No More Learning

? ? A Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake ? ? Finnegan's Fall ? ?
? (Silent)
? ? ? a. d. A damsel grieved because her doll was ravished of her by an
ogre. Bloody wars in Dublin.
? ? ? ? a. d. * Twin sons were born, Caddy and Primas, to a good-man and
his hag. Primas became a sentryman. Caddy got drunk and wrote a farce. Blotty words for Dublin.
[The actual historical events associated with the dates ? ? ? ? a. d. and ? ? ? a. d. are of minor moment. Clearly more important than any specific events are the relationships to each other of the numbers themselves.
[Every reader of Ulysses will recall the "thirty-two feet per second, per second. Law of falling bodies," which ran through Bloom's thoughts of the entire day. The number is now to run through the entire night of Finnegans Wake, usually in combination with eleven, the number of restart after finish. ? (The old decade having run out with ten, eleven initiates the new. See our discussion of the Kabbalistic decade for Bk. II, chap. ? . ) In the present instance the two numbers combine to form a date. This date halved yields another date, ? ? ? ; there follows a mysterious "Silent" (a world- destroying cataclysm) whereafter the dates appear again, but in inverted se- quence--the new world being a kind of Alice-through-the-looking-glass reflection of the old.
[If we add the four dates we arrive at the figure ? ? ? ? , a play on the number of the Trinity. (The reader will recall Dante's discussion of Beatrice in the first pages of the Vita Nuova: "Beatrice is a Nine, because the root of nine is three, and the root of Beatrice is the Trinity. " In the Divine Comedy the created universe is but a vast amplification of this nine, which is finally a numerical sign for the world-creative fertilization of God by Himself: ? x ? : Superfetation! ) The sense of Joyce's play stands forth sur- prisingly when we add the digits ? , ? , ? , ? and discover the total ? ? : the Kabbalistic number of the Fall. The Fall is the secret of all history.
[Man rooted in the Trinity yet falling ? ? feet per second, falling but ever self-renewing, is symbolized in the old brontoichthyan food-father
? stranded in the runnel. The rib of All-Father Adam (his "better half") be- came Eve, and so half of ? ? ? ? becomes ? ? ? , the Crone of the basket of little shoes. After the world-destroying and -renewing cataclysm (Silent), the female number reappears in a little rainbow daughter, and the male number in the polarized sons. ]
Somewhere, apparently, in the "ginnandgo gap"* between ? ? ? a. d. and ? ? ? a. d. , the copyist must have fled with his scroll; or the flood rose; or an elk charged him; or the heavens discharged their thunder at him. Killing a scribe in those days was punishable by a fine of six marks or nine pence, whereas only a few years ago, a lady's man was hanged for taking that sum covertly from the drawers of his neighbor's safe!
But now let us lift our eyes again from the tome to the idyllic land. The pastor is reposing under the stonepine; the young buck and doe are nib- bling at the grasses; the shamrocks are modestly growing among the blades; the sky is ever gray. Thus it has been for donkey's years, since the primeval bouts between he-bear and hairy-man. The cornflowers have been staying at Ballymun; (? ? ) the duskrose has chosen out Goatstown's hedges; twolips have pressed themselves together by sweet Rush; the whitethorn and redthorn have fairy-gayed the May valleys of Knockmaroon; warrior races have come and gone--Fomorians have fought against the Tuatha De Danaan, Firbolgs against Oxmen, pagans against Christians; Little-on-the- Green is childsfather to the City; yet, the blond has sought the brune and the dark dames have talked back to the lightish fellows, and they have fallen upon one another, and themselves have fallen; now-anights even as of yore, the bold pretty floras are inviting their shy lovers to pluck them.
[Thinking of these things, we become aware, guide and tourist, of a fire on yonder hill, and in the flickering light, a figure looms. ]
This carl in pelted thongs, like a stone age Parthalonian--who is he? Is he a Mousterian cave man? He is drinking from a kind of skull. (? ? ) What a queer sort of man! Let us cross the heaps of gnawed bones into his fire- light. He can, perhaps, post us the way to the Pillars of Hercules. "Comment
? ? * ? ? ? ? a. d. St. Malachy became Bishop of Dublin, and Lawrence O'Toole was born. O'Toole and Henry II being representatives of the brother pair, perhaps we are to think of them as the twins, respectively Caddy and Primas, born in ? ? ? ? . Henry II was born, ac- tually, in ? ? ? ? , only a few months before O'Toole.
