ACE of SWORDS

THELEMA

2 of SWORDS

'PEACE'/ DECISION

"I will not sleep here tonight. Home also I cannot go. " (U.1)

3 of SWORDS

SORROW

"a photocard of the Queen’s Hotel, Ennis, proprietor, Rudolph Bloom: an envelope addressed: To My Dear Son Leopold.

What fractions of phrases did the lecture of those five whole words evoke?

Tomorrow will be a week that I received... it is no use Leopold to be ... with your dear mother... that is not more to stand... to her... all for me is out... be kind to Athos, Leopold... my dear son... always... of me... das Herz... Gott... dein... " (U.17)

5 of SWORDS

DEFEAT

"—Pooh! Buck Mulligan said. We have grown out of Wilde and paradoxes. It’s quite simple. He proves by algebra that Hamlet’s grandson is Shakespeare’s grandfather and that he himself is the ghost of his own father." (U.1)

"Her glazing eyes, staring out of death, to shake and bend my soul. On me alone. The ghostcandle to light her agony. Ghostly light on the tortured face. Her hoarse loud breath rattling in horror, while all prayed on their knees. Her eyes on me to strike me down. Liliata rutilantium te confessorum turma circumdet: iubilantium te virginum chorus excipiat.

Ghoul! Chewer of corpses!

No, mother! Let me be and let me live." (U.1)

Deshil Holles Eamus. Deshil Holles Eamus. Deshil Holles Eamus.

Send us bright one, light one, Horhorn, quickening and wombfruit. Send us bright one, light one, Horhorn, quickening and wombfruit. Send us bright one, light one, Horhorn, quickening and wombfruit.

Hoopsa boyaboy hoopsa! Hoopsa boyaboy hoopsa! Hoopsa boyaboy hoopsa!

Universally that person’s acumen is esteemed very little perceptive concerning whatsoever matters are being held as most profitably by mortals with sapience endowed to be studied who is ignorant of that which the most in doctrine erudite and certainly by reason of that in them high mind’s ornament deserving of veneration constantly maintain when by general consent they affirm that other circumstances being equal by no exterior splendour is the prosperity of a nation more efficaciously asserted than by the measure of how far forward may have progressed the tribute of its solicitude for that proliferent continuance which of evils the original if it be absent when fortunately present constitutes the certain sign of omnipollent nature’s incorrupted benefaction. For who is there who anything of some significance has apprehended but is conscious that that exterior splendour may be the surface of a downwardtending lutulent reality or on the contrary anyone so is there unilluminated as not to perceive that as no nature’s boon can contend against the bounty of increase so it behoves every most just citizen to become the exhortator and admonisher of his semblables and to tremble lest what had in the past been by the nation excellently commenced might be in the future not with similar excellence accomplished if an inverecund habit shall have gradually traduced the honourable by ancestors transmitted customs to that thither of profundity that that one was audacious excessively who would have the hardihood to rise affirming that no more odious offence can for anyone be than to oblivious neglect to consign that evangel simultaneously command and promise which on all mortals with prophecy of abundance or with diminution’s menace that exalted of reiteratedly procreating function ever irrevocably enjoined?

6 of SWORDS

SCIENCE

—That can be explained by science, says Bloom. It’s only a natural phenomenon, don’t you see, because on account of the...

And then he starts with his jawbreakers about phenomenon and science and this phenomenon and the other phenomenon.

The distinguished scientist Herr Professor Luitpold Blumenduft tendered medical evidence to the effect that the instantaneous fracture of the cervical vertebrae and consequent scission of the spinal cord would, according to the best approved tradition of medical science, be calculated to inevitably produce in the human subject a violent ganglionic stimulus of the nerve centres of the genital apparatus, thereby causing the elastic pores of the corpora cavernosa to rapidly dilate in such a way as to instantaneously facilitate the flow of blood to that part of the human anatomy known as the penis or male organ resulting in the phenomenon which has been denominated by the faculty a morbid upwards and outwards philoprogenitive erection in articulo mortis per diminutionem capitis." (U.12)

7 of SWORDS

FUTILITY

"—Mr Deasy told me to write them out all again, he said, and show them to you, sir.

