound by William Bembridge; Podcast production by Sean Rasmussen; Stage Management by Jobina Sitoh; Directed by yours truly, Adam Seelig. A big thanks to Jane Noonan and the staff at Noonan’s Irish Pub, as well as to our wonderful live audience. Thank you to everyone at the Irish Consulate in Toronto. And to Production Consultants Cathy Murphy and Andrew Moodie. One Little Goat Theatre Company is a nonprofit, artist-driven, registered charity. To donate or find out more or to join our mailing list please visit www.OneLittleGoat.org

Thank you for listening!

[Music fades out]

[End of Ep009]

Mentioned: bpNichol, more glosses on “riverrun”, The Liberties, Hosty the scandalmongering busker, Bruegel, Where’s Waldo, Hosty’s ballad on HCE spreads across Ireland, third ‘thunderword’ in Finnegans Wak, synopsis.

Resources: Transcript for this episode, including the text of Finnegans Wake pages 39-44.
Finnegans Wake (1939) by James Joyce: there are many free copies of FW to read online or download, e.g. finwake.com
James Joyce Digital Archive, “Chicken Guide” to Finnegans Wake provides a ‘plain English’ paraphrase of each chapter by Danis Rose.
Edmund Epstein, A Guide through Finnegans Wake. University Press of Florida, 2009.
William York Tindall, A Reader’s Guide to Finnegans Wake. Syracuse University Press, 1996.
Roland McHugh, Annotations to Finnegans Wake (4th edition). Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 2016.
John Gordon’s annotations on his Finnegans Wake blog.
Richard Ellmann’s biography of James Joyce. Oxford University Press, 1982.
bpNichol, some lines of poetry: from the notebooks of bpNichol. Edited by Derek Beaulieu and Gregory Betts. Coach House, Toronto, 2024.

Episode 008: Cad confrontation (p. 34:29-39:13)

September 12, 2024 Adam Seelig

JAMES JOYCE’S FINNEGANS WAKE
Episode 008 CAD CONFRONTATION

PAGE 34:29-39:13 | 2024-09-12

PODCAST AUDIO

PODCAST TRANSCRIPT

Adam Seelig: Welcome to James Joyce’s divine and delirious comedy, Finnegans Wake. In this episode, number 8, we’ll hear Irish-Canadian actor—and my good friend and colleague—Richard Harte reading pages 34 to 39 from Chapter 2 of Joyce’s last novel. I’m Adam Seelig, the director of the reading you’ll soon hear.

[Music: Adam Seelig plays piano]

Adam Seelig: Finnegans Wake is a production of One Little Goat Theatre Company. For the next five years, One Little Goat will film and record all 17 chapters (roughly 30 Hours) of Joyce’s Finnegans Wake before live audiences in various locations, screening and releasing them along along the way, with the aim of completing the entire book in time for its 90th birthday, May 4, 2029. One Little Goat Theatre Company is an official charity in Canada and the United States — if you’d like to support our work, please visit us online at www.OneLittleGoat.org to make a charitable donation. And if monetary support is not an option, you can still help this podcast by rating and reviewing it and by spreading the word. To get in touch, you’ll find our email address on the One Little Goat Theatre Company website and we’d love to hear from you.

[Music fades out]

Adam Seelig: From Emily Dickinson:

Tell all the truth but tell it slant —
Success in Circuit lies

If Finnegans Wake tells the truth, assuming there’s even any truth in it to be told, then it does so at many slants from many perspectives, often in the dubious form of gossip.

In the previous episode (Episode 7) which opened Chapter 2 of Finnegans Wake, we heard about the origins of our protagonist’s name, H. C. Earwicker, and about possible rumours surrounding him. In today’s episode, those rumours will travel further and faster. Humanity is, after all, “an imperfectly warmblooded race” (33:21), and don’t we just love to talk.

Tell all the truth but tell it slant —
Success in Circuit lies

The “lies” of Dickinson’s second line offsets—maybe úpsets—the “truth” of the first. In today’s excerpt from Chapter 2, the closest we can come to any definitive truth about Earwicker lies in the ‘circuity’ of gossip, that loved and loathed source of news. Or so-called news. Or ‘fake news’. How much of this gossip, in other words, is information versus “illformation” (137:34)? Should we take what we hear as gospel or “gossiple” (38:23)? Facts can be suspect in a work of fiction, and Finnegans Wake, in addition to being a phantasmagoric poem, is a mammoth work of fiction within which we find many mini fictions, however factual, about HCE. And as these little fictions go through the rumour mill, as they make their successful rounds on the gossip circuit, they gain mass and momentum. It’s no coincidence that today’s reading, which follows a zigzagging relay of HCE-related rumours, ends up at the racetrack, one of the fastest circuits around, where the gossip about Earwicker reaches a veritable gallop.

The main event in today’s reading is Earwicker’s encounter with a guy described as “a cad with a pipe.” (35:11) It takes place in Dublin’s Phoenix Park, or as the text puts it, “the wide expanse of our greatest park”, (35:8) and indeed Phoenix Park is great: at seven square kilometres, it’s twice the size of New York’s Central Park, making it one of the largest urban parks in the world. The scene begins on the “ides-of-April morning”, i.e. on April 13th, which, we are told, happens to be Earwicker’s birthday. We are also told that this event is “ages and ages after the alleged misdemeanour” (35:5-6), a coy reference to the gossip that hounds HCE. Keep in mind that this tale of HCE’s confrontation with the cad is itself the product of rumour, beginning not with an authoritative, ‘Once upon a time’, but with a far less reliable, “They tell the story […]”.

The “ides-of-April” ominously echoes the Ides of March, when Julius Caesar was assassinated, and Earwicker dressed in seven items of clothing — ‘dressed to the sevens’ as we called it in the previous episode — could be foreshadowing a potential confrontation.

Is this meeting of Earwicker and the cad in the park a chance encounter or a spontaneous confrontation? Is it innocent or threatening?

Well, this is what seems to happen on that April morning… The cad with the pipe crosses paths with HCE and asks him, in a Wakean kind of Gaelic, something along the lines of: ‘How do you do? Could you tell me the time, because my watch is running slow?’ Ostensibly, this all sounds pretty innocuous. But as with the earlier encounter of two men, Mutt & Jute, in Chapter 1 (Episode 4), some miscommunication ensues. HCE interprets the cad’s words as a kind of attack and, in a panic, goes on the defensive. At this point the narrative, adhering to Earwicker’s state of mind, adopts the language of a cowboy-like showdown, so that instead of simply taking his watch out of his pocket and telling the cad that it’s twelve o’clock — which appears to be what happens (so much for it being morning) — HCE, we are told, is “quick on the draw” when he pulls his watch out of his “gunpocket” (35:26-27). For all his cowboy heroics, however, Earwicker ends up stuttering out his response to the cad, launching into an unsolicited, cringeworthy self-exoneration: “there is not one tittle of truth, allow me to tell you, in that purest of fibfib fabrications.” (36:34) This stuttering, which might betray HCE’s guilty conscience, is a motif throughout the novel that I’ll discuss in more detail in a minute.

Gaping Gill, an innocent bystander, “with infinite tact in the delicate situation seen the touchy nature of its perilous theme”, (37:4-5) politely extricates himself and walks off with his dog.

Now it’s evening, “ere the hour of the twattering of bards in the twitterlitter between Druidia and the Deepsleep Sea” (37:17-18). A wonderful, quiet passage follows, filled with the gentle sounds of letters reduced to their essence: a double F, a double K, a single T, a single I. I love Joyce’s writing, and Richard’s reciting, of these gloaming sounds of our alphabet, somewhere between the language of birds and lovers. (37:20-22)

The cad, home for supper, recounts his Phoenix Park encounter/confrontation with Earwicker, as best he can, to his wife. And from here, the zigzagging relay of gossip runs its course. In light of all this word of mouth, it makes sense that the text alludes, hilariously, to “Irish saliva” (37:25), the main ingredient in Dublin gossip. So the cad, chewing the cud, tells his wife, the wife tells her priest, and the priest tells the science teacher Philly Thurnston at the racetrack where the horses, like the rousing rumour itself, take on a life of their own.