? ? * Ginnunga-gap ("Yawning Gap") is the name given in the Icelandic Eddas to the interval of timeless formlessness between world aeons. An aeon endures ? ? ? ,? ? ? years. Joyce occasion- ally employs ? ? ? , the legendary date of Patrick's arrival in Ireland, as an alternate for ? ? ? ? .
? ? A Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake ? ? Finnegan's Fall ? ?
? vous portez-vous aujourd'hui, mon blond monsieur? 'Scuse us, Charlie, you talk Danish? "
"N. "
"Norwegian? "
"N. N. "
"English? "
"N. N. N. "
"Saxish? "
"N. N. N. N. "
Well then, he must be a Jute. Let's have a chat.
[Guide and tourist, now merged into one, have entered the firelight in
the form of a dull, prying, somewhat timorous island-native, Mutt. The lumbering stranger from overseas, with thick and sometimes stuttering tongue, taps his chest and introduces himself, in Germanic accent, as a Jute:]
"Yutah! "
"Pleased to meet you," Mutt replies obscurely.
"Are you deaf? Deaf-mute? What is the matter with you anyhow? " "Not deaf," answers Mutt; "but I have suffered somewhat damage
from a bottle in a local tavern--or rather, from a battle at Clontarf. "
Jute stutters, "Hauhauhauhorrible! " Then he gives the blurry native a
shake. "Come on! Wise onto yourself! Wake up! "
Mutt, cringing and resentful at the unexpected show of force, discon-
nectedly belches something about usurpers and the Celtic champion, Brian Boru.
Jute attempts to calm him with a bit of wooden money, a tip. "Ein Augenblick! Let bygones be bygones! Business is business. Take this bit of Trinkgeld and go buy yourself a drink. "
[Perceiving the money is wooden, the native now definitely identifies the stranger as the perennial invader. ] It is he of the billowing greatcoat, Cedric Silkyshag! * Obsequiously, now, the native attempts to ingratiate himself by calling attention to the local points of historic and scenic inter- est: "The spot where Humpty Dumpty fell; (? ? ) by the river, here, the place of the liverish monarch, Mark the First; under the moon, there, Little
? Mary's Pass; the old stone by the pool. " But the great man hardly shares the native's wonder before these things. He has it straight from Tacitus simply that a barrow of rubbish was dumped here. Tired of Mutt's half- intelligible patois, he makes to move away.
Mutt stays him a moment. "All right," says Mutt; "but wait a sec. Take a turn around these ancient plains, where the whimbrel once did wail to pewee, and where cities once will rise.
From the old inn out there on the Hill of Howth to this Park of the Phoenix the glaciers did spread. Two races have merged here, a sweet and a salt; like tides they have played against each other. Stories have fallen, thick as snowflakes, and they all lie now entombed. Fuit Ilium. (? ? ) Mild und leise. * Here in under they lie-- large and small, he and she alike. The ancestral earth has swallowed them. However, this earth of ours is not brickdust but humus. It is fertile. The old figures return. The old round with its four stages will certainly pass again. " Then Mutt, abruptly breaking off, with a hush and a whisper begs the fare to Dublin. "Sh! " says he. "Hold your whisht! "
Jute has impatiently listened, with occasional deprecating interjections. Now he sticks on the Irish word "whisht. " Mutt resumes: he indicates where the giant lies, and the fay; where lies the Viking grave. "Are you as- tonished, you stone-aged Jute, you? "
"I am thunderstruck; I am Thor's thunderstroke, I am Thingmote. "?
