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Episode 14: Oxen of the Sun
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Ulysses, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Alienation and the Quest for Belonging
Literature, Meaning, and Perspective
Love and Sex
Fate vs. Free Will
Religion, Atheism, and Philosophy
Irish Identity and Nationalism
Summary
Analysis
Written in the form of a play script, this long episode of the novel mixes reality and fantasy into a kind of continuous nightmare. The stage directions explain that the scene opens in “nighttown,” Dublin’s red light district. The tram’s “skeleton tracks” stretch past “stunted” people who cluster around, eating coal-colored ice cream under faint gas lights. Anonymous lovers call out for one another and children frighten “a deafmute idiot” by suddenly restraining him. A man sleeps by a dustbin, a stunted man (or “gnome”) picks through the trash, and there are screaming, crashing, and murmuring sounds in the background.
In the Odyssey, the sorceress Circe transforms Odysseus’s men into pigs. Odysseus manages to rescue them with the help of a magic herb from the god Hermes, but in the process, he goes mad and falls in love with Circe. The parallels to this episode should be clear: Bloom goes into nighttown to rescue Stephen, who has been transformed by drunkenness and despair. Bloom has a close call with a prostitute, but narrowly manages to escape. “Circe” is without a doubt the central episode in Ulysses. It picks out every character, theme, and idea mentioned in the novel so far, then remixes them into a nightmare. It also builds up to the long-awaited moment in which Stephen and Bloom truly (if briefly) reunite in the new roles of father and son. Still, the plot of “Circe” really only takes up a small portion of the episode. The rest consists of a series of wild visions (which could also be considered fantasies, hallucinations, or nightmares). These visions dig up and explore Bloom’s deepest fears and desires. In a way, then, “Circe” is like Ulysses’s unconscious. The novel’s other episodes focus on introspection in order to expose characters’ thoughts, feelings, and perceptions. But in “Circe,” Bloom’s repressed feelings and inner demons take human form and literally confront him. In order to get at this unconscious material, Joyce takes an entirely different approach to narrative and perspective: he writes “Circe” as a play. It’s set in Manto (“nighttown”), an extremely poor Dublin neighborhood that also served as Europe’s biggest red light district. According to the obscure, dystopian imagery in this opening scene, nighttown is more than just Dublin’s seedy underbelly: it’s a kind of horrific alternate reality full of death, despair, and cruelty. But it’s often extremely difficult to identify the line that separates reality from fantasy in this episode. In short, how literally should readers take Circe? Does Bloom really see the hallucinations, or are they just metaphors for his inner turmoil? (It’s worth remembering that at the end of the last episode Stephen drank absinthe, which causes hallucinations, but Bloom did not.) Most importantly, what is the relationship between “Circe” and the rest of the novel? Whose perspective does it take? The play-within-a-play has long been used as a plot device, but there’s no window dressing in “Circe”— Joyce gives his readers no context or instructions for interpreting this lengthy script. While most plays are written to be acted out and viewed by an audience, this one clearly isn’t. Is it a real view into Bloom’s journey through nighttown, or is it a deliberately-inflated performance based on a loose interpretation of events? Joyce’s novel has been full of unreliable narrators so far (like the debt collector in “Cyclops” and Gerty MacDowell in “Nausicaa”). So the reader has little reason to believe that the playwright behind “Circe” is more reliable just because they don’t speak in their own voice. These important questions about voice and perspective don’t get resolved, but they do add another layer of mystery to this complex episode.
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Cissy Caffrey’s voice sings a lewd song, and two drunk British soldiers, Private Carr and Private Compton, laugh and insult her while they march through the lane. They point at “the parson,” Stephen Dedalus, who is walking with Lynch and chanting the Latin mass. An elderly bawd calls them over, but they ignore her. Edy Boardman crouches in the street, narrating an argument with another woman. Stephen tells Lynch about his latest theory: gestures are a “universal language” that can reveal “the structural rhythm” of things.
It’s unclear why Cissy Caffrey and Edy Boardman, Gerty MacDowell’s friends from “Nausicaa,” are hanging around in nighttown. This is just one of the numerous mysteries in “Circe” that blur the line between reality and fantasy: there’s no reason for these young women to be around, but other characters who definitely are present seem to be interacting with them. There’s a good historical reason for British soldiers to be wandering around nighttown: they were stationed nearby, so they were the neighborhood’s main clientele. (In a pretty apt metaphor for the sins of British colonialism, English rule was basically responsible for building the brothel district.) Stephen and Lynch open the episode with a parody of the mass, just like Buck Mulligan did with the very beginning of the book. Meanwhile, Stephen’s drunken theory gives the reader a clue for how to interpret this episode: language is only an indirect expression of the true nature of things (which is better comprehensible through actions). Of course, if true, this would pose a real challenge to Stephen’s attempts to capture absolute truth and beauty through poetry.