Before we get to Richard’s reading, I want to highlight the stuttering motif that features prominently in Earwicker’s interaction/altercation with the cad.

From the very first page of Finnegans Wake, stuttering plays a part:

[Richard Harte reads Finnegans Wake 3:9-10.]

nor avoice from afire bellowsed mishe mishe to
tauftauf thuartpeatrick

Adam Seelig: And here’s Richard reading a more pronounced example a few lines later, with stuttering built into the novel’s first 100-letter ‘thunderword’:

[Richard Harte reads Finnegans Wake 3:15-17.]

The fall (bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonner-
ronntuonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthur-
nuk!) of a once wallstrait oldparr

Adam Seelig: One page later, we hear of “Bygmester Finnegan, of the Stuttering Hand” (4:18); on page 16, in the prehistoric dialogue of Mutt and Jute, Mutt stammers to Jute that, “I became a stun a stummer” (16:17); and there are many more examples.

So why all the stuttering? As with everything in the Wake, we can read into it endlessly, but for now let’s consider two reasons:

(1) Stuttering as a form of early, elemental, prehistoric speech.
(& 2) Stuttering as a betrayal of guilty feelings; or in the parlance of poker, stuttering as a ‘tell’.

About (1) stuttering as early human speech…

Roland McHugh, in the introduction to his incredible Annotations to Finnegans Wake, details the influence of 18th-century philosopher Giambattista Vico on Joyce’s writing. In The New Science, published in 1725, Vico proposes that the history of nations divides into three ages: divine, heroic, and human — plus a kind of ‘fourth age’ or ‘coda’ during which the human age, number 3, reverts back to number 1, the divine age in a ‘rinse-and-repeat’ cycle, or a ricorso, which helps explain the cyclical structure of Finnegans Wake and adds another complexion to the word “recirculation” on the novel’s first page (and the word “vicus” in that same first sentence, in addition to suggesting Vico Road in Dublin or the Latin word for village, can also point to our Italian philosopher, Vico). As McHugh explains, in the first age, “the age of gods, brutish men are driven by shame and fear into caves to escape the thunder, which is the voice of the sky-god.” (p.x) And as William Tindall explains, in the divine age, prehistoric people, “like so many Mutts and Jutes, communicate by grunts, gestures, [etc.]” (9) including stutters. So, going back to that first thunder word after the fall—

[Richard Harte reads Finnegans Wake 3:15-17.]

**Zeus** hurling a thunderbolt, bronze statuette from Dodona, Greece, early 5th century BCE; Staatliche Museen, Berlin.

The fall (bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonner-
ronntuonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthur-
nuk!)

Adam Seelig: —we can hear the thunder of the sky-god or Zeus or ‘capital G God’ ‘capital H Himself’ generating language, birthing the first babble/babel, the first “bababada” of an infant humanity.

McHugh mentions that early humanity escapes thunder in “shame and fear”, which brings me to (2) stuttering as a sign of guilt…

In today’s reading, you’ll hear the text stammer when mentioning, “the hakusay accusation againstm” (36:3-4), i.e. the accusation about HCE’s “alleged misdemeanor” or, put simply, his sin. But what is this alleged sin? When Earwicker stutters during his unprovoked self-exoneration in response to the cad, the possible guilt revealed by his stammering is about what? McHugh offers a hint, pointing out that Charles Parnell, the Irish nationalist, and Lewis Carroll, author of Alice in Wonderland — both men (referenced throughout Finnegans Wake) stuttered. The former, Parnell, committed the sin of adultery, which led to his political downfall, while the latter, Charles Dodgson (aka Lewis Carroll), photographed children in the nude as a hobby, which, while not a sin, per se, has fueled speculation about Dodgson ever since, leading to rumours about his own “alleged misdemeanor[s]”.

And Earwicker: what’s his sin?

The examples of Parnell and Dodgson suggest that Earwicker, through the dream language of the Wake, experiences inappropriate sexual desires. But don’t we all, especially in our own personal, private dreams? The answer is yes, yes we do. The scandal of Parnell falling for Katherine (or Kitty) O’Shea, then falling from political grace, is an eminently relatable tale because, as the Wake reminds us on virtually every page, humanity, that is, all of us, fell from grace the moment Eve and Adam were swayed by the snake and ate the forbidden fruit. (In today’s reading, incidentally, Eden’s famous apple becomes a far more suggestive fruit: a banana eaten by Eve, whose original Hebrew name is Chava, hence the mention of “Havvah-ban-Annah” (38:30).) HCE, as a necessarily flawed character who contains multitudes, from Biblical Adam to folksy Tim Finnegan to admired Parnell, is ultimately “Here Comes Everybody” (as we heard in the previous episode), he’s all of us, embodying our original and subsequent sins, with his occasional stutter reminding us those sins are always there, however deeply and unconsciously buried.

"Adam & Eve, Serpent & Apple," Heinz Seelig.

So it’s thanks to the forked tongue of the serpent and the forked lightning of the gods that our stuttering fall into sin and speech began.

I’m going to close with the poem with which I opened, partly because it contains a flash of lightning and some thematic overlap with today’s episode, but mostly because Emily Dickinson knew how to write a damn good poem. Here it is in full:

Tell all the truth but tell it slant — (1263)

Tell all the truth but tell it slant —
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth's superb surprise
As Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind —

Richard Harte’s reading of Finnegans Wake Chapter 2 was shot and recorded in Toronto at Noonan’s Irish Pub on June 26th, 2023 with a live audience. The film premiered at the Toronto Irish Film Festival and Bloomsday Film Festival at the James Joyce Centre in Dublin.

Now it’s time to welcome you to Noonan’s Irish Pub for Richard’s reading of James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake, page 34 line 29 to page 39 line 13 for the continuation of Chapter 2.

[Richard Harte reads Finnegans Wake 34:29-39:13.]

[34] We can’t do without them. Wives, rush to the restyours! Of-
man will toman while led is the lol. Zessid’s our kadem, villa-
pleach, vollapluck. 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 and hence it has been received of

[35] us that it is true. They tell the story (an amalgam as absorbing as
calzium chloereydes and hydrophobe sponges could make it) how
one happygogusty 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 crea-
tion, 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 olddaisers 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 pingping
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 reply-
in 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 skirl-
ing of harsh Mother East old Fox Goodman, the bellmaster, over
the wastes to south, at work upon the ten ton tonuant thunder-
ous 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 pre-
sented (though this seems in some cumfusium with the chap-

[36] stuck ginger which, as being of sours, acids, salts, sweets and
bitters compompounded, we know him to have used as chaw-
chaw for bone, muscle, blood, flesh and vimvital,) that where-
as the hakusay accusation againstm had been made, what was
known in high quarters as was stood stated in Morganspost, by
a creature in youman form who was quite beneath parr and seve-
ral degrees lower than yore triplehydrad snake. In greater sup-
port 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 toosammen-
stucked from successive accounts by Noah Webster in the re-
daction known as the Sayings Attributive of H. C. Earwicker,
prize on schillings, postlots free), the flaxen Gygas tapped his
chronometrum drumdrum and, now standing full erect, above
the ambijacent floodplain, scene of its happening, with one Ber-
lin 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 rendypresent 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 mewmew mutual daughters, credit me, I am woo-
woo willing to take my stand, sir, upon the monument, that sign
of our ruru redemption, any hygienic day to this hour and to
make my hoath to my sinnfinners, 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 withdwellers 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 fibfib fabrications.
Gaping Gill, swift to mate errthors, stern to checkself, (diag-
nosing through eustacetube that it was to make with a markedly