[The archaic figures fade. We are following the finger, not of Mutt, but of a learned Courier, conducting a little group of tourists. We are examin- ing the soil for relics of the most distant past. ]
"Stoop," says the teacher-guide, "if you are interested in alphabets, to this clay. What signs, please stoop, are here! It is the old story of misce- genations. Neanderthal tales of a Heidelberg heathen meandering in the ig- norance that breeds the desire that moves the round of existence. Consider these primitive artefacts: a hatch, a celt, an earshare. The purpose of the
? ? * Fuit Ilium (Virgil, Aeneid, II, ? ? ? ): the words of the High Priest at the moment of the fall of Troy.
Mild und leise: first words of the love-death aria of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde.
? Thingmote: the Scandinavian tribal council. Thor, the god of thunder, was the patron of the Thing; Thor's-day, Thursday, was the opening day of the Thing. Jute is at once the in- vader, the political system of the invader, and the patron god of that system: the thunder
pronouncement of the new age.
? ? * Sihtric, king of the Danes of Dublin, a. d. ? ? ? ? .
? ? A Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake ? ? Finnegan's Fall ? ?
? plowshare was to cassay [break] earthcrust at all hours [HCE, the plow- share; ALP, the earth]. Here are bellicose little figurines [the Twins]. Here is a naughty little female effigy. Oh, I fay. Ho, you fie! [the Seductress motif]. Up boys, and catch them face to face! [the Three Soldiers]. When a (? ? ) part so petit does duty for the whole, we soon grow to use of an all- forabit [alphabet]. Here, please to stoop, are pellets such as were used for soldiers' pay. These terrible rocks were for war. Here you behold a midden horde. Here are owlets' eggs. O stoop to please. Snake worms were wrig- gling everywhere until Patrick came and cotched them all away.
"And now we may study the origins of the earliest books. Axen strokes in ones and twos and threes [the One, the Two Temptresses, the Three Soldiers] they were composed of. They communicated to sons and daugh- ters messages from the ancestors--which will remain with us till dooms- day. There was no paper yet; the pen groaned to give birth to its mouse; but the world is, was, and will be, writing its own runes forever. (? ? ) Begin with a bone or pebble; chip them; leave them to cook in the mothering pot--and Gutenberg with his printing press must one day, once and for all, step forth. Finally, then, you will make the acquaintance of Mr. Typus, Mrs. Tope, and all the little typtopies. So every word in this book of Doublends Jined--till the riverrun that opened it finally brings it to its deltic close at the end of a maha? manvantara*--will be bound over to carry no end of readings.
"For instance, see what you have in your hand. The whole thing is in movement, and with many a tale to tell. The story of One that spied upon Two, was caught by Three, and set the whole town talking. Stories of the old wife and her forty bairn, of old Noah and his mash, of a grave man and a light woman, of golden youths fit for gelding, of what the naughty girlie made the man do. Let us take for example, the tale of Jarl van Hoother? and the Prankquean:
? (? ? ) "Of a night, late, long time ago, when Adam delved and Eve span, when life and love were wild and free and everyone did as he pleased, Jarl van Hoother, the melancholy widower, was alone. Tristopher and Hilary, his two little jimmies, were kicking their dummy about on the floor of his home- righ,* c astle, and e arthenhouse. And be dermot, who came to the keep of his inn only the prankquean. She asked for a poss of porter. And that was how the skirmishes began. The lord of the castle refused her, in Dutch, and the door was shut in her face. So her grace o' malice kidnaped the little Tristopher and carried him off to her wilderness in the west. Jarl van Hoother bellowed after her, but she carried the boy away. She had the child instructed by her four wise old masters, and he became a blackguard. --Then around she circulated and, be redtom, after a brace of Halloweens, she was back again at Jarl van Hoother's, where Hilary and (? ? ) the dummy were kicking about, like brother and sister, on the floor. She asked for two poss of porter. Van Hoother again refused her. The door was shut in her face. So she set down little Tristopher, picked up little Hilary, and ran off with him to the west. Jarl van Hoother cried after her, but she carried the boy away. She had the child instructed by her four wise old monitors, and she made a Cromwellian out of him. --Then around she circulated, and, be dom ter, after a pair of trans- formations, she was back again at Jarl van Hoother's, where the jiminy and the dummy were making love upon the floor. She asked for three poss of porter. And that was how the skirmishes ended. The Jarl himself, the old ter- ror of the dames, came hippety-hop out of the portals of his castle, (? ? ) dressed in his ample costume. He ordered the shutter clapped in her face. It was shut. (Perkodhuskurunbarggruauyagokgorlayorgromgremmitghund- hurthrumathunaradidillifaititillibumullunukkunun! )? And they all drank free.