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Stephen asks Lynch to hold his ashplant and explains that they’re looking for Georgina Johnson. Lynch refuses to hold Stephen’s stick and passes it straight back to him. Meanwhile, the twins Tommy and Jacky Caffrey climb a nearby lamppost, and a navvy (laborer) leans against it, struggling to walk. Suddenly, the navvy uproots the lamp and walks away with it.
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In the distance, Bloom appears through the fog, hiding bread and chocolate in his pocket. He sees different versions of himself in different windows and mirrors. Panting and exhausted, he buys something in the pork butcher Olhausen’s shop. Then, he notices a huge fire nearby. While crossing the street, he almost gets hit by a pair of cyclists and then a trolley. He reminds himself that he needs to start exercising and wonders if the tram driver responsible for this incident was the same one who once ran over his shoe, or who blocked his view of the woman in the carriage that morning.
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Overcome with “brainfogfag,” Bloom chats in Spanish with “a sinister figure” wearing a sombrero, who turns out to be a spy for the nationalist Gaelic League sent by the citizen. A “sackshouldered ragman” blocks Bloom’s path, and then Jacky and Tommy Caffrey barge into him. Bloom checks his pockets and warns himself to be prepared for these dangers. He passes a series of suspicious figures.
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Bloom hears the voice of his father, who criticizes him for wasting money on drinks, then touches his face to identify him. A scene from the past replays: Bloom’s father reprimanding him for running with his friends and falling in the mud, and then Bloom’s mother suddenly materializes to express shock at her son’s appearance.
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Next, Molly appears, wearing a Turkish costume. There’s a gold coin on her forehead, and an obedient camel picks her a mango from a tree. When Bloom starts proclaiming how he can serve Molly, she calls him “a poor old stick in the mud.” He deferentially promises that he will still get Molly’s lotion tomorrow—his bar of soap rises in place of the sun, and the pharmacist shows up to collect a payment. Disdainful, Molly starts humming “Là ci darem” and walks away.
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Before Bloom can run after Molly, the elderly bawd grabs him and offers him a tryst with Bridie Kelly for ten shillings. A man chases after Bridie, who runs off into the darkness. Gerty MacDowell shows up and tells Bloom that she hates him—but Bloom denies knowing her. The bawd sends Gerty off, but before she goes, Gerty tells Bloom that she loves him for what he did.
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Next, Mrs. Breen materializes and asks what Bloom is doing in nighttown. Bloom tries to greet her politely and chat about the weather, but Breen threatens to tell Molly where she’s seen him. Bloom replies that Molly is also into “the exotic,” like Black men, and then he sees two figures who embody the racist stereotype of singing Black banjo-players. They sing a song and then dance away into the fog. Bloom proposes “a mixed marriage mingling” arrangement to Mrs. Breen. They start flirting and reminiscing about their romance, which began during a party at Georgina Simpson’s house, when Mrs. Breen was still the unmarried Josie Powell.
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Bloom slips a ruby ring on Mrs. Breen’s finger, but says that he was dismayed that she married Denis Breen instead of him. Suddenly, Denis shuffles past as one of the Hely’s sandwichboard advertisers. Alf Bergan follows him, points, laughs, and says, “U. p: up.” Breen offers Bloom a kiss and asks if he’s brought her a present. Bloom says he’s brought a Kosher snack and claims that he was busy at the play Leah all evening.
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Richie Goulding shows up with his heavy legal bag and starts selling the sausage, fish, and pills that are inside. The bald waiter Pat materializes with a plate of steak and kidneys. The lamp-carrying navvy runs by, and Richie yells out in pain, “Bright’s! Light’s!” Bloom warns that the navvy is a spy, and Mrs. Breen starts criticizing Bloom for his “humbugging and deluthering” (or deceptiveness).
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While the old bawd heckles them, Bloom offers to tell Mrs. Breen a secret. Once again pleasant and agreeable, Josie Breen agrees. Bloom reminisces about going to the races with Josie, Molly, and some other friends. Bloom and Josie started to flirt in the carriage, but as they remember the scene, Mrs. Breen starts repeating, “yes, yes, yes,” then fades into nothingness.
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Now alone, Bloom trudges ahead through nighttown. He sees a group of loiterers: two armless men are wrestling, and another man talks about the time Bloom accidentally used a bucket of beer as a toilet, while the rest laugh. (Bloom is still embarrassed by this mistake.) Bloom passes a chattering chorus of disheveled prostitutes and sees the navvy fighting with Privates Compton and Carr outside a brothel. Wondering whether he’ll find Stephen at all, Bloom asks why he’s even looking for the young man. A piece of graffiti reminds him of Molly drawing on a frosted windowpane, and the smell of cigarettes reminds him of The Sweets of Sin.