Stephen touched the edges of the book. Futility. " (U.2)

"—Ma! Almidano Artifoni said.

He gazed over Stephen’s shoulder at Goldsmith’s knobby poll.

Two carfuls of tourists passed slowly, their women sitting fore, gripping the handrests. Palefaces. Men’s arms frankly round their stunted forms. They looked from Trinity to the blind columned porch of the bank of Ireland where pigeons roocoocooed.

—Anch’io ho avuto di queste idee, Almidano Artifoni said, quand’ ero giovine come Lei. Eppoi mi sono convinto che il mondo è una bestia. È peccato. Perchè la sua voce... sarebbe un cespite di rendita, via. Invece, Lei si sacrifica.

—Sacrifizio incruento, Stephen said smiling, swaying his ashplant in slow swingswong from its midpoint, lightly.

—Speriamo, the round mustachioed face said pleasantly. Ma, dia retta a me. Ci rifletta.

By the stern stone hand of Grattan, bidding halt, an Inchicore tram unloaded straggling Highland soldiers of a band.

—Ci rifletterò, Stephen said, glancing down the solid trouserleg.

—Ma, sul serio, eh? Almidano Artifoni said.

His heavy hand took Stephen’s firmly. Human eyes. They gazed curiously an instant and turned quickly towards a Dalkey tram.

—Eccolo, Almidano Artifoni said in friendly haste. Venga a trovarmi e ci pensi. Addio, caro.

—Arrivederla, maestro, Stephen said, raising his hat when his hand was freed. E grazie.

—Di che? Almidano Artifoni said. Scusi, eh? Tante belle cose!

Almidano Artifoni, holding up a baton of rolled music as a signal, trotted on stout trousers after the Dalkey tram. In vain he trotted, signalling in vain among the rout of barekneed gillies smuggling implements of music through Trinity gates. " (U.10)

8 of SWORDS

INTERFERENCE

9 of SWORDS

CRUELTY

"THE HONOURABLE MRS MERVYN TALBOYS: (Stamps her jingling spurs in a sudden paroxysm of fury.) I will, by the God above me. I’ll scourge the pigeonlivered cur as long as I can stand over him. I’ll flay him alive. " (U.15)

10 of SWORDS

RUIN

Lonely Penelope:

"I dont like being

alone in this big barracks of a place at night I suppose Ill have to put

up with it I never brought a bit of salt in even when we moved in the

confusion musical academy he was going to make on the first floor

drawingroom with a brassplate or Blooms private hotel he suggested go and

ruin himself altogether the way his father did down in Ennis like all the

things he told father he was going to do and me but I saw through him

telling me all the lovely places we could go for the honeymoon Venice by

moonlight with the gondolas and the lake of Como he had a picture cut out

of some paper of and mandolines and lanterns O how nice I said whatever I

liked he was going to do immediately if not sooner will you be my man

will you carry my can he ought to get a leather medal with a putty rim

for all the plans he invents then leaving us here all day youd never know

what old beggar at the door for a crust with his long story might be a

tramp and put his foot in the way to prevent me shutting it like that" (U. 18)

"The boy's blank face asked the blank window.

Fabled by the daughters of memory. And yet it was in some way if not as

memory fabled it. A phrase, then, of impatience, thud of Blake's wings of

excess. I hear the ruin of all space, shattered glass and toppling

masonry, and time one livid final flame. What's left us then?" (U.2)

"(HE LIFTS HIS ASHPLANT HIGH WITH BOTH HANDS AND SMASHES THE CHANDELIER.

TIME'S LIVID FINAL FLAME LEAPS AND, IN THE FOLLOWING DARKNESS, RUIN OF

ALL SPACE, SHATTERED GLASS AND TOPPLING MASONRY.)" (U.15)