[37] postpuberal hypertituitary type of Heidelberg mannleich cavern
ethics) lufted his slopingforward, bad Sweatagore good mur-
rough 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 gildthegap 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, verbigracious; I have met with you, bird, too late,
or if not, too worm and early: and with tag for ildiot repeated
in his secondmouth 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 twitterlitter between
Druidia and the Deepsleep Sea, when suppertide and souvenir to
Charlatan Mall jointly kem gently and along the quiet darkenings
of Grand and Royal, ff, flitmansfluh, and, kk, ‘t crept i’ hedge
whenas to many a softongue’s pawkytalk mude unswer u sufter
poghyogh, 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 respect-
able prominently connected fellow of Iro-European ascendances
with welldressed ideas who knew the correct thing such as Mr
Shallwesigh or Mr Shallwelaugh expectorate after such a callous
fashion, no thank yous! when he had his belcher spuckertuck 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 Lukanpukan pilzenpie which she knows
which senaffed and pibered him), a supreme of excelling peas,
balled under minnshogue’s milk into whitemalt winesour, a pro-
viant the littlebilker hoarsely relished, chaff it, in the snevel season,
being as fain o’t as your rat wi’fennel; and on this celebrating

[38] occasion of the happy escape, for a crowning of pot valiance,
this regional platter, benjamin of bouillis, with a spolish olive to
middlepoint its zaynith, was marrying itself (porkograso!) ere-
busqued very deluxiously with a bottle of Phenice-Bruerie ‘98,
followed for second nuptials by a Piessporter, Grand Cur, of
both of which cherished tablelights (though humble the bounquet
‘tis a leaman’s farewell) he obdurately sniffed the cobwebcrusted
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, Pome-
ranzia!) 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 pispigliando, 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 timblespoon!) trusting, between
cuppled lips and annie lawrie promises (mighshe never have
Esnekerry pudden come Hunanov for her pecklapitschens!) that
the gossiple so delivered in his epistolear, buried teatoastally in
their Irish stew would go no further than his jesuit’s cloth, yet
(in vinars venitas! volatiles valetotum!) it was this overspoiled
priest Mr Browne, disguised as a vincentian, who, when seized
of the facts, was overheard, in his secondary personality as a
Nolan and underreared, 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 Crookedribs confidentials,
(what Mere Aloyse said but for Jesuphine’s sake!) hands between
hahands, 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 layteacher of rural science
and orthophonethics of a nearstout figure and about the middle

[39] 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 cald) 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 never-
rip mud and purpular cap was surely leagues unlike any other
phantomweight that ever toppitt our timber maggies.

[End of reading excerpt]

Adam Seelig: That was my friend and colleague Richard Harte reading from Chapter 2 of Finnegans Wake, pages 34 to 39, recorded with a live audience at Noonan’s Irish Pub in Toronto on June 26th, 2023.

Join us in two weeks for Episode 9 when Richard continues Finnegans Wake Chapter 2, in which we meet the scandalous balladeer, Hosty. To be sure you don’t miss any episodes, why not follow or subscribe to this podcast? For more on One Little Goat’s Finnegans Wake project, including transcripts of this podcast and trailers for the films, visit our website at OneLittleGoat.org. And to hear about upcoming performances and screenings, join our mailing list, also at OneLittleGoat.org.

[Music: Adam Seelig plays piano]

Finnegans Wake is made possible by Friends of One Little Goat Theatre Company and the Emigrant Support Programme of the government of Ireland. Thank you for your support!

And thank you to the artists for this episode: Richard Harte; Sound by William Bembridge; Podcast production by Sean Rasmussen; Stage Management by Jobina Sitoh; Directed by yours truly, Adam Seelig.

One Little Goat Theatre Company is a nonprofit, artist-driven, registered charity. To donate or find out more or to join our mailing list please visit www.OneLittleGoat.org Thank you for listening!

[Music fades out]
[End of Ep008]

Mentioned: Emily Dickinson poem, “Tell all the truth but tell it slant”, HCE rumours, fiction, HCE’s encounter/confrontation with the cad, Dublin’s Phoenix Park, stuttering motif, language of birds and love, gossip relay, stuttering as early speech and signifying guilt, Giambattista Vico, cycle of three eras, first ‘thunderword’, Charles Parnell and Charles Dodgson, Adam and Eve, original sin, synopsis.

Resources: Transcript for this episode, including the text of Finnegans Wake pages 34-39.
Finnegans Wake (1939) by James Joyce: there are many free copies of FW to read online or download, e.g. finwake.com
James Joyce Digital Archive, “Chicken Guide” to Finnegans Wake provides a ‘plain English’ paraphrase of each chapter by Danis Rose.
Edmund Epstein, A Guide through Finnegans Wake. University Press of Florida, 2009.
William York Tindall, A Reader’s Guide to Finnegans Wake. Syracuse University Press, 1996.
Roland McHugh, Annotations to Finnegans Wake (4th edition). Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 2016.
John Gordon’s annotations on his Finnegans Wake blog.
Richard Ellmann’s biography of James Joyce. Oxford University Press, 1982.

Episode 007: the genesis of HCE (p. 30:1-34:29, start of Ch02)

August 29, 2024 Adam Seelig

JAMES JOYCE’S FINNEGANS WAKE
Episode 007 THE GENESIS OF HCE

PAGE 30:1-34:29 | 2024-08-29

PODCAST AUDIO

PODCAST TRANSCRIPT

Adam Seelig: Welcome to James Joyce’s divine and delirious comedy, Finnegans Wake. In this episode, number 7, we’ll hear Irish-Canadian actor—and my good friend and colleague—Richard Harte reading pages 30 to 34 to begin Chapter 2 of Joyce’s last novel. I’m Adam Seelig, the director of the reading you’ll soon hear. [Music: Adam Seelig plays piano]

Adam Seelig: Finnegans Wake is a production of One Little Goat Theatre Company. For the next five years, One Little Goat will film and record all 17 chapters (roughly 30 Hours) of Joyce’s Finnegans Wake before live audiences in various locations, screening and releasing them along along the way, with the aim of completing the entire book in time for its 90th birthday, May 4, 2029. One Little Goat Theatre Company is an official charity in Canada and the United States — if you’d like to support our work, please visit us online at www.OneLittleGoat.org to make a charitable donation. And if monetary support is not an option, you can still help this podcast by rating and reviewing it and by spreading the word. To get in touch, you’ll find our email address on the One Little Goat Theatre Company website and we’d love to hear from you. [Music fades out]

I’m happy to be back after a short break spent on film production for future chapters of Finnegans Wake. If you’re only joining us now, welcome and no worries — Finnegans Wake is a nonlinear novel after all, so beginning at Chapter 2 is as good a place as any. And as I’ve been saying in nearly every episode, feel free to jump ahead to Richard’s reading if you’d rather skip my introduction.

In the previous podcast episode, Richard Harte concluded his reading of Chapter 1, which served as an overture, sounding out the novel’s main themes, especially the theme of humanity’s cyclical, and comical, fall and rise and fall again, our funereal wake at which we awaken like Tim Finnegan of the Irish American folk song, who is both fin and again, a person who ends and begins repeatedly.

Chapter 2 introduces us to the novel’s protagonist, who goes by the initials HCE and the moniker Earwicker, among his many other names and nicknames. The chapter opens with an origin story for Earwicker’s name and a further exploration, and confusion, of his numerous names and identities. That’s because H. C. Earwicker is the furthest thing from a conventional character in a work of fiction, but rather an entity who contains multifarious multitudes. He is at turns Adam, the Hebrew Bible’s original man; Tim Finnegan of folk song fame; the barkeeper at the Mullingar Inn in Chapelizod, Dublin, who goes by the family name Porter; and many other identities. His characterlessness — as I described Mutt and Jute in Episode 4 — enables him to shift into many shapes and morph into many molds.

