p1

editions: 1916, archive 1917, ditto, 1918 1921 1922, archive, ditto, ditto 1928 html?
audio: librivox1 librivox2 soundcloud
annotated: genius
notes: gifford kershner spark shmoop gradesaver jjon barger


Et ignotas animum dimittit in artes.
Ovid, Metamorphoses, VIII, 188

'and applies his mind to unknown arts' [parallel]
describing Daedalus

"dimittit" = he sends away (cf? 'turn off your mind relax and float downstream')

(when would Joyce have transitioned from expurgated Jesuit Ovid to the full originals?)



CHAPTER I

(Ovid quote precedes chapter 1)


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....

Simon Dedalus is being quoted without the conventional punctuation

babytalk as TVtrope

John Joyce confirms this version: (31Jan31) 'I wonder do you recollect the old days in Brighton Square, when you were Babie Tuckoo, and I used to take you out in the Square and tell you all about the moo-cow that used to come down from the mountain and take little boys across?' (Letters 3) the Joyces lived at Brighton square [map] from autumn 1882 to spring 1884 (was there a visible mountain? 'across' what???)
born in 1849, he would have been 33-34yo, James was his 1st surviving child (miscarriages in 1881 and 1883?)

tuckoo may echo cuckoo or illegitimate child (plus tuck-into-bed?)

cf sympathetic portrayal U211: "Father Conmee stopped three little schoolboys at the corner of Mountjoy square. Yes: they were from Belvedere. The little house: Aha. And were they good boys at school? O. That was very good now. And what was his name? Jack Sohan. And his name? Ger. Gallaher. And the other little man? His name was Brunny Lynam. O, that was a very nice name to have."


His father told him that story: his father looked at him through a glass: he had a hairy face.

"glass" = monocle, recently adopted by JSJ as a sort of dramatic prop

moustache only
cf fw260 of HCE: "With his broad and hairy face, to Ireland a disgrace."


He was baby tuckoo. The moocow came down the road where Betty Byrne lived: she sold lemon platt.

little Stephen imagines a particular road though the story wasn't specific

downtown Bray c1900

maybe Esther Byrne, grocer at 46 Main street in Bray; the Joyces had moved to 1 Martello terrace (named after a Martello tower across the street in Bray like the one in Sandycove where Ulysses opens) [1909 map]

30yo in 1901 or 45 in 1911?

maybe the same as 'yellowman'?

or maybe "platt" derives from 'plaited'? [eg]

O, the wild rose blossoms
On the little green place.

actually: 'Now the wild rose blossoms/ O'er her little green grave'

Lilly Dale [sheetmusic]


He sang that song. That was his song.

territorial
(novelists convey character by things like each person's song)

"He was baby tuckoo... That was his song" (identity forming)



O, the green wothe botheth.

lisping and confusing words (who is noticing this? older SD? 'objective' observer?)


When you wet the bed first it is warm then it gets cold. His mother put on the oilsheet. That had the queer smell.

cf fw21: "Tristopher and Hilary... were kickaheeling their dummy on the oilcloth flure"

"the" queer smell


His mother had a nicer smell than his father. She

(JSJ was careful in his grooming and probably used an appropriate masculine scent)
'nice' scents are feminine



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