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Bloom decides that his snacks were a waste of money and starts playing with a kind dog that has been following him. He reluctantly pulls out the pork he bought from the butcher and feeds it to the dog. Suddenly, two policemen approach Bloom, who insists that he’s “doing good to others.” Cake-munching seagulls fly past and drunk Bob Doran briefly materializes to pet the dog. Bloom explains that he’s good to animals, and a gaudily-dressed lion tamer starts discussing the painful punishments he uses to control his lions.
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When the policemen ask for Bloom’s name and address, Bloom claims to be the dentist with the same name, and then pretends to belong to the Legion of Honor. The white card falls out of his hat, identifying Bloom as Henry Flower, and then he pulls a flower out of his pocket and tries to explain that his name is a joke. Martha shows up and asks Bloom to “clear [her] name,” while Bloom tells the police that he’s innocent and merely being mistaken for someone else. He says he’s an innocent, respectable, but misunderstood man and notes that his father-in-law is the war hero Majorgeneral Tweedy. He claims to have fought for the British in the Boer War in South Africa.
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The police ask for Bloom’s occupation, and he says he’s an “author-journalist.” Suddenly, Myles Crawford turns up with copies of the “Freeman’s Urinal” and the “Weekly Arsewipe.” Next, the prize-winning storywriter Philip Beaufoy materializes on a witness stand and declares that Bloom is a petty plagiarist who copied his stories. Bloom meekly criticizes Beaufoy’s story, while Beaufoy extravagantly mocks Bloom for never going to university and accuses him of “moral rottenness.”
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The police call the servant girl Mary Driscoll in their case, “The King versus Bloom.” While Bloom protests that he treated Driscoll well, giving her presents and defending her against accusations of pilfering, Driscoll explains that Bloom once approached her behind the house and tried to take advantage of her. The court announces that “the accused will now make a bogus statement,” and surely enough, Bloom goes on “a long unintelligible speech” about his childhood and his desire to live a peaceful life with his loving family. Everyone laughs at Bloom, who then gets cross-examined about the mess he made in the bucket of beer on Beaver Street.
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The lawyer J.J. O’Molloy defends Bloom, claiming that he’s merely an “errant mortal” and “poor foreign immigrant” trying to “turn an honest penny.” Bloom never wanted intimacy with Driscoll, O’Molloy claims, but rather was merely acting out the primitive desires hidden away in his foreign Mongol blood. Bloom starts babbling in an imitation of Chinese people struggling to speak English, and he gets laughed down again.
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O’Molloy continues his defense, arguing that the respectable Bloom treated Driscoll like “his very own daughter” and would never “do anything ungentlemanly” to degrade a virtuous girl. In fact, O’Molloy now identifies Bloom as “the whitest man I know” and explains that he’s struggling financially, having mortgaged his Middle Eastern fruit fields. Moses Dlugacz mystically appears, holding oranges and pork kidneys. O’Molloy transforms into the sickly legal genius John F. Taylor and then the eloquent defender Seymour Bushe, who asks for Bloom to get “the sacred benefit of the doubt.”
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Bloom presents a list of character references, but he accidentally starts lying about talking to the great astronomer Sir Robert Ball. In response, several respectable women stand to testify against Bloom. Mrs. Yelverton Barry reports that Bloom wrote her a letter praising her “peerless globes.” Mrs. Bellingham says he also wrote to her, complimenting her furs and legs before proposing she “commit adultery at the earliest possible opportunity” with him. Dressed as an Amazon and carrying a hunting crop, The Honourable Mrs. Mervyn Talboys calls Bloom a “plebian Don Juan” and accuses him of sending her a nude photograph of Molly and a letter requesting that she chastise and whip him.
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These three women (and several others) hold up letters from Bloom. Mrs. Talboys threatens to “flay [Bloom] alive,” and Bloom squirms in delight and says he “love[s] the danger.” He asks for a mere spanking, but she promises to unleash her “dormant tigress” on him. Mrs. Bellingham and Mrs. Barry cheer her on, while Bloom begs for forgiveness. Mrs. Talboys names Bloom a “wellknown cuckold” and threatens to lower his trousers. As evidence, the newsboy Davy Stephen brings in a newspaper listing “all the cuckolds in Dublin,” Father O’Hanlon displays Father Conroy’s marble cuckoo clock, and the brass rings on Bloom’s bed start jingling.
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A cloud of fog lifts to show the trial’s jury, which comprises most of the men Bloom met throughout the day. The court crier officially lists Bloom’s crimes (planting bombs, forgery, bigamy, prostitution, cuckoldry, and public nuisance). Recorder Frederick Falkiner sentences Bloom to death by hanging, and Long John Fanning asks, “Who’ll hang Judas Iscariot?” The master barber H. Rumbold volunteers.