So for Chapter 2 to pursue the genesis of HCE’s name, to ask essentially, “Who is Earwicker?” is a lot like asking, “Who was Homer?” the Ancient Greek bard about whom we know little by way of concrete biographical facts and whose epic poems, The Odyssey and The Iliad, influenced the contours and contents of Joyce’s two epics, Ulysses and Finnegans Wake. When Emily Wilson, in her introduction to her brilliant new translation of The Iliad, describes the conjecture surrounding Homer’s identity, I’m reminded of the Wake’s search for Earwicker’s. Here’s Wilson on Homer:

How, where, when exactly, and by whom the poems [The Iliad and The Odyssey] were made, we do not know. Maybe an oral poet, or several such poets, became literate. Maybe an illiterate or semiliterate poet, or group of poets, collaborated with one or more scribes, perhaps using dictation. Perhaps one great composer was named Homer (a name that was associated in antiquity with the word for “hostage,” homeros, although various other speculative etymologies were also posited). The composer may have been “a blind man who came from Rocky Chios,” as the narrator of the Hymn to Delian Apollo asserts — although this was only one of numerous rival local legends about this most elusive of poets. Every statement about the historical person or people who composed The Iliad must be hedged with maybes. Ancient “lives” of Homer are set in the cloudy lands of biographical myth. (p.xix)

Chapter 2 of Finnegans Wake begins in such a land of biographical myth, where every statement about Earwicker must be hedged with maybes.

The myth in this case is that HCE — or Harold or Humphrey or whatever his name may be — was out gardening one Sabbath afternoon when royalty approached on horseback. His Majesty wants to know what caused all the potholes in the road, but through a misunderstood exchange, the nervous, subservient HCE, who is merely a vassal, tells His Highness that he was catching some earwigs. As a result, the name of Earwigger or Earwicker has stuck to the man ever since.

As with every word in the Wake, “Earwicker” can connote many things, including a character whose ears are particularly receptive, ‘wicking up’ his auditory surroundings; or an entomological character like his near namesake, the earwig; and if there is something insect-like about him, perhaps there’s also something ‘insectuous,’ or, as novelist Anthony Burgess has suggested with the swap of two letters, something ‘incestuous’ within this character; or given his many identities, HCE, as you’ll soon hear in Chapter 2, could stand for “Here Comes Everybody” (32:18), with Earwicker representing humanity, all of us; or if we hear ‘earwigging’ as older English slang for ‘eavesdropping’ (and the expression is still, if rarely, used today), then Earwicker’s name itself presents the main subject of Chapter 2, and that is: gossip, slander.

On page 32, after suggesting that HCE could signify “Here Comes Everybody”, the Wake’s wonderfully associative dream language riffs and runs (rifferuns?!) on theatrical, hyped-up language full of play and dramatics, with all the world, for a moment, a stage, or “worldstage” (33:3).

And then, on page 33, the ‘earwigging,’ i.e. gossiping and slander, associated with the name and character of “Earwicker” begins to emerge. As the text puts it, “A baser meaning has been read into” HCE’s name (33:14). And what’s all this gossip, you may want to know, or ‘Spill the tea,’ as my kids like to say. It may be hazy, as rumours tend to be, but it seems to involve three Welsh soldiers, two girls peeing in the rushes of Dublin’s Phoenix Park, and a threatening cad, whom we’ll meet later in this chapter. It’s worth noting that these three elements, comprised of the three soldiers, two girls and one cad, will become a recurring motif throughout Finnegans Wake, represented by the numbers 3, 2 and 1. At the suggestion of this gossip on page 33, the text seems to grow defensive on behalf of Earwicker: “the mere suggestion of [H. C. Earwicker] as a lustsleuth nosing for trouble in a boobytrap rings particularly preposterous.” (33:31). Perhaps the text here protests too much. And by page 34, it denounces all this hearsay even more forcefully as “Slander” (34:12). But of course, the juicier the details, and the more emphatically they’re denied, the more they pique our interest. And indeed, there’s more gossip to come in Chapter 2 — this is just the beginning.

Before we get to Richard’s reading, I want to point out another motif that figures throughout the novel, which you’ll hear on the opening page of Chapter 2, and that’s the motif of characters getting dressed in seven items of clothing. It’s always seven. In this chapter, it happens when Earwicker dresses hurriedly — though arguably horridly — in order to see His Majesty, who has arrived nearby on horseback. In Chapter 1, this motif of ‘dressing to the sevens,’ so to speak, occurs near the climax of the prankquean fable (Episode 5 of our podcast series) when Jarl von Hoother girds up his loins to put an end, he hopes, to the prankquean’s disruptive antics. The seven items may sound strange in the dream language of the Wake, but a close listening/reading will reveal the Jarl’s seven items, beginning with his “broadginger hat” and ending with his “furframed panuncular cumbottes,” which I hear as gumboots. Here's an excerpt of Richard reading that moment:

[Richard Harte reads Finnegans Wake 22:30-23:3.]

For like the campbells acoming with a fork lance of lightning, Jarl von Hoother Boanerges himself, the old terror of the dames, came hip hop handihap out through the pikeopened arkway of his three shuttoned castles, in his broadginger hat and his civic chollar and his allabuff hemmed and his bullbraggin soxangloves and his ladbroke breeks and his cattegut bandolair and his fur framed panuncular cumbottes like a rudd yellan gruebleen orangeman in his violet indigonation, to the whole longth of the strongth of his bowman's bill.

Adam Seelig: And here’s another example from earlier in Chapter 1 in the “museyroom” (Episode 3 of our podcast) when Kate describes the Duke of Wellington on horseback — Kate calls him “Willingdone” in this Wakean war museum — listing seven items on his person, from his golden spurs to his “wartrews” or war trousers. This is Richard reading that moment:

[Richard Harte reads Finnegans Wake 8:17-22.]

This is the Willingdone on his same white harse, the Cokenhape. This is the big Sraughter Willingdone, grand and magentic in his goldtin spurs and his ironed dux and his quarterbrass woodyshoes and his magnate's gharters and his bangkok's best and goliar's goloshes and his pulluponeasyan wartrews. This is his big wide harse. Tip.

Adam Seelig: I opened with Emily Wilson’s comments on The Iliad, and I’m going to close with an excerpt from her translation because this ‘dressed to the sevens’ motif of Finnegans Wake is very much in the epic tradition of Homer (whoever that may have been). Just listen to how closely this epic description of Agamemnon dressing for battle, composed nearly 3,000 years ago, establishes the template, and even partly the tone in its fastidious specificity, for Joyce’s comic spin on the clothing and gear his characters would wear:

Then Agamemnon,
the son of Atreus, addressed the Greeks,
shouting that all of them must arm themselves.
And he himself put on his shining bronze.
He strapped fine greaves around his lower legs,
fitted with silver shin-guards. Next, he fastened
onto his chest the corselet that Cinyres
had given him to seal their bond of friendship
when the important news had come to Cyprus—
that Greeks were sailing in their ships to Troy.
Cinyres gave this gift to Agamemnon,
the leader, in the hope of winning favor.
It had ten stripes of dark blue-black enamel,
and twelve of gold and twenty made of tin.
And three dark snakes coiled up towards the neck
on either side, like rainbows, which the son
of Cronus sets in clouds as signs for humans.
Across his shoulders, Agamemnon strapped
his sword, all shimmering with golden studs,
held in a silver scabbard, which was set
with golden rings. Then he picked up his shield,
a splendid, deadly shield, strong on both sides,
adorned with many splendid decorations.
Around it ran ten circles made of bronze,
and it had ten white bosses made of tin,
and one of blue enamel at the center.
The middle garland was a glaring Gorgon,
whose gaze was terrifying, and around her,
Panic and Fear. The strap was made of silver,
and round it coiled a blue snake with three faces,
each turning different ways, grown from one neck.
Then Agamemnon put onto his head
his leather helmet, which had two bronze plates,
four bosses, and a horsehair crest. The plume
nodded ferociously right at the top.
Last, he picked up two warlike sharp spears, tipped
with bronze, whose gleam shone far into the sky.
(p.234-44, Book 11 lines 19-55 [14-45 in the original Greek])

I know it’s not a competition, but Homer may have out-epic’ed Joyce on this one.

Now it’s time to welcome you to Noonan’s Irish Pub for Richard’s reading of James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake, page 30 line 1 to page 34 line 29 for the beginning of Chapter 2.

[Richard Harte reads Finnegans Wake 30:1-34:29.]

