James Joyce: Letters III.188: postcard 18/04/29 to Harriet Shaw Weaver: 'Have you seen the new number of W.L.'s Enemy? A lot of it was read to me but I should prefer the book advertised in Pearson's W. 'Want to join the police?' That, at least is about something' [299.31]
pikey - a vagrant, a tramp; a gipsy
unmentionable - a person or thing not to be mentioned (by name); pl. Trousers. Also, underpants, and (chiefly joc.) underwear, esp. women's.
Divvers - formerly, divinity moderations, the first public examination in Holy Scripture.
gossoon - a youth, a boy; a servant-boy, lackey + FDV: You know, you're a damn smart gossoon, so you are.
aequalis (l) - equal + Euclid: Elements, Axiom 1: 'Things which are equal to the same thing are equal to one another'.
Wangel - doctor in Ibsen's Lady from the Sea, father of Hilda Wangel, husband of Ellida. If Dr Wangel has a "lady from the sea," he has also Hilda, "a daughterwife from the hills" (627.2). Hilda is a "lure and an assessor" who sends the Masterbuilder up his tower again in The Master Builder.
Euclid: Elements, Axiom 2: 'All right angles are equal to one another' + angle + angel [.06]
dampne = damn
infernal - like that of hell; diabolical, fiendish + invernale (it) - pertaining to winter.
carroty - like a carrot in colour, red; said of hair. Also, of persons: red-haired + I Corinthians 13:13: 'faith, hope, charity' + {warning to Dolph, since he enters the Inferno in the next paragraph}
Stephens, Davy - professional Irishman with long ringlets, wild eyes, who sold newspapers on Kingstown Pier. Every year he dressed up like a gentleman and went to the Derby.
George IV (1762 - 1830) - king of England and Ireland, known as the First Gentleman of Europe. When he visited Ireland in 1821, the town of Dunleary was renamed Kingstown. The Free State renamed it Dun Laoghaire.
sick = seek (obs.)
sock - a sock used as a receptacle for storing one's money; hence, a store of money + sing us a song.
sediment - matter composed of particles which fall by gravitation to the bottom of a liquid + sentiment.
darning - the action or process of filling up a hole in a fabric with thread or yarn in interwoven stitches + darling.
primogeniture - the right of succession or inheritance belonging to the first-born + nouriture - nourishment, sustenance, food + primanuritura (l) - first-suckling.
ultimogeniture - the mode of succession by which the right of inheritance pertains to the youngest of a family, as in borough-english + ultimagenitura (l) - last generated, last created.
whirlpool - a (large and violent) eddy or vortex + whereupon - upon which as a basis of action, argument, etc.
last word - the final utterance in a conversation or (esp.) dispute
mí-ádh (Irish) - bad luck + Marie (acronim) → 'Sweet Marie' biscuits from Jacobs', Dublin.
Marie = Mary (obs.) + FDV: + FDV: Whereapool with a sweet marie [stealed] from the jacob [& a slypull at the slidepage]
reat - Of doubtful origin and meaning; the intransitive example may belong to ruten to dart, rush + to eat.
'Baa Baa Black Sheep, Have you any wool?' (nursery rhyme)
Foster, Vere (1819-1900) - English philanthropist who helped Irish emigration in the famine. According to Ulysses (705), he put out a "handwriting copybook."
handkissing + candy kisses (sweets).
fressen (ger) - to eat + fress auf (ger) - to gobble, eat up + opfrissen (Dutch) - refresh (one's memory).
Erinnerung (ger) - memory, remembrance
leo = lion + leo (Kiswahili) - today + leo (sp) - I read.
Spanish - the Spanish language
escribir (sp) - to write + scribebis (l) - you will write
nibble - to take little bites of (a thing), to bite away little by little + FDV: he would would he wont look seeing nibble his mum to me
ravenously - in a ravenous (voracious, gluttonous) manner + ravnostoronno (Russian) - equilaterally.
mum - a 'pet' name for 'mother' + his mum (*A*)
bewilderment - mental confusion from inability to grasp or see one's way through a maze or tangle of impressions or ideas + Bewunderung (ger) - admiration.