In a desperate attempt to save himself, Bloom starts rambling and asks to talk to Hynes. The policemen accuse Bloom of planting a bomb, which was really the pig’s foot he fed to the dog. The dog appears, expands to the size of a man, and reveals that it’s Paddy Dignam. Dignam confirms that Bloom was at his funeral. He speaks the Hamlet ghost’s words in Esau’s voice and claims to be undergoing metempsychosis. Dignam summarizes the story of his death, then John O’Connell and Father Coffey show up to reenact his funeral. Dog-Dignam crawls into a hole, followed by a hungry rat. Tom Rochford shows up with his machine, then looks for Reuben J. Dodd in a manhole.
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Bloom pushes through the fog and sees personified kisses flying around his head, with cutesy messages for him. He hears church music and meets Zoe Higgins, a young prostitute, who reports that Stephen and Lynch are inside Mrs. Cohen’s brothel. Zoe asks if Bloom is Stephen’s father—he says no—and then sticks her hand down his pants. She pulls out his lucky potato and decides to keep it. Charmed, Bloom hears “oriental music” and imagines an exoticized scene of the East, complete with gazelles, a white “womancity,” roses, and wine. The garlic-breathed Zoe bites on Bloom’s ear, and he sees kings’ gold and bones in place of the roses.
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Zoe asks for a cigarette, but Bloom explains that he doesn’t smoke. She invites him to “make a stump speech,” and he starts proudly talking about the dangers of tobacco. Another fantasy takes over. Church bells chime, and Bloom is declared the mayor of Dublin. He discusses building a tramline to bring cattle across the city, and the city’s nobility appears to celebrate him. The former mayor proposes distributing his brilliant speech in the papers and naming a street after him.
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Bloom starts talking about the dangers of industrial machinery, and suddenly all of Dublin starts to celebrate in his honor. John Howard Parnell leads a parade that also includes numerous other political, religious, and economic leaders. Sitting on a white horse under an arch, Bloom is proclaimed “emperor-president and king-chairman,” and all of Dublin cries out, “God save Leopold the First!”
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Bloom swears his oath and takes his throne, then immediately sends Molly away and marries “the princess Selene, the splendour of night.” John Howard Parnell names Bloom as his brother Charles’s rightful successor. Bloom receives the keys and charter to Dublin, then starts speaking of a great military victory and proclaiming the beginning of “a new era.” He will build “the golden city which is to be, the new Bloomusalem.” A group of workmen immediately start building the new Bloomusalem, a huge kidney-shaped building. In the process, the workmen tear down much of Dublin, and several of them die dramatic deaths.
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Suddenly, the man in the brown macintosh emerges from a trapdoor and declares that Bloom is an impostor, and his real name is Higgins. Bloom orders the man shot, and he and most of Bloom’s enemies are killed. Bloom’s bodyguard gives out gifts and prizes, while a mob of women assembles to fight for Bloom’s attention. Bloom generously greets the people of Dublin, tickling babies, playing with children, and performing tricks for his audience. Even the citizen praises Bloom.
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Bloom dispenses perfect financial, medical, astronomical, gardening, and parenting advice to a series of needy Dubliners. He orders a series of exaggerated public reforms, including “free money, free rent, free love and a free lay church.” He starts singing and telling jokes, and he’s declared “the funniest man on earth.” Attractive women start committing suicide because of their love for him.
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Suddenly, the preacher Alexander J. Dowie begins speaking out against Bloom, declaring him a debaucherous disgrace and hypocritical heretic. A lynch mob assembles and throws trash at him, and he responds by quoting Shakespeare and claiming that his brother, Henry, is guilty. The “sex specialist” Dr. Buck Mulligan appears and gives convoluted medical testimony about Bloom’s sexual problems. Doctors Madden, Crotthers, and Punch Costello agree, and Dr. Dixon explains that Bloom is an “example of the new womanly man.” Bloom then gives birth to eight boys, who instantly become respectable, well-educated gentlemen with prominent jobs.
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A mysterious voice declares that Bloom is the Messiah. Bloom performs a series of acrobatic miracles, then twists his face into those of famous historical figures. A representative of the Vatican recounts Bloom’s entire lineage, showing that he descends from Moses, and a hand appears to write “Bloom is a cod” on a wall.
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A crab, a baby, and a hollybush accuse Bloom of doing something sinister in public. His head and arms are put in a pillory, and children dance in circles around him, singing degrading songs. Hornblower the porter announces that people will start throwing fake stones at Bloom and defiling him, and they do. Old friends mock him, and Reuben J. Dodd appears with his son’s corpse. The Dublin fire department sets fire to Bloom, who tells the “daughters of Erin [Ireland]” not to cry for him. Then, a choir of Erin’s daughters appears in black robes, with prayerbooks and candles, and asks for prayers from symbols representing the novel’s different episodes (like “Kidney of Bloom” and “Wandering Soap”). A much larger choir follows them and sings a chorus from Handel’s Messiah.
