roulade - rolled slice of meat; a series of rapid musical notes or tones in musical composition
colpo di glottide (it) - a burst from the glottis, glottal stop + "...a glottal stop, a sound found only in the most primitive of terrestrial languages. The glottal stop is formed by the intake of breath, symbolizing reversal or the serpent eating itself, or the consumption of the elixir, or-if the male/female androgyne exists-it is mutual oral sex to the point of orgasm, the orgasm being equivalent to the uttering the letter (i.e. the glottal stop). When vibrated correctly, the name stops time and reverses space." (Kenneth Grant: Outside The Circles Of Time).
lug (Slang) - ear
Maas, Joseph (1847-86) - English tenor (once played Sean the Post in Dublin)
recline - to lay down, or make to lie down (properly on the back)
overdo - to do too much, to do excess
dead beat - a beat or stroke which stops 'dead' without recoil
cluse - close + 'Close your eyes and open your mouth and see what I will give you' (nursery rhyme) + ''According to one of the most popular myths... the sun-god Re entered the mouth of the sky goddess Nut every evening, passed through her body and was reborn at dawn. When he died, the King was assimilated to Re and was thought to undergo the same nightly process of gestation and rebirth as the sun god.'' (I.E.S. Edwards: The Pyramids of Egypt)
contratici - a woman singer + (stop singing, contratici).
arouse - to stir up into activity
valour - exceptional or heroic courage when facing danger (especially in battle)
troubadour - one of a class of lyric poets, living in southern France, eastern Spain, and northern Italy, from the 11th to the 13th centuries, who sang in Provençal (langue d'oc), chiefly of chivalry and gallantry, sometimes including wandering minstrels and jongleurs + brother + B-Dur (ger) - B flat major.
architectual + orchestral + orchis (gr) - testicle + dektikos (gr) - fit for receiving, capable of receiving + orchidecturalis (gr) - of or pertaining to receiving testicles.
Among Joyce's favorite Zurich resorts were the concert hall, the Tonhalle + Tonhalle (ger) - concert hall + A Frenchman who visited the Great Pyramid in 1581 reported that when struck, the granite sarcophagus 'sounded like a bell'. Other travellers used the same phrase, and it became a favourite trick of the local Arab guides to hit the coffer and make it ring (tots wearsense full a naggin... Zijnzijn Zijnzijn! - HCE is in granite sarcophagus, four priests, standing at each corner, generate powerful vowel intonations, and the Sem priest recites magical spells in B-dur :))
vivarium - a place for keeping living animals + vivacious - sprightly in temper or conduct, lively.
Brief (ger) - letter + leaf + beef + One man's meat is another man's poison (proverb).
lunger - one who is diseased or wounded in the lungs; one who lunges (Fencing. To make a thrust with a foil or rapier; Boxing. To deliver a straightforward blow; to make a sudden forward movement).
planner - one who plans or makes a plan + Wyndham Lewis: Plans and Planners (pamphlet, 1913) + 'Planners: Happy Day' (1912-3) - painting by Wyndham Lewis (pen, gouache and pencil on paper).
argon - an inert gas occurring in very small quantity (less than 1 per cent.) in the air + argon (gr) - slow + argot + R.A. Schwaller de Lubicz in his book, 'Sacred Science' believed that the ancient Egyptians used sounds, as distinct from words, in their rituals. In the last sentence of the following passage he quotes from Corpus Hermeticum: ''Sacred or magical language is not to be understood as a succession of terms with definite meanings...the excitation of certain nervous centres [cause] physiological effects [which] are evoked by the utterance of certain letters or words which make no sense in themselves.''
emolument - reward, remuneration, salary + moment
rung - step, grade, degree + round - Pugilism. A single bout in a fight or a boxing-match.
oscilating + isosceles triangle - a triangle with two equal sides.
bi- - two
goulash - a stew or ragout of meat and vegetables highly seasoned + gouache - a type of painting similar to watercolor but more opaque and reflective in nature due to the presence of white chalk in the paint. The painting thus executed and the pigment are both called "Gouache" (French term meaning "opaque watercolor").
marge - margarine + (Maggy).
needlewoman - a woman who works with the needle, a sempstress; harlot (Slang) + Wyndham Lewis's painting 'Portrait of an Englishwoman', appeared in his 'Blast' magazine No. 1 (also in that magazine was his painting 'Enemy of the Stars'). Picture at the 4. page of 'Tyro' magazine No. 2, edited by Wyndham Lewis ("Tyros" were satirical caricatural figures intended by Lewis to comment on the culture of the "new epoch"). Wyndham Lewis had an anti-feminine streak.
ornate - to ornament, adorn, embellish
cruetstand - a stand or frame, commonly of silver, for holding cruets and castors at table + NATIONAL GALLERY - In Trafalgar Square, London. From its completion in 1837, its architecture was ridiculed as "The National Cruet Stand" because of the appearance of its "pepperpot" domes. The adjacent National Portrait Gallery contains portraits of about 3000 notables, induding Lewis Carol and James Joyce.
genre - a style of painting in which scenes and subjects of ordinary life are depicted; a particular style or category of works of art; esp. a type of literary work characterized by a particular form, style, or purpose.
