#stephen daedalus

In the second episode of Ulysses, we follow the prodigal son Stephen Daedalus to his workplace where he is a teacher. We pick up as Stephen is teaching a History lesson to a class of boys. Class lets out early for field hockey. One of the students, Sargent, hangs back to go over his arithmetic lesson with Stephen. After Mr. Deasy, Stephen’s boss, gets the boys organized on the field, he comes…

A Seventh Collection of Literary Maps

The Dreamlands, from the Dream Cycle stories of H.P. Lovecraft

Zothique, from the stories of Clark Ashton Smith

Hyperborea, from the stories of Clark Ashton Smith

The Travels of Ulysses, from The Iliad & The Odyssey, Homer

The Travels of Stephen Daedalus and Leopold Bloom, 16 June 1904; from Ulysses, James Joyce

Angria, from Tales of Angria, Charlotte & Branwell Brontë

Erewhon, from Erewhon, Samuel Butler

Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed. A Yellow dressinggown, ungirdled, was sustained gently behind him by the mild morning air. He held the bowl aloft and intoned: —Introibo ad altare Dei.

Thus begins Stephen Daedalus's very, very long day, 16 June 1904—perhaps the most famous date in literary history—as recounted in James Joyce's immortal Ulysses. The novel, its characters and author are now celebrated annually the world over with Bloomsday festivities.

As I roved out

As I roved out today on my bicycle, I did not hurry myself, being in a sour mood. It was almost sultry. The tide was in. The shore along Sandymount was populated by families, dogs, joggers, and as I made my way onto the Poolbeg Peninsula towards the Great South Wall I met more Central Europeans and Phillipinos in the mix.

I was accompanied on my ramble by several people, none in the flesh. Stephen Daedalus was with me as we 'walked to infinity along Sandymount Strand'. Then my father accompanied me past the Irish Glass Bottle factory, telling me about the Homeric struggles to set up the factory. Long before it was a 'property play', it was an initiative linked to Irish milk distribution... and my father recounted his part in this as I walked along the sli na slainte recently built there. I look back on these far off adventures of his as my pre-history, my Iliad. The day the kiln melted in Waterford Glass and with it their entire savings. The day their celebrations were interrupted with the news that the Shah of Sharjah, the co-signatory of their contract to build in the UAE, had been shot by his brother and the deal was off.

I reached the road past the 2 chimneys. I cycled to the Great South Wall, accompanied by Captain Bligh of the Bounty as he explained the problems they faced in building one of the longest sea walls in the world at the time, 1795.

So what made this ramble possible for me, and what made it special? A combination of conditions external and internal. Externally, the 18 degree heat was a help. The fact that it was a bank holiday Monday, with a general and timeless air of relaxed civic life. Internally, though, my initial moodiness gave way as I walked and cycled to a wide open easy curiosity and awareness of my surroundings. It became a ramble such as I imagine Thoreau would take. So I noticed things - an abandoned city, miniaturised in a rock, the pattern of yellow lichens on the rocks towards the Poolbeg Lighthouse. The views of the city offered by the new greenway through Irishtown Nature Park, which were new to me.

... and so I got to the state of mind we call contemplation. In which time becomes elastic. Breathing in the scene felt good. Thinking and breathing and walking went hand-in-hand, with the odd stint on the bike.