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Zoe reappears and tells Bloom to “talk away till [he’s] black in the face.” Bloom briefly assumes the role of an Irish peasant longing to go home, and he gives a dramatic speech asking to leave. Zoe makes fun of him and criticizes his insincerity. Bloom calls her “a necessary evil” and starts feeling her nipples. She asks for ten shillings and offers to take Bloom inside. Bloom complains about Molly getting jealous and then starts to babble like an infant. But Zoe tempts him to go inside. He has a vision of “all the male brutes” who have been with her, and he trips on his way up the front steps. Inside, a man walks by like an ape and Bloom sniffs around like a dog as he follows Zoe to the music room.
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In the music room, Lynch is on the rug, keeping time with a wand. The prostitute Kitty Ricketts sits on the table, and Stephen prods at the pianola, playing perfect fifths. Florry Talbot, another prostitute, is laying on the couch. Stephen rants incomprehensibly about music, and Lynch’s hat mockingly challenges him to finish a coherent idea instead of just stringing together sophisticated-sounding nonsense. Stephen says that, because a perfect fifth is “the greatest possible interval,” it represents the furthest point that something (like “God, the sun, Shakespeare, [or] a commercial traveller”) can travel from its home before starting to make a homecoming.
Florry Talbot says that she read in the paper that the Antichrist is arriving soon, and newsboys run by, confirming the news. “Reuben J. Antichrist, wandering Jew” hobbles into view with his son’s body, which is hanging from a boat pole. Punch Costello appears in the form of a hobgoblin and tumbles around, yelling in French. Florry Talbot repeats that the world is indeed ending.
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A rocket explodes in the sky, releasing a white star, and a two-headed octopus starts twirling around and talking in a Scottish accent. The prophet Elijah starts speaking about the end of the world in a slick American accent and yelling at God (or “Mr. President”) about whether Florry, Zoe, and Kitty are devout enough. Each of the women reveals when they first had sex. Stephen’s drinking buddies appear, representing Jesus’s eight beatitudes from the Sermon on the Mount. Then, the librarians Lyster, Best, and Eglinton pass by, dressed absurdly and arguing about the value of beauty versus truth. Finally, the Celtic God of the Underworld, Mananaun MacLir, materializes and starts talking about Hinduism.
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Lynch tosses Zoe a cigarette, then starts lifting up her skirt. She’s not wearing any underwear, but he pretends that he’s not looking. Bloom is, and then he launches into another fantasy: his grandfather, Lipoti Virag, shoots through the chimney into the room, wearing a brown macintosh. He comments in detail on the three prostitutes. Zoe isn’t wearing any underwear and has an injection mark on her thigh. Kitty dresses carefully to hide her thin frame and is faking her sadness. Florry has impressive “protuberances” both at the chest and rear, but Bloom doesn’t like her stye (a kind of eye bump due to bacterial infection). Bloom and Virag discuss medical remedies for the stye.
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Virag encourages Bloom to think harder. He mentions various medical procedures and Bloom’s forgotten ambitions, then he starts talking about the sex lives of insects and refers Bloom to his book, Fundamentals of Sexology. They compare aphrodisiac oysters to women’s bodies and think about animals drinking women’s breastmilk. Virag talks to the moth circling the lamp, and the moth talks back with a childish poem. Henry Flower, Bloom’s alter ego, appears as a handsome, well-dressed gentleman in a sombrero. Then all three versions of Bloom are together: “Virag truculent,” “Grave Bloom,” and “Henry gallant.”
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Stephen mutters to himself about returning home. Florry asks him to sing “Love’s Old Sweet Song,” but he refuses, since he’s a “most finished artist.” Stephen imagines an argument between two personalities: “Philip Sober,” who tells him to settle his debts, and “Philip Drunk” who rants passionately about music and philosophy.
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Zoe reports that a priest came to visit her, and Lipoti Virag responds that this is a logical expression of the Christian belief in humankind’s original sin. He goes on to describe this original sin in colorful, vulgar detail. Zoe explains that the priest “couldn’t get a connection,” and Virag howls at the moon like a werewolf and declares that Jesus was a bastard and charlatan. Kitty mentions a colleague named Mary, whose child died of convulsions, and Lynch calls the three prostitutes “three wise virgins.” Virag accuses the Virgin Mary of adultery.
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Ben Dollard appears as a strapping, hairy brute and starts to sing, which prompts the virgin nurses Callan and Quigley to burst in the room and jump at him. Holding a woman’s severed head, Henry Flower grooms himself and then leaves. Virag unscrews his own head and follows Flower out. As they chat about the clergy, Florry jokes that Stephen is “a spoiled priest,” and Lynch says that his father is a cardinal. Stephen appears as a Catholic cardinal, wearing a tattered uniform. Cardinal Dedalus cites a solemn verse, then sings a merry limerick, gets attacked by flies, and walks off into the distance singing a solemn song.
