Homer's Odyssey:
In Book 12 of Odyssey, Odysseus tells king Alcinous, how after he and his sailors escaped from Scylla and Charybdis, they sailed close to the island of the sun god, Helios Hyperion. As both the sage Teiresias and Circe had warned him not to visit that island where sacred cattle of the sun god graze, Odysseus at first forbids his crew to land there. But as they promise him that they will not touch the cattle, Odysseus agrees to land at the island. They stay there for a couple of days. Once in the absence of Odysseus, some of the sailors catch and slaughter a couple of the sacred oxen that are grazing. At the behest of the angry sun god, Zeus agrees to punish Odysseus. When they finally set sail, he sends a powerful lightening bolt which destroys Odysseus's ship and crew.
James Joyce's Ulysses:
It is 10 p.m.
Joyce used the name Oxen of the Sun to refer to the 14th episode/chapter of his Ulysses. Before he had written the episode, Joyce wrote to his friend, Frank Budgen on March 20, 1920 that he intended to compose it in the style that follows the history of English prose, - the language progressing from the style of Latin to that of simpler Anglo-Saxon -, and that he would do it in analogy to the development of an embryo (the 9 parts of the episode being analogous to the 9 months of pregnancy). Starting with the first sentence which is structured like the Latin hymn, Carmen Arvale, the styles of writing imitated are, among others, that of Sallust, Sir John Mandeville, John Milton, Sir Thomas Malory, John Bunyan, Samuel Pepys, Daniel Defoe, Jonathan Swift, Joseph Addision, Richard Steele, Lawrence Sterne, Oliver Goldsmith, Edmund Burke, Edward Gibbon, Charles Lamb, Thomas de Quincey, Thomas Macaulay, Charles Dickens, John Millingon Synge. The episode is set in the maternity hospital on Holles street. In a room of the hospital, a discussion is raging amongst Stephen, Dixon, Madden, Crotthers, Costello, Lynch and Lenehan, who are later joined by Mulligan and Bloom. Mrs Purefoy is in labour in the hospital, and gives birth to a baby before the episode ends. A storm rages outside. As it nears midnight, the assembled young men rush out to go to Burke's!
Selected Highlights of Episode 14 in Ulysses for the Uninitiated:
1. Sayings from Ulysses explored/explained:
- Deshil Holles Eamus. Deshil Holles Eamus. Deshil Holles Eamus. (14.1)
- Before born babe bliss had. Within womb won he worship. (14.60)
- Light swift her eyes kindled, bloom of blushes his word winning. (14.92)
- And full fair cheer and rich was on the board that no wight could devise a fuller ne richer. (14.148)
- A wariness of mind he would answer as fitted all . . . (14.253)
- . . . thou chuff, thou puny, thou got in peasestraw, thou losel, thou chitterling, . . . (14.327)
- 'Tis her ninth chick to live . . . (14.515)
- . . . to the poorest kitchen wench no less than the opulent lady of fashion. (14.689)
- One umbrella, were it no bigger than a fairy mushroom, is worth ten such stopgaps. (14.785)
- . . . birds of a feather laugh together. (14.904)
- What is the age of the soul of man? (14.1038)
- . . . the soul is wafted over regions of cycles of generations that have lived. (14.1079)
- Elk and yak, the bulls of Bashan and of Babylon, . . . (14.1090)
- . . . we are born in the same way but we all die in different ways. (14.1241)
- And so time wags on: . . . (14.1336)
- . . . with a faint shadow of remoteness or of reproach (alley Vergängliche) in her glad look. (14.1377)
- Madam, when comes the storkbird for thee? (14.1405)
- Kind Kristyann will yu help young man hoose frend tuk bungellow kee to find plais whear tu lay crown of his hed 2 night. (14.1539)
(Episode.Line numbers in brackets above are according to the Critical Edition of Ulysses by H. W. Gabler, 1986)
2. Illustrations:
- Watercolours and sketches by Catherine Meyer
- Reproductions of photographs of the writers whose styles are imitated in this episode
Links to
- The lyrics of Carmen Fratrum Arvalium
- The animated recitation of the nursery rhyme, This is the House that Jack built
- The recitation of the poem, The Waste Land, by T. S. Eliot (1888-1965)
And much more!