chipper - lively, brisk, cheerful; 'chirpy' + FDV: in bewonderment of his chipper chubor chuthor making grafficking cyclopes
tutor - one employed in the supervision and instruction of a youth in a private household
Joyce makes undistorted use of the terminology of the Timaeus where Shem and Shaun are called 'Other' and the 'Same' respectively, while the 'Other', as in Plato, is made to move to the left 'with his sinister cyclopes' (Hart, Clive / Structure and motif in Finnegans wake) + Yeats: A Vision 68: 'The first gyres clearly described by philosophy are those described in the Timaeus which are made by the circuits of "the Other" (creators of all particular things), of the planets as they ascend or descend above or below the equator. They are opposite in nature to that circle of the fixed stars which constitutes "the Same" and confers upon us the knowledge of Universals'.
halp - obs. pa. tense of help + Yeats: A Vision 91 (book I, part II, sec. VI): 'In an antithetical phase the being seeks by the help of the Creative Mind to deliver the Mask from Body of Fate. In a primary phase the being seeks by the help of the Body of Fate to deliver the Creative Mind from the Mask'.
deliberate - to use consideration with a view to decision; to think carefully; to pause or take time for consideration + Leber (ger) - liver + liberate the masses.
Mund (ger) - mouth + corrupted (or corrective) mind
booty - plunder, gain, or profit acquired in common and destined to be divided among the winners; that which is taken from an enemy in war
holp - pa. tense and pple. of help
bounty - goodness shown in giving, gracious liberality, munificence: usually attributed to God, or to the great and wealthy, who have it in their power to give largely and liberally.
lubber - to behave as a lubber, to loaf about; to navigate a boat like a lubber + deliberate
muffetee - a worsted cuff worn on the wrist
cuff - a fetter for the wrist, a handcuff
unconsciously + automatic writing of Yeats' wife led to A Vision (related in the introduction).
graphikos (gr) - capable of drawing, skilled in writing + graffiare (it) - to scratch, to scribble.
cyclope - resembling a Cyclops; one-eyed, or using one eye
trigamy - the state of having three wives or husbands at the same time; the crime of contracting a third marriage while two previous spouses are alive + trigonometry.
wobble - the action or an act of wobbling; an unsteady rocking motion or movement + Yeats: A Vision 70 (book I, part I, sec. II): 'Flaubert... talked much of writing a story called "La Spirale"... It would have described a man whose dreams during sleep grew in magnificence as his life grew more and more unlucky'.
Hamilton, Sir William Rowan (1805-65) - Dubliner, mathematician. He discovered quaternions.
Earl of Godolphin (1645-1712) served under four monarchs + Dolph.
T.S. Eliot: The Waste Land
Jesus - a figure or representation of Jesus Christ + FDV: and after trigonies repeat pursuiting theirselves themselves like godolphing in fairlove to see allover the waste of Brown & Nolan's Nolan's Brown paper
lubberly - coarse of figure and dull of intellect; clumsy; stupid + lovely
white elephant - fig. A burdensome or costly possession (from the story that the kings of Siam were accustomed to make a present of one of these animals to courtiers who had rendered themselves obnoxious, in order to ruin the recipient by the cost of its maintenance); Also, an object, scheme, etc., considered to be without use or value + REFERENCE
tabhair (tur) (gael) - give
quarto - the size of paper obtained by folding a whole sheet twice, so as to form four leaves, in which as a rule the height is not markedly in excess of the breadth; a book composed of paper in this form.
Sturm (ger) - storm
Drang (ger) - violence + Sturm und Drang (ger) - Storm and Stress (literary movement carrying to furthest consequences doctrine of rights of individual).
juggler (Slang) - fornicator + juggal (Gipsy) - dog (in Borrow: Romano Lavo-Lil) + jugular veins.
quench - to destroy, kill (a person); to oppress or crush (Now rare.)
quill - the feather of a large bird (usually a goose) formed into a pen by pointing and slitting the lower end of the barrel + quille (French Slang) - penis.
napier - the person having charge of the royal table linen + Napier, John (1550-1617) - Scottish mathematician, invented logarithms + nape.
scrag - rough, rocky and barren ground; the neck (of a human being) + FDV: till that on him so poor in poorin sweat the juggler juggler's veins in his scraw scrag stood forestood out burstable burstright taut tightropes.
birthright (which Esau sold)
tamquam - something that has only an apparent existence, a mere seeming