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A man opens a door, leaves the brothel, and lingers on the stairs outside. Bloom instinctively offers Zoe some chocolate and starts wondering whether the man was Boylan. Bloom imagines himself in a fancy fur overcoat and pleads for the man to leave, which he does. Bloom wonders if the chocolate is an aphrodisiac and tells himself that, unlike the priest, he has to finish when he sleeps with Zoe.
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The “massive whoremistress” Bella Cohen enters the room, wearing an elegant gown and holding a large handheld fan. She stares at Bloom, who imagines that her fan starts talking to him. The fan notes that Bloom is married, declares that they already know each other from his dreams, and promises that Bella will dominate him. Bloom enthusiastically asks to be dominated. The fan insists that Bloom tie Bella’s bootlaces—an old fantasy of his—and he does it with relish. The hoof of Bella’s boot taunts and threatens Bloom, whose face starts sagging like a dog’s.
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Bella demands Bloom’s praise, then forces him to walk on all fours like an animal. (For several pages, the novel refers to Bella as “Bello” and uses male pronouns for her, while using the conventionally female pronouns she/her/hers for Bloom.) Bella grinds her heel into Bloom’s neck, then uses him as a footstool and demands his obedience. After promising to obey, Bloom hides under the sofa out of fear. Bella sweetly coaxes Bloom out, then drags him across the floor by his hair and starts promising to cruelly punish him. Bella twists Bloom’s arm, slaps him in the face, and sits on top of him while smoking a cigar and talking about stock prices.
Bella rides Bloom like a horse, and he mutters, “not man […] woman.” She comments that he’s getting what he always wanted, and she orders him to change into women’s silk clothing. Bella promises to treat Bloom like any other prostitute, making him wear makeup, perfume, and a tight corset. Bella reminds Bloom of when he tried on Molly’s clothes and posed in Miriam Dandrade's underwear, and a chorus of voices called “the sins of the past” appears to reveal Bloom’s most egregious fantasies. Bella asks Bloom to reveal his worst fantasy of all, but he can’t get the words out. Bella tells Bloom he will have to clean up after the other ladies at the brothel, in addition to working as a prostitute. She auctions off Bloom’s virginity, and an unknown buyer offers one hundred pounds.
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Bella starts taunting Bloom by reminding him that “a man of brawn” (Blazes Boylan) has taken his place as Molly’s lover. Bloom pleads for forgiveness from Molly, but Bella says it’s too late. Bloom has a vision of Molly as a young girl, but he soon realizes that it’s really Milly, his daughter. Bella points out that Bloom chased other women while ignoring his wife, so it’s no surprise that other men are now taking his place in his bed. She tells him to die and leave her everything he owns in his will. Bloom weeps while a crowd of Jewish men prays for him.
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A nymph appears out of a funeral pyre and tells Bloom to stop crying. She says that he found her “in evil company” and reveals that she comes from a photo in a pornographic magazine, which Bloom tore out and framed on his and Molly’s bedroom wall. Bloom kisses the nymph and praises her body, but she reminds him about all the vile things that she has seen in his bedroom, like the soiled clothes and the broken commode.
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Bloom hears the sound of the Poulaphouca Waterfall, which he visited on a field trip in high school. Adolescent Bloom appears and the yew trees accuse him of doing something profane underneath them. Bloom struggles to justify his behavior, remembering his crush on Lotty Clarke and insisting that nobody saw him. Besides, all the girls found him too ugly. Bloom remembers a goat bleating on Howth Hill and imagines a dummy of himself rolling off a cliff.
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Arching her body seductively, the nymph proclaims that immortals are “stonecold and pure,” and Bloom confesses more sins. Meanwhile, Kitty, Florry, Lynch, and Zoe comment that one of the cushions is hot, after someone sat on it. Bloom finds this warmth exciting, but the nymph—now dressed as a nun—insists that desire is wrong. Bloom’s pants button flies off, and he tells the nymph and the yew trees that he has won. Sure enough, the trees get wet and a huge stain appears on the nymph’s robe. The nymph curses and attacks Bloom, who grows more confident, then cracks open and lets out “a cloud of stench.” Next, Bloom turns to Bella and insults her viciously. (Among other things, he points out her double chin and suggests that she hasn’t cleaned up from her last client yet.)
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Bloom takes his potato back from Zoe, who has been hiding it in her stocking. Bella approaches Stephen at the pianola, and with excessive deference and politeness, he repeatedly pays her the wrong amount, leaving enough for the men to see all three of the women. Bloom insists on paying for himself and returning Stephen his extra money. A matchbox tumbles out of the neglectful Stephen’s pocket, and Bloom offers to watch Stephen’s cash so that he doesn’t lose it all. Stephen nonchalantly hands over his money, then he struggles to light a cigarette as he muses about Georgina Johnson getting “dead and married.” Zoe and Florry explain that her husband is a Londoner named Mr. Lambe. Stephen drops his cigarette and tells himself that he has to fix his glasses, which he broke yesterday. Bloom tosses Stephen’s cigarette away and proposes that he stop smoking and eat something instead.