[p30] Now (to forebare for ever solittle of Iris Trees and Lili O’Ran-
gans), concerning the genesis of Harold or Humphrey Chimp-
den’s occupational agnomen (we are back in the presurnames
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 Sidles-
ham 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 fol-
lowed, also at walking pace, by a lady pack of cocker spaniels. For-
getful 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 pocketcoat) hast-
ing to the forecourts of his public in topee, surcingle, solascarf and
plaid, plus fours, puttees and bulldog boots ruddled cinnabar with

[31] 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 longsighted 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 paternoster and silver doctors were not
now more fancied bait for lobstertrapping honest blunt Harom-
phreyld answered in no uncertain tones very similarly with a fear-
less 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 shortfingeredness from his greataunt Sophy, turned to-
wards two of his retinue of gallowglasses, Michael, etheling lord
of Leix and Offaly and the jubilee mayor of Drogheda, Elcock,
(the two scatterguns 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-
makenoise), in either case a triptychal religious family symbolising
puritas of doctrina, business per usuals and the purchypatch of
hamlock where the paddish preties grow and remarked dilsydul-
sily: Holybones of Saint Hubert how our red brother of Pour-
ingrainia would audibly fume did he know that we have for sur-
trusty bailiwick a turnpiker who is by turns a pikebailer no sel-
domer 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, japijap cheerycherrily, among
the roadside tree the lady Holmpatrick planted and still one feels
the amossive silence of the cladstone allegibelling: Ive mies outs
ide Bourn.) Comes the question are these the facts of his nom-
inigentilisation as recorded and accolated in both or either of the
collateral andrewpaulmurphyc narratives. Are those their fata
which we read in sibylline between the fas and its nefas? No dung

[32]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 scen-
taurs stay. Bear in mind, son of Hokmah, if so be you have me-
theg 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, un-
controllable nighttalkers, Skertsiraizde with Donyahzade, 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 ini-
tialled by Haromphrey bear the sigla H.C.E. and while he was
only and long and always good Dook Umphrey for the hunger-
lean 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 con-
tinually 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 alustrelike above floats and foot-
lights from their assbawlveldts and oxgangs unanimously to clap-
plaud (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 ceil-

[33] inged there a cuckoospit less eminent than the redritualhoods of
Maccabe and Cullen) where, a veritable Napoleon the Nth, our
worldstage’s practical jokepiece and retired cecelticocommediant
in his own wise, this folksforefather all of the time sat, having the
entirety of his house about him, with the invariable broadstretched
kerchief cooling his whole neck, nape and shoulderblades and in
a wardrobe panelled tuxedo completely thrown back from a shirt
well entitled a swallowall, on every point far outstarching the
laundered clawhammers and marbletopped 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 blur-
tingly bruited by certain wisecrackers (the stinks of Mohorat are
in the nightplots of the morning), that he suffered from a vile
disease. Athma, unmanner them! To such a suggestion the one
selfrespecting 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 warmblooded 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 christlikeness of the big cleanminded giant
H. C. Earwicker throughout his excellency long vicefreegal exis-
tence the mere suggestion of him as a lustsleuth nosing for trou-
ble 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 ne-
cessary quoniam to invent him) abhout that time stambuling ha-

[34] round Dumbaling in leaky sneakers with his tarrk record who
has remained topantically anonymos but (let us hue him Abdul-
lah Gamellaxarksky) 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 charge-
hard, 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 ongentilmensky im-
modus opposite a pair of dainty maidservants in the swoolth of
the rushy hollow whither, or so the two gown and pinners plead-
ed, dame nature in all innocency had spontaneously and about the
same hour of the eventide sent them both but whose published
combinations of silkinlaine testimonies are, where not dubiously
pure, visibly divergent, as wapt from wept, on minor points touch-
ing the intimate nature of this, a first offence in vert or venison
which was admittedly an incautious but, at its wildest, a partial ex-
posure 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.

[End of reading excerpt]

Adam Seelig: That was my friend and colleague Richard Harte reading the opening of Chapter 2 from Finnegans Wake, pages 30 to 34, recorded with a live audience at Noonan’s Irish Pub in Toronto on June 26th, 2023.

Join us in two weeks for Episode 8 when Richard continues Finnegans Wake Chapter 2, in which H. C. Earwicker encounters the cad in Phoenix Park. To be sure you don’t miss any episodes, why not follow or subscribe to this podcast? For more on One Little Goat’s Finnegans Wake project, including transcripts of this podcast and trailers for the films, visit our website at OneLittleGoat.org. And to hear about upcoming performances and screenings, join our mailing list, also at OneLittleGoat.org.

[Music: Adam Seelig plays piano]

Finnegans Wake is made possible by Friends of One Little Goat Theatre Company and the Emigrant Support Programme of the government of Ireland. Thank you for your support!

And thank you to the artists for this episode: Richard Harte; Sound by William Bembridge; Podcast production by Sean Rasmussen; Stage Management by Jobina Sitoh; Directed by yours truly, Adam Seelig.

One Little Goat Theatre Company is a nonprofit, artist-driven, registered charity. To donate or find out more or to join our mailing list please visit www.OneLittleGoat.org

Thank you for listening!

[Music fades out] [End of Ep007]

Mentioned: origin of HCE/Earwicker’s name, “Here Comes Everybody”, characterlessness, Homer, ‘who was Homer?’, Ancient Greek epic poetry, The Iliad, translator Emily Wilson, meanings of “Earwicker”, earwigging as eavesdropping, gossip and slander, 3 soldiers 2 girls 1 cad (motif), ‘dressed to the sevens’ (motif) with examples from the prankquean and museyroom fables, ancient example of Agamemnon girding up his loins in The Iliad, synopsis.

Resources: Transcript for this episode, including the text of Finnegans Wake pages 30-34.
Finnegans Wake (1939) by James Joyce: there are many free copies of FW to read online or download, e.g. finwake.com
James Joyce Digital Archive, “Chicken Guide” to Finnegans Wake provides a ‘plain English’ paraphrase of each chapter by Danis Rose.
Edmund Epstein, A Guide through Finnegans Wake. University Press of Florida, 2009.
William York Tindall, A Reader’s Guide to Finnegans Wake. Syracuse University Press, 1996.
Roland McHugh, Annotations to Finnegans Wake (4th edition). Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 2016.
John Gordon’s annotations on his Finnegans Wake blog.
Richard Ellmann’s biography of James Joyce. Oxford University Press, 1982.
Emily Wilson’s translation of Homer, The Iliad. Norton, New York, 2023.
Anthony Burgess introduces Finnegans Wake (1973), YouTube.

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Episode 006: Tim Finnegan's wake (p. 24:16-29:36, End of Ch01)

July 11, 2024 Adam Seelig

JAMES JOYCE’S FINNEGANS WAKE
Episode 006
TIM FINNEGAN’S WAKE

PAGE 24:16-29:36 | 2024-07-11

PODCAST AUDIO

PODCAST TRANSCRIPT

Adam Seelig: Welcome to James Joyce’s divine and delirious comedy, Finnegans Wake. In this episode, number 6, we’ll hear Irish-Canadian actor—and my good friend and colleague—Richard Harte reading pages 24 to 29 to conclude Chapter 1 of Joyce’s last novel. I’m Adam Seelig, the director of the reading you’ll soon hear.

[Music: Adam Seelig plays piano]

Adam Seelig: Finnegans Wake is a production of One Little Goat Theatre Company. For the next five years, One Little Goat will film and record all 17 chapters (roughly 30 Hours) of Joyce’s Finnegans Wake before live audiences in various locations, screening and releasing them along along the way, with the aim of completing the entire book in time for its 90th birthday, May 4, 2029. One Little Goat Theatre Company is an official charity in Canada and the United States — if you’d like to support our work, please visit us online at www.OneLittleGoat.org to make a charitable donation. And if monetary support is not an option, you can still help this podcast by rating and reviewing it and by spreading the word. To get in touch, you’ll find our email address on the One Little Goat Theatre Company website and we’d love to hear from you.

[Music fades out]

Richard Harte’s reading left off last time with Tim Finnegan rising from the dead, as he does in the eponymous folk song, following a splash of whiskey. We are—in these final 6 pages of Chapter 1 which you’ll soon hear Richard read—at Tim Finnegan’s Wake.