portraiture - portrait; verbal description
evoke - to call forth; esp. to summon up (spirits, etc.) by the use of magic charms
torse - (Her.) A wreath; (Geom.) A developable surface + terse - elegantly concise, free of superfluous words.
bush soul - a man’s second soul believed to inhabit a wild animal of the bush
wallop - a violent, heavy, clumsy, noisy movement of the body + wallaby - any of various small or medium-sized kangaroos often brightly colored.
bound - an elastic spring upward or onward
zealot - a fervent and even militant proponent of something
kangaroo + Edward Adams: Congaree Sketches, Scenes from the Negro Life in the Swamps of the Congaree 1927 (an inscribed copy was in Joyce's personal library).
teal - any of various small short-necked dabbling river ducks of Europe and America; a shade of green tinged with blue + tail
hatbox - round luggage for carrying hats
compose - to put together, make up
rhomb - Geom. A plane figure having four equal sides and the opposite angles equal.
trapezoid - Geom. A quadrilateral figure two of whose sides are parallel + TREBIZOND - City, Turkey, on South-East coast of Black Sea; from 1204 to 1461 AD it controlled the South Black Sea and was noted for its luxury. Princesses of its royal family were sought as wives by both Christian and Mohammedan princes. When the Fourth Crusade (1204) turned horribly wrong, one branch of the Byzantine dynasty fled to this town, and proclaimed an Empire of Trebizond, supported by the great Queen Tamara of Georgia, to whom they were related by marriage. They only ever ruled the coast, what is now the eastern part of Turkey's Black Sea coast, and a little bit of the interior, but they generally maintained friendly relations with neighbouring Ottomans and later Mongols, surviving as a valuable trade route. But after supporting a conspiracy against the Ottoman Emperor, the little empire was crushed on 16 August 1461 and the whole dynasty later put to death. Nevertheless it outlasted the Byzantine Empire itself, which had fallen in 1453.
excelsus (l) - high + in excelsis (l) - in the highest.
comprise - to include or contain, have as a component
climatic - of or pertaining to a climax + climate + climax (gr) - ladder, staircase, scale, gamut + gramma (gr) - letter + klimakogramma (gr) - ladder-picture, ladder-diagram + (staircase).
fondly - affectionately, lovingly, tenderly. Also, with show of affection, caressingly.
mode - a prevailing fashion or conventional custom, practice or style; esp. one characteristic of a particular place or period + Wyndham Lewis: Cantleman's Spring-mate (has characters, fellow officers of Cantleman, called A, B, C, and D).
superimpose - to lay or impose on something else ("a stratum of earth superimposed on another stratum")
layer - single thickness of usually some homogeneous substance
Eocene - The epithet applied to the lowest division of the Tertiary strata, and to the geological period which they represent (70.000.000 years ago).
Pleistocene - Epithet applied at first to the newest division of the Pliocene or Upper Tertiary formation (as containing the greatest number of fossils of still existing species), also called Newer Pliocene; afterwards to the older division of the Post-tertiary or Quaternary, also called Post-Pliocene (20.000.000 years ago).
morphological - of or pertaining to the history of form; hence simply: as regards form
ébahi (fr) - astonished
ahuri (fr) - flabbergasted
philadespoinis (gr) - mistress-loving, Empress-loving + phillades poinês (gr) - ration coupons + Philadelphia + Illinois.
blue butter = mercurial ointment - ointment composed of metallic mercury triturated with lard + good, better, best.
coup de grace - a death blow (to end the suffering)
neatly - cleverly, in a nicely finished way
boite (fr) - box + boîte à surprises (fr) - box of surprises.
pour (fr) - for + per box + 'Worth a guinea a box' (advert for Beecham's pills).
patent - clearly apparent or obvious to the mind or senses
foolproof - incapable of going wrong or being misused, guaranteed to operate without breakdown or failure under any conditions. Foolproof means infallible or, more literally, impervious to the incompetence of fools. Just as a bulletproof vest makes one invulnerable to bullets, a foolproof plan is designed to be invulnerable to fools.
pry - an act or the action of prying; a peeping or inquisitive glance + picture perferct - completely flawless.
Sherlock Holmes
be out for - to have one's interests or energies directed to, to be intent on (something)
roof (Slang) - hat + Arthur Conan Doyle: A Case of Identity: (Sherlock Holmes speaking) 'If we could fly out of that window hand in hand, hover over this great city, gently remove the roofs, and peep in at the queer things which are going on, the strange coincidences, the plannings, the cross-purposes, the wonderful chains of events, working through generations, and leading to the most outré results, it would make all fiction with its conventionalities and foreseen conclusions most stale and unprofitable'.
deductio ad dominum (l) - a leading away to the lord or master + deductio ad domum (l) - a leading away to the house + reductio ad absurdum (l) - proof of falsity by demonstration of absurd consequences.
de facto - actually, in fact, in reality + de tactu (l) - from a touch, from touch.
mobile [movibile] tectu (l) - moveable by means of a roof; by a moveable roof + tectum (l) - roof + mirabile dictu (l) - wonderful to say (O Hehir, Brendan; Dillon, John M. / A classical lexicon for Finnegans wake).
slade = slide + slide off - a downward turn + Henry Slade - 19th century medium + Slade - London art school (Lewis studied there) + slate.