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Zoe reads Stephen’s palm and concludes that he’s courageous, but Lynch thinks that Zoe clearly isn’t any good at reading palms. Suddenly, Father Conmee and Stephen’s old schoolmaster Father Dolan spring out of the pianola and briefly reenact a scene from Stephen’s childhood: Dolan accuses Stephen of pretending to break his glasses, but Conmee believes that it was really an accident. Zoe tells Stephen that he has a woman’s hand, and that he’ll meet “influential friends” because he was born on a Thursday. She also sees some bad omens in his palm, but she doesn’t tell him what they are.
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Next, Zoe reads the skeptical Bloom’s palm. At first, she says that he’ll travel and marry rich, but he says that’s wrong. Then, she sees his little finger and concludes that he’s a “henpicked husband.” A giant hen pops up from the void and cluck-cluck-clucks, and then Bloom admits that he cut his hand twenty-two years before, at age sixteen. Stephen points out that he is twenty-two, and he also had an accident sixteen years ago.
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While Zoe and Florry whisper in secret, Bloom imagines Lenehan and Blazes Boylan passing by in a carriage while the Ormond Hotel barmaids Lydia Douce and Mina Kennedy watch them from a distance. Boylan declares that he was “plucking a turkey” and has Lenehan sniff his finger (which smells of “lobster and mayonnaise”). Boylan jumps out of the carriage, uses Bloom’s “antlered head” as a hat-stand, and tosses Bloom some change so that he can buy himself a drink. Bloom obediently lets Boylan go upstairs for his “private business” with Molly, who invites him to visit her in the bath. Molly and Boylan agree to let Bloom watch them have sex through the bathroom keyhole. Mina Kennedy and Lydia Douce comment on Molly and Boylan’s technique while the couple yells out in pleasure and Bloom cheers them on.
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Lynch randomly comments, “the mirror up to nature,” quoting Hamlet. Stephen and Bloom look into the mirror and see William Shakespeare looking back at them and talking incoherently. Bloom asks the three prostitutes what they’re privately giggling about, but they don’t want to tell. Then, Bloom has a vision of Mrs. Dignam running by with her children, wearing her late husband’s trousers and carrying his insurance policy. Shakespeare’s face transforms into Martin Cunningham’s. Cunningham’s wife appears next to him and starts singing and twirling around, drunk. Stephen starts talking about Noah getting drunk on the ark, and Bella tells him to stop. Lynch clarifies that he has just come back from Paris. Impressed, Zoe asks Stephen for “some parleyvoo.” Stephen starts ranting about Parisian sexual adventures, imagining a series of absurd fetishes. The women find this hilarious.
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Stephen recalls his dream from the night before, in which an unfamiliar man offered him melons and led him through a “street of harlots” covered with red carpet. Bloom tells Stephen to look around, but Stephen ignores him and, instead, cries out “Pater! [Father!] Free!” His father Simon Dedalus flies around above him like a buzzard, yelling that he must preserve the bloodline. A group of men with hounds hunts down the fox that has just finished burying its grandmother. A crowd yells out betting odds during a horserace, where a dark horse without a jockey pulls out way in front. Meanwhile, the ridiculously-dressed Mr. Deasy rides Cock of the North, the horse that was supposed to be the favorite.
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Private Carr, Private Compton, and Cissy Caffrey pass in the street, singing the song “My Girl’s a Yorkshire Girl.” The Yorkshire-born Zoe sticks two pennies in the pianola, which starts playing the same tune. The elderly Professor Goodwin staggers over to the piano, and Stephen and Zoe start to waltz. Dressed in pastel colors, Denis Maginni dances in and starts talking fancifully about his own talent. He choreographs a dance involving the different hours of the day, then yells the names of dance steps at Stephen in French. Stephen changes Zoe for Florry, then Florry for Kitty, and finally pairs Kitty with Lynch so that he can dance all alone with his ashplant.
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Suddenly, Simon Dedalus’s voice calls out and tells Stephen to “think of your mother’s people!” Stephen responds, “dance of death,” and he keeps whirling around the center of the room with his eyes closed, thinking of a number of images from his childhood. Suddenly, he stops, and Stephen’s mother’s decaying corpse rises up into the room from the floor. She points her empty eye-sockets at him and mouths something to him. Buck Mulligan pops up and says that “she’s beastly dead.” Stephen’s mother announces that she is dead and Stephen will be one day, too. Horrified, Stephen admits that some people are holding him responsible for her death.