And there’s our novel’s title, of course. In podcast Episode 1, I commented on how Joyce’s removal of the apostrophe from the folk song title, ‘Finnegan’s Wake,’ allows us to hear ‘Wake’ as both a celebration of the life of the deceased and as a verb for awakening. I’m going to offer another gloss on the book’s title, because every word in the dream language of Finnegans Wake, starting with the title itself, can always evoke another meaning.

Fittingly for the end of Chapter 1, the title takes on an eschatalogical layer, a layer concerned with ending, with ‘the end’, with, in French, la fin, F-I-N, fin, as in fin de siècle to describe the end of a century. Similarly, we can see the Italian version of ‘the end’ in musical scores when the final bar is marked ‘fine’, F-I-N-E.

So the first letters of Joyce’s title, F-I-N or F-I-N-N-E, connote ‘the end’, and Finn-egan yields, paradoxically, ‘end again’. Finn-again, end again. Here (again) we have the central theme and movement of the novel, the cyclical fall and rise and fall of humanity, which goes hand in hand with ending and again-ing. When Tim Finnegan falls off the ladder in the Irish American folk song, he naturally dies; when he rises from his coffin, he (maybe-not-so-naturally) lives. When he falls again, he ‘ends again,’ but so, too, when he revives, he’s ‘Finn again’, Finnegan alive.

Already in the very first word of the title, one of the most brilliant devices of Finnegans Wake is at play. It’s a technique that in rehearsals I’ve been calling: ‘it and its opposite’. John Gordon describes it as ‘equal opposites’. In ‘Finnegan’ we have ‘the end’ and ‘again,’ ‘it and its opposite’. In other words, for every action there’s an equal and opposite reaction. Where there’s a fall, there’s a rise; where there’s a death, a revival; for every Fin, an again; for every end, a ‘Finn again’; and for every ‘Wake’ of the deceased, an awakening — all we need is some whiskey. Sláinte, as Richard likes to say, or l’chaim, as I like to, to life.

We are at Tim Finnegan’s wake on page 24, addressing the deceased, with this ingenious ‘it and its opposite’ device in the very first sentence when our dearly departed is addressed as “good Mr Finnimore, sir”. “Finnimore”, finn-no-more, end no more, no more end — the end of Tim’s life also spells out his eternity. And we’ll hear this same ‘it and its opposite’ several pages later when he’s eulogized as “Finn no more!” (28:34)

Maybe our dead friend shouldn’t be so quick to revive and is better off taking it easy, “like a god on pension” (24:17). And anyhow, we continue to tell him, with all the crap you encounter these days in Dublin from Watling Street to Phibsborough, “You're better off, sir, where you are” (24:28). Joyce’s novel was definitely prescient here — the traffic in Dublin, ranked this year as the second slowest city for drivers in the world, can make you want to die, or as the Wake puts it, “’Twould turn you against life, so ’twould.” (24:24-5) (My city of Toronto, incidentally, ranked third-worst in the world right behind Ireland’s capital.) But our friend is not simply limited to his coffin. He has expanded into cosmic dimensions, traversing space from the stars of the sky to the shores of the sea — “Your heart is in the system of the Shewolf […] And that's ashore as you were born.” (26:11-14) — and traversing time — “Your olala is in the region of sahuls”, with ‘sahu’ indicating ancient Egypt’s eternal zone of souls.

“Everything’s going on the same” (26:25), we tell our friend, with the usual ups and downs of market prices: “Meat took a drop […] Coal's short […] And barley's up again” (26:32-3). Flu outbreaks are still imminent, as indicated by the name of our relative, “aunt Florenza” (26:27), and little horny teens like you once were are still around, hence “Timmy the Tosser.” (27:1)

But though we’ve been telling him he’s not missing much, our friend still tries to revive, so it looks like we’ll have to keep him dead, so to speak, by force: “Hold him here”! That seems to work, so we go on catching him up on the latest neighbourhood goings-on. We tell him about his wife, whom we idealize “Like the queenoveire” (28:1), combining the beautiful Guinevere of Arthurian legend with the Queen of Ireland. We even read him some of the latest sensationalized headlines: “News, news, all the news.” (28:21)

The last paragraph of today’s reading includes one of my favourite sentences of Chapter 1 — “Creator he has created for his creatured ones a creation.” — and suggests that our falling and rising friend, the ending and again-ing Finnegan, presages the coming, in Chapter 2, of H. C. Earwicker, the Adam-like protagonist responsible for the problems that began in the garden of Eden, which in Wake-speak takes on a Gaelic inflection, becoming “Edenborough.” (29:35-6) I initially saw this final word of Chapter 1 as a combination of Eden and Scotland’s capital, Edinburgh, until the resourceful Roland McHugh pointed out another possibility, one that most fittingly anchors the last word of Chapter 1 back in Ireland’s capital: Dublin’s Eden and Burgh Quays face one another on the River Liffey. It makes sense: where there’s HCE, the man of the mainland, ALP, the woman of the river, can never be far away. He’s her bridge above, connecting Eden and Burgh Quays, and she’s his waters below.

Richard Harte’s reading of Finnegans Wake Chapter 1 was shot and recorded in 2022 in my home in Toronto with a small audience. Aunt Florenza was not invited, nor was Uncle Covid, which is why the audience was masked at the time. Chapter 1 premiered at the Toronto Irish Film Festival, European Union Film Festival, and Bloomsday Film Festival at the James Joyce Centre in Dublin.

And now it’s time to welcome you all back into my home for Richard’s continued reading of James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake, page 24 line 16 to page 29 line 36 for the conclusion of Chapter 1.

[Richard Harte reads Finnegans Wake 24:16-29:36.]

[p24] Now be aisy, good Mr Finnimore, sir. And take your laysure
like a god on pension and don't be walking abroad. Sure you'd
only lose yourself in Healiopolis now the way your roads in
Kapelavaster are that winding there after the calvary, the North
Umbrian and the Fivs Barrow and Waddlings Raid and the
Bower Moore and wet your feet maybe with the foggy dew's
abroad. Meeting some sick old bankrupt or the Cottericks' donkey
with his shoe hanging, clankatachankata, or a slut snoring with an
impure infant on a bench. 'Twould turn you against life, so
'twould. And the weather's that mean too. To part from Devlin
is hard as Nugent knew, to leave the clean tanglesome one lushier
than its neighbour enfranchisable fields but let your ghost have
no grievance. You're better off, sir, where you are, primesigned
in the full of your dress, bloodeagle waistcoat and all, remember-
ing your shapes and sizes on the pillow of your babycurls under
your sycamore by the keld water where the Tory's clay will scare
the varmints and have all you want, pouch, gloves, flask, bricket,
kerchief, ring and amberulla, the whole treasure of the pyre, in the
land of souls with Homin and Broin Baroke and pole ole Lonan
and Nobucketnozzler and the Guinnghis Khan. And we'll be
coming here, the ombre players, to rake your gravel and bringing

[p25] you presents, won't we, fenians? And it isn't our spittle we'll stint
you of, is it, druids? Not shabbty little imagettes, pennydirts and
dodgemyeyes you buy in the soottee stores. But offerings of the
field. Mieliodories, that Doctor Faherty, the madison man,
taught to gooden you. Poppypap's a passport out. And honey is
the holiest thing ever was, hive, comb and earwax, the food for
glory, (mind you keep the pot or your nectar cup may yield too
light!) and some goat's milk, sir, like the maid used to bring you.
Your fame is spreading like Basilico's ointment since the Fintan
Lalors piped you overborder and there's whole households be-
yond the Bothnians and they calling names after you. The men-
here's always talking of you sitting around on the pig's cheeks
under the sacred rooftree, over the bowls of memory where every
hollow holds a hallow, with a pledge till the drengs, in the Salmon
House. And admiring to our supershillelagh where the palmsweat
on high is the mark of your manument. All the toethpicks ever
Eirenesians chewed on are chips chepped from that battery
block. If you were bowed and soild and letdown itself from the
oner of the load it was that paddyplanters might pack up plenty and
when you were undone in every point fore the laps of goddesses
you showed our labourlasses how to free was easy. The game old
Gunne, they do be saying, (skull!) that was a planter for you, a
spicer of them all. Begog but he was, the G.O.G! He's dudd-
andgunne now and we're apter finding the sores of his sedeq
but peace to his great limbs, the buddhoch, with the last league
long rest of him, while the millioncandled eye of Tuskar sweeps
the Moylean Main! There was never a warlord in Great Erinnes
and Brettland, no, nor in all Pike County like you, they say. No,
nor a king nor an ardking, bung king, sung king or hung king.
That you could fell an elmstree twelve urchins couldn't ring
round and hoist high the stone that Liam failed. Who but a Mac-
cullaghmore the reise of our fortunes and the faunayman at the
funeral to compass our cause? If you was hogglebully itself and
most frifty like you was taken waters still what all where was
your like to lay the cable or who was the batter could better
Your Grace? Mick Mac Magnus MacCawley can take you off to