In Book 12 of Odyssey, Odysseus tells king Alcinous, how after he and his sailors escaped from Scylla and Charybdis, they sailed close to the island of the sun god, Helios Hyperion. As both the sage Teiresias and Circe had warned him not to visit that island where sacred cattle of the sun god graze, Odysseus at first forbids his crew to land there. But as they promise him that they will not touch the cattle, Odysseus agrees to land at the island. They stay there for a couple of days. Once in the absence of Odysseus, some of the sailors catch and slaughter a couple of the sacred oxen that are grazing. At the behest of the angry sun god, Zeus agrees to punish Odysseus. When they finally set sail, he sends a powerful lightening bolt which destroys Odysseus's ship and crew.
James Joyce's Ulysses:
It is 10 p.m.
Joyce used the name Oxen of the Sun to refer to the 14th episode/chapter of his Ulysses. Before he had written the episode, Joyce wrote to his friend, Frank Budgen on March 20, 1920 that he intended to compose it in the style that follows the history of English prose, - the language progressing from the style of Latin to that of simpler Anglo-Saxon -, and that he would do it in analogy to the development of an embryo (the 9 parts of the episode being analogous to the 9 months of pregnancy). Starting with the first sentence which is structured like the Latin hymn, Carmen Arvale, the styles of writing imitated are, among others, that of Sallust, Sir John Mandeville, John Milton, Sir Thomas Malory, John Bunyan, Samuel Pepys, Daniel Defoe, Jonathan Swift, Joseph Addision, Richard Steele, Lawrence Sterne, Oliver Goldsmith, Edmund Burke, Edward Gibbon, Charles Lamb, Thomas de Quincey, Thomas Macaulay, Charles Dickens, John Millingon Synge. The episode is set in the maternity hospital on Holles street. In a room of the hospital, a discussion is raging amongst Stephen, Dixon, Madden, Crotthers, Costello, Lynch and Lenehan, who are later joined by Mulligan and Bloom. Mrs Purefoy is in labour in the hospital, and gives birth to a baby before the episode ends. A storm rages outside. As it nears midnight, the assembled young men rush out to go to Burke's!
Selected Highlights of Episode 14 in Ulysses for the Uninitiated:
1. Sayings from Ulysses explored/explained:
- Deshil Holles Eamus. Deshil Holles Eamus. Deshil Holles Eamus. (14.1)
- Before born babe bliss had. Within womb won he worship. (14.60)
- Light swift her eyes kindled, bloom of blushes his word winning. (14.92)
- And full fair cheer and rich was on the board that no wight could devise a fuller ne richer. (14.148)
- A wariness of mind he would answer as fitted all . . . (14.253)
- . . . thou chuff, thou puny, thou got in peasestraw, thou losel, thou chitterling, . . . (14.327)
- 'Tis her ninth chick to live . . . (14.515)
- . . . to the poorest kitchen wench no less than the opulent lady of fashion. (14.689)
- One umbrella, were it no bigger than a fairy mushroom, is worth ten such stopgaps. (14.785)
- . . . birds of a feather laugh together. (14.904)
- What is the age of the soul of man? (14.1038)
- . . . the soul is wafted over regions of cycles of generations that have lived. (14.1079)
- Elk and yak, the bulls of Bashan and of Babylon, . . . (14.1090)
- . . . we are born in the same way but we all die in different ways. (14.1241)
- And so time wags on: . . . (14.1336)
- . . . with a faint shadow of remoteness or of reproach (alley Vergängliche) in her glad look. (14.1377)
- Madam, when comes the storkbird for thee? (14.1405)
- Kind Kristyann will yu help young man hoose frend tuk bungellow kee to find plais whear tu lay crown of his hed 2 night. (14.1539)
(Episode.Line numbers in brackets above are according to the Critical Edition of Ulysses by H. W. Gabler, 1986)
2. Illustrations:
- Watercolours and sketches by Catherine Meyer
- Reproductions of photographs of the writers whose styles are imitated in this episode
Links to
- The lyrics of Carmen Fratrum Arvalium
- The animated recitation of the nursery rhyme, This is the House that Jack built
- The recitation of the poem, The Waste Land, by T. S. Eliot (1888-1965)
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