Stephen’s mother remembers a line that Stephen sang to her from “Who goes with Fergus?” Stephen asks his mother to tell him “the word known to all men,” and she reminds him of acts of love and sacrifice she performed for his good. She asks him to repent for his sins, but he refuses, growing increasingly distraught. She shouts out that he must beware God, and Stephen angrily yells out, “Shite!” and “Non serviam!” (“I will not serve!”). His mother prays to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and begs God to “have mercy on Stephen,” as she fades back into the void. Stephen attacks the chandelier with his ashplant, shattering it and occasioning the end of all space and time.
Lynch tries to contain Stephen, while Bella calls for the police. Stephen runs out the door, and Bella demands that Bloom pay ten shillings for the broken lamp. Bloom tries to negotiate the price. He points out that students like Stephen are regular customers and he implies that Stephen has connections to powerful people. He tosses Bella a shilling and runs out.
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On the street, Bloom sees Corny Kelleher get out of a carriage, then runs off in the direction that Stephen went. Bloom passes through the nighttown crowd like Haroun Al Raschid, carrying Stephen’s ashplant. He feels like dozens of the Dubliners he met during the day are pursuing him, and he hears them calling out his name.
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Bloom finds Stephen arguing with Private Carr and Private Compton about his advances toward Cissy Caffrey. Too drunk for his own good, Stephen mocks the soldiers as they threaten to bash in his face. Bloom calls Stephen “professor” to win him sympathy and tries to calm him down. When Stephen insults the King of England, Edward VII himself appears with a bucket and promises to fairly adjudicate Stephen’s fight with the soldiers.
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Bloom apologizes to the soldiers on Stephen’s behalf, explaining that “he’s a gentleman, a poet,” who just drank too much of the “greeneyed monster” (absinthe). Stephen makes a joke about John Bull (a figure who represents England) attacking a green rag like an angry bull. Then, he imagines Kevin Egan as a matador. Hearing Stephen’s joke, the old bawd angrily proclaims that red (England) is as good as green (Ireland). The citizen materializes to voice his opposition to the English, and the croppy boy pops up, only for the “demon barber” H. Rumbold to hang and disembowel him.
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Private Carr is offended by Stephen’s comment, but Stephen announces that he doesn’t care and doesn’t have any more money to give away to the English. An Old Gummy Granny appears and starts wailing about Ireland’s ills, which makes Stephen realize that he can’t stand either side of the political debate. Pulling off his belt, Private Carr threatens to kill Stephen, and Bloom tries to make peace by pointing out that the English and Irish fought together in the Boer War. Major Tweedy and the citizen face off, shouting nationalist slogans at each other and comparing their war medals.
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Bloom desperately shakes Cissy Caffrey and pleads with her to make peace between Stephen and the soldiers. But she clings to Private Carr and says that she’s on his side, then starts calling for the police. Stephen hears screams and sees an apocalyptic scene of fire, brimstone, and unspeakable violence take over Dublin. Cannons fire, birds of prey circle, and the sun gets blacked out. Tom Rochford jumps into a giant chasm that opens in the earth. Witches fly past and knights duel. Stephen imagines Buck Mulligan as a priest and Haines as Reverend Love, leading worship services while a naked Mina Purefoy serves as the Virgin Mary. Damned souls say backwards prayers to “Dooooooooooog!” (instead of God).
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Bloom tries to enlist Lynch’s help in getting Stephen away from Private Carr, but Lynch runs off with Kitty Ricketts instead, and Stephen compares him to Judas. The Old Gummy Granny tells Stephen to fight, while Cissy Caffrey tells Private Carr that she forgives Stephen for insulting her. Carr attacks Stephen anyway, punching him in the face and knocking him down in front of the heckling crowd. Two policemen appear and start to question the soldiers. Bloom explains that the soldiers attacked Stephen, while Compton tries to restrain Carr.
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The undertaker Corny Kelleher joins the crowd while Bloom identifies Stephen to the police. Corny comments that Bloom won money on Throwaway at the races, and he convinces the police to go away by telling them that “boys will be boys.” Bloom politely bids the policemen goodbye. Corny pretends that he’s not really visiting nighttown, only driving a friend over, and Bloom promises that he’s just on his way home. Corny offers to give Stephen a ride to his home in Sandycove, but Stephen is still passed out on the ground, so Corny decides to get on with his night. He and Bloom say goodbye. While Corny jingles off in his carriage, the men communicate their pity for Stephen from a distance with hand gestures.
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Bloom tries to shake Stephen awake, but doesn’t succeed until his fourth try. Confused and half-asleep, Stephen asks if Bloom is a black panther or a vampire, and he quotes incoherently from “Who goes with Fergus?” Bloom helps Stephen clean himself up, then notices that Stephen looks like his mother. As he stands protectively over Stephen with the ashplant, Bloom imagines his dead son Rudy as a handsome schoolboy.
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