A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (48 page)

60.8
Maurice
: Mr Dedalus is not the only one to ‘forget about Maurice’; he plays a much larger part in Joyce’s earlier
Stephen Hero
; this is his only appearance in
Portrait
.

60.16
mumbled
: ‘mumble’: ‘to chew or bite softly as with toothless gums’ and/ or ‘to maul’ (
SOED
).

60.25
the corporation
: Dublin Corporation: the organization responsible for civic government in Dublin comprising the lord mayor, sheriffs, aldermen, and councilmen, and their various committees and attendant bureaucracy.

60.34
twice nine
: see 37.16 n.

61.3
Whitsuntide
: the week including Whit Sunday, the seventh Sunday after Easter which commemorates the descent of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles at Pentecost (Acts 2).

61.11
Blessed Sacrament … tabernacle
: ‘tabernacle’: an ornamental receptacle for the already consecrated elements of the Eucharist (see 38.36–7 n.); the play is being held in the chapel on the altar of which the tabernacle would sit; the ‘Blessed Sacrament’ has been removed lest the boys upset the tabernacle during the performance.

61.25
chief part, that of a farcical pedagogue
: Stephen’s playing of the ‘chief part’ means it cannot be the same play that Joyce himself acted in—F. Anstey (pseudonym of Thomas Anstey Guthrie (1856–1934)),
Vice Versa
, adapted from his novel of 1882,
Vice Versa: Or a Lesson to Fathers
—for the pedagogue there is a minor part.

61.27–8
number two
: room number of Stephen’s class at Belvedere where room numbers indicated the number of years until school leaving (
G
).

62.7
gospel side of the altar
: the two sides of the altar: gospel (on the left as the congregation faces it, where the gospels are read) and epistle (on the right, where the epistles are read).

63.27–9
He that will not hear … the publicana
: after Matt. 18: 17, Jesus to his disciples: ‘If he will not hear the church, let him be to thee as the heathen
and publican’ (Douay). (For Joyce’s actual performance, see
E
56 and Eugene Sheehy,
May it Please the Court
(Dublin: Fallon, 1951), 8–10.)

64.8
after beads
: after the recitation of the rosary (a devotion in which the prayer to the Virgin Mary (the ‘Hail Mary’) is recited (in lots of ten or ‘decades’) preceded by an ‘Our Father’ and succeeded by a ‘Glory Be’; count is kept using rosary beads); a regular feature in the school day.

64.9
number one
: the oldest students; see 61.27–8 n.

64.21
butter wouldn’t melt in your mouth
:
PWJ
claims an Irish origin for this phrase (198).

65.11
sure five
: a sure thing, after an arrangement of billiard balls which virtually guarantees the player the top score of five (
G
).

65.25
Confiteor
: the prayer used at the beginning of confession (which, in Latin, begins ‘
Confiteor Deo omnipotenti
’: ‘I confess to almighty God ’); so a parody admission on Stephen’s part.
G
quotes in full.

65.35
number six
: six years from completion; see 61.27–8 n.

66.15
Mr Tate
: by his title, a lay teacher, not a member of the order.

66.30–3
without a possibility … ever reaching
: doctrine allows that the soul yearns for communion with its creator, is granted grace to approach, but never reach, such communion; Stephen has not allowed for any approach, a heresy, which he corrects under questioning.

67.2
Drumcondra Road
: main road through Drumcondra (a northern suburb of Dublin).

67.11
Clonliffe Road
: thoroughfare running east off Drumcondra Road.

67.16
Captain Marryat
: Captain Frederick Marryat (1792–1848), English naval officer and author of adventure tales, especially for boys. See
U
18.

67.24
Newman
: John Henry, Cardinal Newman (1801–90), English, founder (1833) of the Oxford Movement (to bring the Anglican Church closer to the Roman Catholic); converted to Catholicism (1845); became rector of the Catholic University in Ireland (1854; see 138.26 n.); made a cardinal (1879); wrote what are considered eloquent expositions in defence of his principles; Stephen’s choice of prose writer is therefore orthodox.

67.32
Lord Tennyson
: Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1902), poet laureate of England and immensely popular; another safe choice.

68.3
Byron
: definitely a heretical choice; see 58.31 n.

68.10–11
on the slates in the yard
: according to
A
: ‘the slates which made up the urinal trough in the “square” or “yard”’ (506).

68.11
sent to the loft
: see
A
: ‘at Clongowes it meant simply “sent to the prefect for punishment”’ (506).

68.15–16
As Tyson … Kafoozelum
: after the anonymous ballad, ‘The Daughter of Jerusalem’ (vulgar version: ‘The Harlot of Jerusalem’);
G
gives one version.

68.22
trans
: Joyce to his translator; ‘An abbreviation of the word, made by schoolboys, “translation”’ (
LIII
129); could also mean a crib.

69.8
Jones’s Road
: leads back from Clonliffe Road towards the centre of Dublin.

69.35
a great bake
: in a state of being cross and anxious.

70.19–20
When the gymnasium had been opened
: in response to the Gaelic Athletic Association’s call for a turn to Irish sports? See 51.13 n.

70.21
movement towards national revival
: the Gaelic League, see 51.13 n.

70.23–4
fallen language and tradition
: see 51.13 n.

71.16
The Lily of Killarney
: the overture to the opera
The Lily of Killarney
(1862) by the English Julius Benedict (1804–85); based on the popular melodrama
The Colleen Bawn
(1861) written by the Irish Dion Boucicault (1820–90).

