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Ulysses 

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(He jerks the rope. the assistants leap at the victim’s legs and 

drag him downward, grunting the croppy boy’s tongue protrudes 

violently.) 

THE CROPPY BOY: 

Horhot ho hray hor hother’s hest.  

(He gives up the ghost. A violent erection of the hanged sends 

gouts of sperm spouting through his deathclothes on to the 

cobblestones. Mrs Bellingham, Mrs Yelverton Barry and the 

Honourable Mrs Mervyn Talboys rush forward with their 

handkerchiefs to sop it up.) 

RUMBOLD: I’m near it myself. (He undoes the noose) 

Rope which hanged the awful rebel. Ten shillings a time. 

As applied to Her Royal Highness. (He plunges his head into 

the gaping belly of the hanged and draws out his head again 

clotted with coiled and smoking entrails) My painful duty has 

now been done. God save the king! 

EDWARD THE SEVENTH: (Dances slowly, solemnly, 

rattling his bucket, and sings with soft contentment) 

On coronation day, on coronation day, 

O, won’t we have a merry time, 

Drinking whisky, beer and wine!  

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PRIVATE CARR: Here. What are you saying about 

my king? 

STEPHEN:  (Throws up his hands) O, this is too 

monotonous! Nothing. He wants my money and my life, 

though want must be his master, for some brutish empire 

of his. Money I haven’t. (He searches his pockets vaguely) 

GAVE IT TO SOMEONE. 

PRIVATE CARR: Who wants your bleeding money? 

STEPHEN:  (Tries to move off) Will someone tell me 

where I am least likely to meet these necessary evils? Ça se 

voit aussi à paris. Not that I ... But, by Saint Patrick ...! 

(The women’s heads coalesce. Old Gummy Granny in 

sugarloaf hat appears seated on a toadstool, the deathflower of the 

potato blight on her breast.) 

STEPHEN: Aha! I know you, gammer! Hamlet, 

revenge! The old sow that eats her farrow! 

OLD GUMMY GRANNY: (Rocking to and fro) 

Ireland’s sweetheart, the king of Spain’s daughter, alanna. 

Strangers in my house, bad manners to them! (She keens 

with banshee woe) Ochone! Ochone! Silk of the kine! (She 

wails) You met with poor old Ireland and how does she 

stand? 

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STEPHEN: How do I stand you? The hat trick! 

Where’s the third person of the Blessed Trinity? Soggarth 

Aroon? The reverend Carrion Crow. 

CISSY CAFFREY: (Shrill) Stop them from fighting! 

A ROUGH: Our men retreated. 

PRIVATE CARR: (Tugging at his belt) I’ll wring the 

neck of any fucker says a word against my fucking king. 

BLOOM:  (Terrified) He said nothing. Not a word. A 

pure misunderstanding. 

THE CITIZEN: Erin go bragh! 

(Major Tweedy and the Citizen exhibit to each other medals, 

decorations, trophies of war, wounds. Both salute with fierce 

hostility.) 

PRIVATE COMPTON: Go it, Harry. Do him one in 

the eye. He’s a proboer. 

STEPHEN: Did I? When? 

BLOOM: (To the redcoats) We fought for you in South 

Africa, Irish missile troops. Isn’t that history? Royal 

Dublin Fusiliers. Honoured by our monarch. 

THE NAVVY: (Staggering past) O, yes! O God, yes! O, 

make the kwawr a krowawr! O! Bo! 

(Casqued halberdiers in armour thrust forward a pentice of 

gutted spearpoints. Major Tweedy, moustached like Turko the 

terrible, in bearskin cap with hackleplume and accoutrements, with 

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epaulettes, gilt chevrons and sabretaches, his breast bright with 

medals, toes the line. He gives the pilgrim warrior’s sign of the 

knights templars.) 

MAJOR TWEEDY: (Growls gruffly) Rorke’s Drift! Up, 

guards, and at them! Mahar shalal hashbaz. 

PRIVATE CARR: I’ll do him in. 

PRIVATE COMPTON: (Waves the crowd back) Fair 

play, here. Make a bleeding butcher’s shop of the bugger. 

(Massed bands blare Garryowen and God save the King.) 

CISSY CAFFREY: They’re going to fight. For me! 

CUNTY KATE: The brave and the fair. 

BIDDY THE CLAP: Methinks yon sable knight will 

joust it with the best. 

CUNTY KATE: (Blushing deeply) Nay, madam. The 

gules doublet and merry saint George for me! 

STEPHEN: 

The harlot’s cry from street to street 

Shall weave Old Ireland’s windingsheet.  

PRIVATE CARR: (Loosening his belt, shouts) I’ll wring 

the neck of any fucking bastard says a word against my 

bleeding fucking king. 

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BLOOM:  (Shakes Cissy Caffrey’s shoulders) Speak, you! 

Are you struck dumb? You are the link between nations 

and generations. Speak, woman, sacred lifegiver! 

CISSY CAFFREY: (Alarmed, seizes Private Carr’s sleeve) 

Amn’t I with you? Amn’t I your girl? Cissy’s your girl. 

(She cries) Police! 

STEPHEN: (Ecstatically, to Cissy Caffrey) 

White thy fambles, red thy gan 

And thy quarrons dainty is.  

VOICES: Police! 

DISTANT VOICES: Dublin’s burning! Dublin’s 

burning! On fire, on fire! 

(Brimstone fires spring up. Dense clouds roll past. Heavy 

Gatling guns boom. Pandemonium. Troops deploy. Gallop of 

hoofs. Artillery. Hoarse commands. Bells clang. Backers shout. 

Drunkards bawl. Whores screech. Foghorns hoot. Cries of valour. 

Shrieks of dying. Pikes clash on cuirasses. Thieves rob the slain. 

Birds of prey, winging from the sea, rising from marshlands, 

swooping from eyries, hover screaming, gannets, cormorants, 

vultures, goshawks, climbing woodcocks, peregrines, merlins, 

blackgrouse, sea eagles, gulls, albatrosses, barnacle geese. The 

midnight sun is darkened. The earth trembles. The dead of 

Dublin from Prospect and Mount Jerome in white sheepskin 

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