Finnegans Wake Notes

096.01 ing jackass. Harik! Harik! Harik! The rose is white in the darik!

096.02 And Sunfella's nose has got rhinoceritis from haunting the roes

096.03 in the parik! So all rogues lean to rhyme. And contradrinking

096.04 themselves about Lillytrilly law pon hilly and Mrs Niall of the

096.05 Nine Corsages and the old markiss their besterfar, and, arrah,

096.06 sure there was never a marcus at all at all among the manlies and

096.07 dear Sir Armoury, queer Sir Rumoury, and the old house by the

096.08 churpelizod, and all the goings on so very wrong long before

096.09 when they were going on retreat, in the old gammeldags, the

096.10 four of them, in Milton's Park under lovely Father Whisperer

096.11 and making her love with his stuffstuff in the languish of flowers

096.12 and feeling to find was she mushymushy, and wasn't that vely

096.13 both of them, the saucicissters, a drahereen o machree!, and (peep!)

096.14 meeting waters most improper (peepette!) ballround the garden,

096.15 trickle trickle trickle triss, please, miman, may I go flirting?

096.16 farmers gone with a groom and how they used her, mused her,

096.17 licksed her and cuddled. I differ with ye! Are you sure of your-

096.18 self now? You're a liar, excuse me! I will not and you're an-

096.19 other! And Lully holding their breach of the peace for them. Pool

096.20 loll Lolly! To give and to take! And to forego the pasht! And

096.21 all will be forgotten! Ah ho! It was too too bad to be falling

096.22 out about her kindness pet and the shape of O O O O O O O O

096.23 Ourang's time. Well, all right, Lelly. And shakeahand. And

096.24 schenkusmore. For Craig sake. Be it suck.

096.25               Well?

[096.26-097.28]: of false evidence and truth — he is fox-hunted.

096.26 Well, even should not the framing up of such figments in the

096.27 evidential order bring the true truth to light as fortuitously as

096.28 a dim seer's setting of a starchart might (heaven helping it!) un-

096.29 cover the nakedness of an unknown body in the fields of blue

096.30 or as forehearingly as the sibspeeches of all mankind have foli-

096.31 ated (earth seizing them!) from the root of some funner's stotter

096.32 all the soundest sense to be found immense our special mentalists

096.33 now holds (securus iudicat orbis terrarum) that by such playing

096.34 possum our hagious curious encestor bestly saved his brush with

096.35 his posterity, you, charming coparcenors, us, heirs of his tailsie.

096.36 Gundogs of all breeds were beagling with renounced urbiandor-

Summary Page 96:

And then about the old house by Chapelizod; Lillytrilly and Mrs. Niall of the Nine Corsages (Niall of the Nine Hostages, hero of the Irish cycles), the old markiss their besterfather, and dear Sir Armoury, and all the goings on, so very wrong, so long ago, while the four were on retreat under Father Whisperer. And then about his bold advances, and the two saucy sisters—peep! [Suddenly the Four break into an argument:] “You’re a liar, excuse me,” says one. “I will not and you’re another,” says the second. And Long Lally Tompkins holding their breach of peace for them, bidding them to give and to take, and all will be forgotten. [Whereupon they make up again with a handshake and another drink.] It was too bad to be falling out about her kindness and about the shape of OOOOOOOOOurang’s time. “Well, all right, Lally. And shake a hand. And pour us out another. For Christ’s sake. Amen.”

 [That concludes the whole affair of the early life and death of HCE. The queerly infantile stories of his agnomen and reputation, his trial and incarceration, concluded with an absurd burial at the bottom of Lough Neagh. Following this disappearance, a chaos of wars broke out on every hillside. Rumors spread of the old man’s reappearances in the thick of twilight battles. Then Widow Kate described the day of the ancient thunderclap, when she and the old pagan were interrupted on their mud mound. Shaun and Shem, the sons of the departed, were discovered re-enacting (but with characteristic variations) the well-known history of their afflicted father. Mother Gossip’s letter was heard to be at large with all the news. And the Four Old Men were at their driveling, going on and on about the grand old times. [All might be said to be over. Every theme of Finnegans Wake has been sounded. Yet the dream cycle has hardly begun; HCE has hardly opened his career. No sooner have those in his wake become reconciled to his departure, than the news is out that he has disappeared from his grave and is at large and may be anywhere. Innumerable and highly confused reports describe his resurrection. [This opens to scholarship a new and exceedingly difficult problem: What became of HCE?] 

Well? Such evidence as we have been able to gather may not be dependable. It may not bring the truth to light as fortuitously as an astronomer’s calculation might reveal a hitherto unknown planet in the heavens, or as all the languages of the world have evolved from the root of some funner’s stotter (Vico would have all languages evolve from the attempts of the patriarchs to name the Thunderer. All the rumour and action of Finnegans Wake develops from the stuttering of HCE in the Park encounter). Yet soundest sense now holds that by playing ’possum our sacred ancestor saved his brush with his posterity. His escape was like that of a fox.