71.39
mummery
: play-acting; see
PWJ
for a particularly Irish twist on the word (171–2).

72.16
George’s Street
: runs south-east from Belvedere College.

72.31
Lotts
: small lane, parallel to and just north of the Liffey.

72.37
Kingsbridge
: railway station serving south and west (now Heuston station).

73.1
night mail to Cork
: the night mail train to Cork city from Dublin.

73.4–5
telegraphpoles … four seconds
: the length of the journey time can be calculated from Stephen’s close observation (see
G
) but note that the effects of trains passing telegraph poles have been noted by Stephen earlier (16.22).

73.17–18
dispossession … phantasy
: cf. ‘Portrait’: ‘he was at the difficult age, dispossessed and necessitous’ (
PSW
213).

73.19
Maryborough
: town about one-third the 164-mile distance from Dublin to Cork.

73.20
Mallow
: town
c
. 20 miles from Cork.

73.35
jingle
: covered, horse-drawn, two-wheeled carriage.

73.36
Victoria Hotel
: fashionable hotel in Cork.

74.4–19
’Tis youth and folly … The mountain dew
: perhaps from anonymous ballad, ‘Love is Pleasin’, Love is Teasin’ ’ (see Deane (ed.),
Portrait of the Artist
).

74.25
come-all-yous
: generic name for the typical Irish street ballads beginning ‘Come all you … ’ (see 29.8–9 n.).

74.33
drisheens
: Gaelic:
drisín
: ‘stuffed sheep’s intestine cooked as pudding’ (
O
336).

75.1
Queen’s College
: Queen’s College, Cork (opened 1849), was one of three ‘Queen’s Colleges’ (with Belfast and Galway) established in 1845 as non-sectarian higher educational institutions (as against Trinity College, Dublin, founded by Elizabeth I in 1591 with the express purpose of furthering the reformation in Ireland, and which had remained Anglo-Irish and Protestant: until 1873 admission required submission to religious tests; after this date the Catholic hierarchy refused to sanction any Catholic going there).

75.3
Mardyke
: then fashionable promenade in Cork city.

76.5
Groceries
: a pub which also sold groceries.

76.7–8
our names had been marked
: i.e. once roll had been called and they had been marked down as present.

76.11
Tantiles
: area in the western part of County Cork.

76.17
street arabs
: children from the slums.

76.25
free boy
: one who did not pay tuition fees.

77.11
South Terrace
: a then fashionable residential street in Cork.

77.12
maneens
:
PWJ
: ‘A boy who apes to be a man—puts on airs like a man—is called a
manneen
in contempt’ (90).

77.20
Queenstown
: the port city (now Cobh) for County Cork.

78.8
first communion
: see 39.8 n.

78.8
slim Jim
: Joyce to his translator: ‘This is a kind of sweet meat made of a soft marshmellow [
sic
] jelly which is coated first with pink sugar and then powdered, so far as I remember with cocoanut chips. It is called “Slim Jim” because it is sold in strips about a foot or a foot and a half in length and an inch in breadth. It is very elastic and can be eaten by two people at the same time’ (
LIII
129).

78.26
lob
:
PWJ
: ‘A quantity, especially of money or of any valuable commodity’ (287)

78.30
jackeen
:
PWJ
: ‘nickname for a conceited Dublin citizen of the lower class’ (278).

78.31–2
Newcombe’s coffeehouse
: once fashionable Cork coffee-house.

78.36
curvettings
: frisking about.

79.2–3
Lee … Liffey
: rivers which run through the centres of, respectively, Cork city and Dublin.

79.4
Dilectus
: properly ‘
Delectus
’, an anthology (1816) of Latin sentences by Richard Valpy (1754–1836) gathered together to teach Latin in school (it was used at Clongowes in the 1880s). See
JSA
.

79.5–6
Tempora mutantur … mutamur in illis
: Latin: both mean ‘Times are changed and we are changed in them’; they differ metrically; the second is the title of a poem by Robert Greene (1560–92), the second line of which is ‘Proud Icarus did fall he soared so high’. See
G
for full poem and
JSA
.

79.21
Yerra
: from the Gaelic: ‘
A Dhia ara
: O God well!’ (
O
336), a deprecatory exclamation.

79.26
Sunday’s Well
: fashionable suburb west of Cork city.

80.9
Kerry Boy
: Kerry is a county at the south-western tip of Ireland.

80.30–2
Art thou pale for weariness … companionless
: opening lines of fragmentary poem, ‘To the Moon’ (1820), from
Poems Written in 1820
(1824) by Shelley (see following note).

80.33
Shelley
: Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822), English Romantic poet and, in his ‘A Defence of Poetry’ (1821; 1840), an aesthetic philosopher.

80.34–6
ineffectualness … ineffectual
: the language of the prose as Stephen thinks about Shelley echoes that of Matthew Arnold in his description of Shelley as a ‘beautiful and ineffectual angel, beating in the void his luminous wings in vain’ (first in his essay on Byron and then quoting himself in his next essay, on Shelley (
Essays in Criticism
, Second Series (1888; repr. London: Macmillan, 1921), 204, 252)).

81.2
Foster Place
: dead-end street off College Green in the centre of Dublin.

81.5
bank of Ireland
: housed in the Irish parliament buildings, which were no
longer needed with the Act of Union (see 5.23–4 and 31.39–32.2 nn.) and which the bank bought in 1802; on College Green.

81.6
thirty and three pounds
: an extremely handsome sum for the time.