A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (50 page)

92.35–6
What doth it profit … immortal soul
: cf. Matt. 16: 26: ‘For what doth it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his own soul?’ (Douay).

93.31
Ecclesiastes
: see 91.23–5 n.

94.17
death and judgment
: the first two of the ‘four last things’.

95.15
particular judgment
: the individual judgement that each soul faces upon death and as a result of which it finds its immediate place (hell, purgatory, heaven).

95.16
abode of bliss
: synonym for heaven; where those who have repented and whose penance on earth has been completed go; cf.
Ulysses
where the phrase is put to very different use (
U
72, 163, 636).

95.16
prison of purgatory
: where those who have sinned and repented but still have penance to do for their sins go after death.

95.17
hell
: where those who have sinned and not repented, who die in mortal sin, go.

95.19
general judgment
: the Final or Last Judgement (as opposed to the ‘particular judgement’ of each individual soul (see 95.15 n.) when all mankind is judged and all sins revealed.

95.20
Doomsday
: the Last Judgement.

95.20–9
The stars of heaven … shall be no more
: these phrases echo sections of the book of Revelation (6: 12–14; 10: 1–2, 5–6) in the New Testament (or Apocalypse (Douay)); the young Joyce copied the whole of the King James Revelation into a notebook (Cornell MS 9 (Robert Scholes (comp.),
The Cornell Joyce Collection
(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1961), 6)).

95.24
Michael
: the Archangel Michael, otherwise known as the angel of the Church Militant, who announces the death of time in announcing the Last Judgement.

95.28–9
Time is … be no more
: what is uttered by the Brazen Head; according to Brewer ‘the legend of the wonderful head of brass that could speak and was omniscient, found in early romances, is of Eastern origin…. [T]he most famous [example] in English legend is that fabled to have been made by the great Roger Bacon. It was said if Bacon heard it speak he would succeed in his projects; if not, he would fail. His familiar, Miles, was set to watch, and while Bacon slept the Head spoke thrice: “Time is”; half an hour later it said, “Time was”. In another half-hour it said, “Time’s past”, fell down and was broken to atoms. Byron refers to this legend. “Like Friar Bacon’s head, I’ve spoken, | ‘Time is’, ‘Time was’, ‘Time’s past’ ” (
Don Juan
, i. 217) References to Bacon’s brazen head are frequent in literature. Most notable is Robert Greene’s
Honourable History of Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay
, 1594’ (
Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable
, 14th edn., ed. Ivor H. Evans (1989; repr. London: Cassell, 1992), 152–3).

95.30
Jehoshaphat
: valley east of Jerusalem which, according to Joel 3: 2, 12, is where ‘all nations’ will be gathered for the Lord’s judgement.

95.34–6
supreme judge … Lamb of God … Jesus of Nazareth … Man of Sorrows … Good Shepherd
: names for Jesus, drawing the contrast between his various roles: bearer of both judgement and mercy, God as man, God who suffers with man.

95.36–9
He is seen … seraphim
: cf. Matt. 25: 31: ‘when the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory’; the ranks of angels listed by Father Arnall follow
roughly the traditional hierarchy (after Dante Alighieri (1265–1321),
Il Paradiso
[third part of his
Divina Commedia
], xxviii. 90–114).

96.6–8
Depart from me … his angels
: Jesus, in his account of the Last Judgement, says the good (sheep) will be separated from the bad (goats) and to the latter will be said (Matt. 25: 41): ‘Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels’ (and see 105.3–4 and 202.9 nn.)

96.16–17
O you hypocrites … whited sepulchres
: Jesus, again, this time to the ‘scribes and Pharisees’ who, he says, ‘say, and do not’ (Matt. 23: 3): ‘Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness’ (Matt. 23: 27).

96.24
Son of God … expect Him
: after Matt. 24: 36: ‘But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only.’

96.26–7
Death and judgment … first parents
: in Catholic doctrine, Adam and Eve brought sin into the world, the consequence of which is that all are born in (original) sin and death and judgement result.

96.38–97.1
Addison … meet his end
: story recounted by, among others, Samuel Johnson (1709–84), in his
Lives of the English Poets
(1779–81) of Joseph Addison (1672–1719) to the Lord Warwick, who was his stepson; his words were reportedly ‘I have sent for you that you may see how a Christian can die’ (ed. George Birkbeck Hill, 3 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1905), ii. 117). An irony: Addison was a Tory and supporter of the anti-Irish, anti-Catholic policies of the Protestant William of Orange (1650–1702; r. 1689–1702 as William III) who defeated Catholic James II (1633–1701) and his Irish ‘Jacobites’ (supporters) at the Battle of the Boyne (1690).

97.3–4
O grave … thy sting?
: Alexander Pope (1688–1744), ‘The Dying Christian to His Soul’, ll. 17–18; after 1 Cor. 15: 55: ‘O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?’

97.17
the square
: Mountjoy Square.

97.22–3
The image of Emma … his heart
: cf. Dante on first seeing Beatrice: ‘Mine eyes drooped down to the clear fount; but beholding me therein, I drew them back to the grass, so great a shame weighed down my brow’ (
Purgatorio
, xxx. 76–8; Dent dual-language edn., ed. Hermann Oelsner, trans. Thomas Okey (1900; repr. London: Temple Classics, 1926), 383).