? ? her own castle in Connaught. She refused to return the boy until his father had solemnly promised that the doors of Castle Howth would never again be closed at mealtime. In the present version the events are recounted thrice with modifications, after the manner of the fairy tale, and under the influence of the family pattern of HCE. There is also a play on three historical attempts to reshape the beliefs and institutions of Ireland: the Elizabethan Anglican, the Cromwellian Puritan, the modern socialist.
* Vanhomrigh, the father of Dean Swift's Vanessa.
? The thunder voice (see p. ? ) resounds now through the anger of the old Jarl. It is his own impotence that has unstrung him.
Note: Unless otherwise specified, page references in the footnotes are to the pages of Finnegans Wake.
? ? * A world cycle or aeon (Sanskrit).
? The Earl of Howth and Grace O'Malley (? ? ? ? ). A jarl is a Scandinavian chieftain; the word
"jarl" is related to the English "earl. " The story goes that Grace O'Malley, returning from a visit to Queen Elizabeth, paused at the door of the Castle of Howth for a night's lodg- ing. The family was at dinner at the time, and the door was rudely slammed in her face. Whereupon she managed to kidnap the little heir of the castle and made off with him to
? ? A Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake ? ? Finnegan's Fall ? ?
? For one man in his armor was a fat match always for any girls under skirts. And that was the first piece of alliterative poetry in all the flaming flatuous world: a sweet exposure of the Norwegian Captain. * It was resolved that the prankquean should hold to the dummy, the boys keep the peace, and van Hoother let off steam. He is the joke of the entire town. "
[This tale concludes the little study of landscape and museum evidences. The prehistoric figures of Mutt and Jute, the medieval notices of the Blue Book of Mammon Lujius, the comparatively recent histories of the Wellington Museum, the entire sweep of the landscape, a certain midden dump (? ? , ? ? ) and the fantasies of popular tales, all have revealed unmis- takable symptoms of the common substratum. We are not surprised to see now, dimly at first, but then gradually more strongly, the Wake scene re- emerging through the traits of the land. ]
Oh, happy fault,? that drew from heaven the promise of redemption and the descent to man of that precious, unique Son of the Father! From the evil action of the devil proceeds the great boon of the Annunciation. Regard again the configurations of this countryside. Behold again the enor- mous hulk of the fallen sinner, and beside him, the little stream. Cloudcap is on him; his vales are darkling. With lips she lisps to him all the time of such and such and so and so. Impalpable, he reappears, and the waves, the Four Waves of Ireland,? are pounding against the promontory of his head. Landlocked by his mistress, perpetuated in his offspring, the poets could tell him to his face and her to her pudor puff, how but for them, our life- givers, there would not be a spire in the town nor a vessel floating in the dock, nor a single one of us.
? (? ? ) He [All-Father Finnegan] gained his bread in the sweat of his brow. He delivered us unto death. And he would again, could he awaken. And he may again. And he will again. Have you whines for my wedding, did you bring bride and bedding, will you whoop for my deading? For my darling is awake! [Someone cries out:] "Whisky! "
[The old man stirs to rise. He hollers in his native tongue:] "Soul of the devil, did ye think me dead? "
[Whereupon the twelve gentlemen hasten to hold him down and to soothe him back to sleep. For a new and prosperous world age has been founded on the fact of his demise. It would be nothing short of cata- strophic to have the old substratum himself break back into action. ]
"Now be easy, good Mr. Finnegan; lie back and take your rest like a god on pension. Things have changed. You wouldn't know the place. You might only be getting into trouble. 'Tis hard to part from old Dublin, sure! But you're better off where you are. You have everything you want.