Then Minerva said, "Father, son of Saturn, King of kings,
it served Aegisthus right,
and so it would any one else who does as he did;
but Aegisthus is neither here nor there;
it is for Ulysses that my heart bleeds,
when I think of his sufferings in that lonely sea-girt island,
far away, poor man, from all his friends.
U9? "Fergus' song: I sang it alone in the house, holding down the long dark chords. Her door was open: she wanted to hear my music. Silent with awe and pity I went to her bedside. She was crying in her wretched bed. For those words, Stephen: love's bitter mystery."
It is an island covered with forest, in the very middle of the sea,
and a goddess lives there, daughter of the magician Atlas,
who looks after the bottom of the ocean,
and carries the great columns that keep heaven and earth asunder.
This daughter of Atlas has got hold of poor unhappy Ulysses,
and keeps trying by every kind of blandishment to make him forget his home,
so that he is tired of life,
and thinks of nothing but how he may once more see the smoke of his own chimneys.
You, sir, take no heed of this,
and yet when Ulysses was before Troy
did he not propitiate you with many a burnt sacrifice?
Why then should you keep on being so angry with him?"
U12 "He hacked through the fry on the dish and slapped it out on three plates, saying: —In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti."
And Jove said, "My child, what are you talking about?
How can I forget Ulysses than whom there is no more capable man on earth,
nor more liberal in his offerings to the immortal gods that live in heaven?
Bear in mind, however, that Neptune is still furious with Ulysses
for having blinded an eye of Polyphemus king of the Cyclopes.
Polyphemus is son to Neptune by the nymph Thoosa, daughter to the sea-king Phorcys;
therefore though he will not kill Ulysses outright,
he torments him by preventing him from getting home.
U8: "— I am not thinking of the offence to my mother.
— Of what, then? Buck Mulligan asked.
— Of the offence to me, Stephen answered."
Still, let us lay our heads together and see how we can help him to return;
Neptune will then be pacified, for if we are all of a mind he can hardly stand out against us."
U7: "God, Kinch, if you and I could only work together we might do something for the island. Hellenise it."
And Minerva said, "Father, son of Saturn, King of kings,
if, then, the gods now mean that Ulysses should get home,
we should first send Mercury to the Ogygian island
to tell Calypso that we have made up our minds and that he is to return.
In the meantime I will go to Ithaca, to put heart into Ulysses' son Telemachus;
I will embolden him to call the Achaeans in assembly,
and speak out to the suitors of his mother Penelope,
who persist in eating up any number of his sheep and oxen;
I will also conduct him to Sparta and to Pylos,
to see if he can hear anything about the return of his dear father—
for this will make people speak well of him."
U9
U2?
So saying she bound on her glittering golden sandals, imperishable,
with which she can fly like the wind over land or sea;
she grasped the redoubtable bronze-shod spear, so stout and sturdy and strong,
wherewith she quells the ranks of heroes who have displeased her,
and down she darted from the topmost summits of Olympus,
whereon forthwith she was in Ithaca, at the gateway of Ulysses' house,
disguised as a visitor, Mentes, chief of the Taphians,
and she held a bronze spear in her hand.
U19: "He tugged swiftly at Stephen's ashplant in farewell and, running forward to a brow of the cliff, fluttered his hands at his sides like fins or wings of one about to rise in the air... He capered before them down towards the fortyfoot hole, fluttering his winglike hands, leaping nimbly, Mercury's hat quivering in the fresh wind that bore back to them his brief birdsweet cries."
There she found the lordly suitors
seated on hides of the oxen which they had killed and eaten,
and playing draughts in front of the house.
Men-servants and pages were bustling about to wait upon them,
some mixing wine with water in the mixing-bowls,
some cleaning down the tables with wet sponges and laying them out again,
and some cutting up great quantities of meat.
U12: "— When I makes tea I makes tea, as old mother Grogan said. And when I makes water I makes water.
— By Jove, it is tea, Haines said.
Buck Mulligan went on hewing and wheedling:
— So I do, Mrs Cahill, says she. Begob, ma'am, says Mrs Cahill, God send you don't make them in the one pot."