[p26] the pure perfection and Leatherbags Reynolds tries your shuffle
and cut. But as Hopkins and Hopkins puts it, you were the pale
eggynaggy and a kis to tilly up. We calls him the journeyall
Buggaloffs since he went Jerusalemfaring in Arssia Manor. You
had a gamier cock than Pete, Jake or Martin and your archgoose
of geese stubbled for All Angels' Day. So may the priest of seven
worms and scalding tayboil, Papa Vestray, come never anear you
as your hair grows wheater beside the Liffey that's in Heaven!
Hep, hep, hurrah there! Hero! Seven times thereto we salute
you! The whole bag of kits, falconplumes and jackboots incloted,
is where you flung them that time. Your heart is in the system
of the Shewolf and your crested head is in the tropic of Copri-
capron. Your feet are in the cloister of Virgo. Your olala is in the
region of sahuls. And that's ashore as you were born. Your shuck
tick's swell. And that there texas is tow linen. The loamsome
roam to Laffayette is ended. Drop in your tracks, babe! Be not
unrested! The headboddylwatcher of the chempel of Isid,
Totumcalmum, saith: I know thee, metherjar, I know thee, sal-
vation boat. For we have performed upon thee, thou abrama-
nation, who comest ever without being invoked, whose coming
is unknown, all the things which the company of the precentors
and of the grammarians of Christpatrick's ordered concerning
thee in the matter of the work of thy tombing. Howe of the ship-
men, steep wall!
Everything's going on the same or so it appeals to all of us,
in the old holmsted here. Coughings all over the sanctuary, bad
scrant to me aunt Florenza. The horn for breakfast, one o'gong
for lunch and dinnerchime. As popular as when Belly the First
was keng and his members met in the Diet of Man. The same
shop slop in the window. Jacob's lettercrackers and Dr Tipple's
Vi-Cocoa and the Eswuards' desippated soup beside Mother Sea
gull's syrup. Meat took a drop when Reilly-Parsons failed. Coal's
short but we've plenty of bog in the yard. And barley's up again,
begrained to it. The lads is attending school nessans regular, sir,
spelling beesknees with hathatansy and turning out tables by
mudapplication. Allfor the books and never pegging smashers

[p27] after Tom Bowe Glassarse or Timmy the Tosser. 'Tisraely the
truth! No isn't it, roman pathoricks? You were the doublejoynted
janitor the morning they were delivered and you'll be a grandfer
yet entirely when the ritehand seizes what the lovearm knows.
Kevin's just a doat with his cherub cheek, chalking oghres on
walls, and his little lamp and schoolbelt and bag of knicks, playing
postman's knock round the diggings and if the seep were milk
you could lieve his olde by his ide but, laus sake, the devil does
be in that knirps of a Jerry sometimes, the tarandtan plaidboy,
making encostive inkum out of the last of his lavings and writing
a blue streak over his bourseday shirt. Hetty Jane's a child of
Mary. She'll be coming (for they're sure to choose her) in her
white of gold with a tourch of ivy to rekindle the flame on Felix
Day. But Essie Shanahan has let down her skirts. You remember
Essie in our Luna's Convent? They called her Holly Merry her
lips were so ruddyberry and Pia de Purebelle when the redminers
riots was on about her. Were I a clerk designate to the Williams-
woodsmenufactors I'd poster those pouters on every jamb in the
town. She's making her rep at Lanner's twicenightly. With the
tabarine tamtammers of the whirligigmagees. Beats that cachucha
flat. 'Twould dilate your heart to go.
Aisy now, you decent man, with your knees and lie quiet and
repose your honour's lordship! Hold him here, Ezekiel Irons, and
may God strengthen you! It's our warm spirits, boys, he's spoor-
ing. Dimitrius O'Flagonan, cork that cure for the Clancartys! You
swamped enough since Portobello to float the Pomeroy. Fetch
neahere, Pat Koy! And fetch nouyou, Pam Yates! Be nayther
angst of Wramawitch! Here's lumbos. Where misties swaddlum,
where misches lodge none, where mystries pour kind on, O
sleepy! So be yet!
I've an eye on queer Behan and old Kate and the butter, trust me.
She'll do no jugglywuggly with her war souvenir postcards to
help to build me murial, tippers! I'll trip your traps! Assure a
sure there! And we put on your clock again, sir, for you. Did or
didn't we, sharestutterers? So you won't be up a stump entirely.
Nor shed your remnants. The sternwheel's crawling strong. I

[p28] seen your missus in the hall. Like the queenoveire. Arrah, it's
herself that's fine, too, don't be talking! Shirksends? You storyan
Harry chap longa me Harry chap storyan grass woman plelthy
good trout. Shakeshands. Dibble a hayfork's wrong with her only
her lex's salig. Boald Tib does be yawning and smirking cat's
hours on the Pollockses' woolly round tabouretcushion watch-
ing her sewing a dream together, the tailor's daughter, stitch to
her last. Or while waiting for winter to fire the enchantement,
decoying more nesters to fall down the flue. It's allavalonche that
blows nopussy food. If you only were there to explain the mean-
ing, best of men, and talk to her nice of guldenselver. The lips
would moisten once again. As when you drove with her to Fin-
drinny Fair. What with reins here and ribbons there all your
hands were employed so she never knew was she on land or at
sea or swooped through the blue like Airwinger's bride. She
was flirtsome then and she's fluttersome yet. She can second a
song and adores a scandal when the last post's gone by. Fond of
a concertina and pairs passing when she's had her forty winks
for supper after kanekannan and abbely dimpling and is in her
merlin chair assotted, reading her Evening World. To see is
it smarts, full lengths or swaggers. News, news, all the news.
Death, a leopard, kills fellah in Fez. Angry scenes at Stormount.
Stilla Star with her lucky in goingaways. Opportunity fair with
the China floods and we hear these rosy rumours. Ding Tams he
noise about all same Harry chap. She's seeking her way, a chickle
a chuckle, in and out of their serial story, Les Loves of Selskar
et Pervenche, freely adapted to The Novvergin's Viv. There'll
be bluebells blowing in salty sepulchres the night she signs her
final tear. Zee End. But that's a world of ways away. Till track
laws time. No silver ash or switches for that one! While flattering
candles flare. Anna Stacey's how are you! Worther waist in the
noblest, says Adams and Sons, the wouldpay actionneers. Her
hair's as brown as ever it was. And wivvy and wavy. Repose you
now! Finn no more!
For, be that samesake sibsubstitute of a hooky salmon, there's
already a big rody ram lad at random on the premises of his