98.3
he imagined … near Emma
: cf. Stephen’s thoughts about Emma with Dante’s treatment of Beatrice at the end of the
Purgatorio
and throughout the
Paradiso
where she acts as his guide.

98.9–11
her whose beauty … bright and musical
: Newman, on the Blessed Virgin, ‘The Glories of Mary’ (
Mixed Congregations
, 359).

98.29–31
Forty days … face of the earth
: cf. God to Noah in Gen. 7: 4: ‘I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights; and every living substance that I have made will I destroy from off the face of the earth.’

98.33–5
Hell has enlarged … fourteenth verse
: Father Arnall’s citation of chapter and verse is correct (Douay). As
T
points out, this particular text and much of the ensuing sermon follows Pinamonti’s
Hell Opened to Christians
(see 91.23–5 n.;
T
175), itself following ‘a traditional pattern in devotional literature consisting of seven daily “Considerations” or meditations … (1) The Prison of Hell … [100.32–101.28] (2) The Fire … [101.38–103.8] (3) The Company of the Damned … [103.9–105.4] (4) The Pain of Loss … [107.8–108.18] (5) The Sting of Conscience … [108.19–109.35] (6) The Pain of Extension … [109.36–110.38] (7) Eternity [110.39–113.6]’ (
T
173–4).

99.2–5
Adam and Eve … filled again
: As
G
argues, Father Arnall’s reasoning here is more St Anselm of Canterbury (see 101.5 n.) in his
Cur Deus Homo (c
. 1094–
c
. 1098) or even John Milton (1608–74) in
Paradise Lost
(1667) than orthodox Catholic doctrine.

99.5–6
son of the morning
: Isa. 14: 12: ‘How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!’; Lucifer’s name strictly means ‘light-bringing’ or ‘morning star’.

99.7
a third part of the host of heaven
: the traditional tale of Lucifer/Satan taking ‘a third part of the host of heaven’ with him derives from Rev. 12: 3–4 and 7–9: the former gives an account of the ‘red dragon’ drawing ‘the third part of the stars of heaven’ and ‘cast[ing] them to earth’; the latter recounts that ‘there was a war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon … prevailed not … and … was cast out’. Milton promotes the tale: ‘art thou he, | Who first broke peace in Heaven and faith, till then | Unbroken, and in proud rebellious arms | Drew after him the third part of Heaven’s sons | Conjured against the Highest?’ (
Paradise Lost
, ii. 689–93).

99.10
non serviam: I will not serve
: ‘
non serviam
’: Latin: ‘I shall not serve’; what, traditionally, Lucifer says on falling (cf. Jer. 2: 20 (Douay);
Hell
in
T
175–6).

99.14–15
Eden, in the plain of Damascus
: a very odd location for the Garden of Eden; see
G
.

99.18
ills our flesh is heir to
: misquotation of lines from Hamlet’s soliloquy: ‘To die: to sleep; | No more; and, by a sleep to say we end | The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks | That flesh is heir to, ’tis a consummation | Devoutly to be wish’d’ (
Hamlet
, III. i. 60–4).

99.21–2
not to eat … forbidden tree
: Gen. 2: 16–17: ‘And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shall not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.’

99.25
serpent … beasts of the field
: Gen. 3: 1: ‘Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made.’

99.28
woman, the weaker vessel
: cf. 1 Pet. 3: 7: ‘Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honour unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel.’

99.28–9
poured the poison … her ear
: cf.
Hamlet
, I. v. 63–4 where the Ghost claims to have been poisoned by Claudius: ‘[He] in the porches of mine ears did pour | The leprous distilment.’

99.31
become as gods, nay as God Himself
: Gen. 3: 4–5: ‘The serpent said unto
the woman, Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.’

99.33
Adam … to resist her
: not doctrine.

99.35–6
voice of God … to account
: Gen. 3: 8–9, 11, 13: ‘And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden … And the Lord God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou? … And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat? … And the Lord God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done?’

99.36–8
Michael … forth from Eden
: Gen. 3: 24: ‘So [the Lord God] drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.’ The Bible does not identify Michael as the one holding the flaming sword; that’s Catholic interpretation.

100.1
earn their bread … their brow
: Gen. 3: 19: ‘In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground.’

100.7
the Eternal Word
: John 1: 1, 14: ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God’; ‘And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.’

100.8–12
He came … the new gospel
: this passage mixes material from the New Testament with material more traditional than canonical; for the ‘cowshed’, see Luke 2: 7; for ‘the new gospel’, John 1: 17: ‘For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.’

100.14–20
seized and bound … issued continually
: each of the Gospels gives a slightly different account of Jesus’s last days and his treatment; see, most relevantly, John 18: 40; Matt. 27, John 19, Mark 15. The 5,000 lashes is an embellishment. He was, of course, crucified on a cross, not ‘hanged on a gibbet’ (this latter being an upright post with a projecting arm on which the bodies of executed criminals were hung up (
OERD
)).

100.21–2
Our Merciful … mankind
: see Luke 23: 34: ‘Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.’

100.23–5
He founded … rock of ages
: see Matt. 16: 18–19: ‘And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.’ (Herein a pun that Joyce approved: Peter’s name in Latin,
Petrus
, means ‘rock’.) The ‘rock of ages’ is not a Catholic rock, but the title of a Protestant hymn (1776) by Augustus Toplady (1740–78).