[p29] haunt of the hungred bordles, as it is told me. Shop Illicit,
flourishing like a lordmajor or a buaboabaybohm, litting flop
a deadlop (aloose!) to lee but lifting a bennbranch a yardalong
(Ivoeh!) the breezy side (for showm!), the height of Brew-
ster's chimpney and as broad below as Phineas Barnum; humph-
ing his share of the showthers is senken on him he's such a
grandfallar, with a pocked wife in pickle that's a flyfire and three
lice nittle clinkers, two twilling bugs and one midgit pucelle.
And aither he cursed and recursed and was everseen doing what
your fourfootlers saw or he was never done seeing what you cool-
pigeons know, weep the clouds aboon for smiledown witnesses,
and that'll do now about the fairyhees and the frailyshees.
Though Eset fibble it to the zephiroth and Artsa zoom it round
her heavens for ever. Creator he has created for his creatured
ones a creation. White monothoid? Red theatrocrat? And all the
pinkprophets cohalething? Very much so! But however 'twas
'tis sure for one thing, what sherif Toragh voucherfors and
Mapqiq makes put out, that the man, Humme the Cheapner,
Esc, overseen as we thought him, yet a worthy of the naym,
came at this timecoloured place where we live in our paroqial
fermament one tide on another, with a bumrush in a hull of a
wherry, the twin turbane dhow, The Bey for Dybbling, this
archipelago's first visiting schooner, with a wicklowpattern
waxenwench at her prow for a figurehead, the deadsea dugong
updipdripping from his depths, and has been repreaching him-
self like a fishmummer these siktyten years ever since, his shebi
by his shide, adi and aid, growing hoarish under his turban and
changing cane sugar into sethulose starch (Tuttut's cess to him!)
as also that, batin the bulkihood he bloats about when innebbi-
ated, our old offender was humile, commune and ensectuous
from his nature, which you may gauge after the bynames was
put under him, in lashons of languages, (honnein suit and
praisers be!) and, totalisating him, even hamissim of himashim
that he, sober serious, he is ee and no counter he who will be
ultimendly respunchable for the hubbub caused in Eden-
borough.

[End of reading excerpt]

Adam Seelig: That was my friend and colleague Richard Harte reading the conclusion of Chapter 1 from Finnegans Wake, pages 24 to 29, recorded live in Toronto on August 31st, 2022.

Join us for Episode 7 for Richard’s reading of Finnegans Wake Chapter 2, which introduces us to the protagonist HC Earwicker. This podcast series is taking a short break this summer so I can focus on the film production of future chapters, so please note that the next episode, Episode 7, will release on Thursday, August 29th, when we’ll be resuming our fortnightly podcast releases. In the meantime, why not follow or subscribe to this podcast so you’re alerted for upcoming episodes. And for more on One Little Goat’s Finnegans Wake project, including transcripts of this podcast and trailers for the films, visit our website at OneLittleGoat.org.

[Music: Adam Seelig plays piano]

Finnegans Wake is made possible by Friends of One Little Goat Theatre Company and the Emigrant Support Programme of the gov’t of Ireland. Thank you for your support!

And thank you to the artists for this episode: Richard Harte; Sound by William Bembridge; Podcast production by Sean Rasmussen; Stage Management by Laura Lakatosh; Rehearsal Stage Management by Sandi Becker; Directed by yours truly, Adam Seelig.

Thanks to our live audience of Pip Dwyer, Kevin Kennedy, Cathy Murphy, Nomi Rotbard, Arlo Rotbard-Seelig. And thanks to our rehearsal audience of Jackie Chau, Jordy Koffman, Andrew Moodie & Shai Rotbard-Seelig. Thank you to the Embassy of Ireland in Ottawa and the Irish Consulate in Toronto. And to Production Consultants Cathy Murphy and Andrew Moodie.

One Little Goat Theatre Company is a not-for-profit, artist-driven, registered charity. To find out more and to join our mailing list please visit www.OneLittleGoat.org

Thank you for listening!

[Music fades out]

Mentioned: Tim Finnegan, “Finnegan’s Wake” Irish American folk song, the title of Finnegans Wake, FIN FINNE & FINE as ‘the end’, EGAN as ‘again’, literary device of ‘it and its opposite’, at Tim’s wake, “Finn no more!”, better off dead?, Dublin (and Toronto) traffic, Aunt Florenza & Timmy the Tosser, “queenoveire”, neighbourhood news, Edenborough as Eden & Burg Quays in Dublin, synopsis.

Resources:
Transcript for this episode, including the text of Finnegans Wake pages 24-29.
Finnegans Wake (1939) by James Joyce: there are many free copies of FW to read online or download, e.g. finwake.com
James Joyce Digital Archive, “Chicken Guide” to Finnegans Wake provides a ‘plain English’ paraphrase of each chapter by Danis Rose.
Edmund Epstein, A Guide through Finnegans Wake. University Press of Florida, 2009.
William York Tindall, A Reader’s Guide to Finnegans Wake. Syracuse University Press, 1996.
Roland McHugh, Annotations to Finnegans Wake (4th edition). Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 2016.
John Gordon’s annotations on his Finnegans Wake blog.
Richard Ellmann’s biography of James Joyce. Oxford University Press, 1982.

JAMES JOYCE’S FINNEGANS WAKEEpisode 025:Letter from boston, thunderword #5

PAGE 109:1-114:20 | CHAPTER 5 | 2026-07-02

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2026-06-18

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JAMES JOYCE’S FINNEGANS WAKEEpisode 023:IN THE NAME OF ANNAH

PAGE 104:1-108:36 | BEGIN CHAPTER 5 | 2026-06-04

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JAMES JOYCE’S FINNEGANS WAKEEpisode 022:Gun Dogs, Slow Fox

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JAMES JOYCE’S FINNEGANS WAKEEpisode 021:Gun Dogs, Slow Fox

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JAMES JOYCE’S FINNEGANS WAKEEpisode 020:SPECIAL: INTERVIEW WITH KENJI HAYAKAWAON TRANSLATING THE WAKE INTO JAPANESE

2025-12-22

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JAMES JOYCE’S FINNEGANS WAKEEpisode 019:Four Judges, Sin City

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JAMES JOYCE’S FINNEGANS WAKEEpisode 007 THE GENESIS OF HCE

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JAMES JOYCE’S FINNEGANS WAKEEpisode 006TIM FINNEGAN’S WAKE

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ONE LITTLE GOAT THEATRE COMPANY IS A REGISTERED CHARITABLE ORGANIZATION

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JAMES JOYCE’S FINNEGANS WAKE
Episode 025:
Letter from boston, thunderword #5

JAMES JOYCE’S FINNEGANS WAKE
SPECIAL: INTERVIEW WITH NINA BEGUŠ ON FINNEGANS WAKE IN AI

JAMES JOYCE’S FINNEGANS WAKE
Episode 023:
IN THE NAME OF ANNAH

JAMES JOYCE’S FINNEGANS WAKE
Episode 022:
Gun Dogs, Slow Fox

JAMES JOYCE’S FINNEGANS WAKE
Episode 021:
Gun Dogs, Slow Fox

JAMES JOYCE’S FINNEGANS WAKE
Episode 020:
SPECIAL: INTERVIEW WITH KENJI HAYAKAWA
ON TRANSLATING THE WAKE INTO JAPANESE

JAMES JOYCE’S FINNEGANS WAKE
Episode 019:
Four Judges, Sin City

JAMES JOYCE’S FINNEGANS WAKE
Episode 018:
Courtroom Drama & Thunderword

JAMES JOYCE’S FINNEGANS WAKE
Episode 017: LAST BATTLE

JAMES JOYCE’S FINNEGANS WAKE
Episode 016: REALITY WHILE WE SLEEP

JAMES JOYCE’S FINNEGANS WAKE
Episode 015: 111 INSULTS

JAMES JOYCE’S FINNEGANS WAKE
Episode 014: REEL WORLD!

JAMES JOYCE’S FINNEGANS WAKE
Episode 013: I DREAM THEREFORE I BECOME

JAMES JOYCE’S FINNEGANS WAKE
Episode 012 THIS RIVER I STEP IN

JAMES JOYCE’S FINNEGANS WAKE
Episode 011 RUNNING AWAY

JAMES JOYCE’S FINNEGANS WAKE
Episode 010 BALLAD OF PERSSE O’REILLY

JAMES JOYCE’S FINNEGANS WAKE
Episode 009 HOSTY THE BUSKER

JAMES JOYCE’S FINNEGANS WAKE
Episode 008 CAD CONFRONTATION

JAMES JOYCE’S FINNEGANS WAKE
Episode 007 THE GENESIS OF HCE

JAMES JOYCE’S FINNEGANS WAKE
Episode 006
TIM FINNEGAN’S WAKE