Met Whom What?

Jams ice mumanut, Met Whom What? Fritz Senn 2522 sk Zürich James Joyce Foundation ss a + \ ANT his note takes off from a remark that has been made in criticism several times—that Bloom in his explication of “metempsychosis” somehow mistakenly swerves into a related notion, metamorphosis, when he illustrates the term in his second didactic attempt: “They used to believe you could be changed into an animal or a tree, for instance” (U4.375-76).* As usual, Bloom is not really wrong (if the term has any meaning), but quite on target. Bloom’ serial explication of “metempsychosis,” after only a brief moment of getting his thoughts together, is surprisingly accurate: “That means the transmigration of souls” (U4.341). This could have been taken straight out of a reference book that Gerty MacDowell once consulted about “halcyon days,” “Walker's pronouncing dictionary” (U13.342-43), which reads: “The transmigration of the soul into the bodies of other animals, as taught by Pythagoras, and still believed in some parts of the East.” So the idea of transformation into animals or plants traditionally can be evoked by the term. The theosophists had later on tended to emphasize the idea as derived from Hinduism, in the more exclusive sense of purely human avatars. But it is on record that human souls can pass into the lower spheres. Rebuffed by Molly, in his resilient exemplifications Bloom indeed drifts away from the narrower concept towards a more general notion of transformation in the example already quoted, that “you could be changed into an animal or a tree, for instance. What they called nymphs, for example” (U4.376-77). As said before, such examples had been given in profusion by Ovid in his Metamorphoses, in which the first extended story relates to Daphnes change into the laurel. Ovid, however, also had anticipated Bloom in reverse direction-towards metempsychosis. From multiple mythological changes (gods into humans, humans into animals or plants,? also into heavenly bodies), the poem includes the doctrines of Pythagoras, whose description of the transmigration of souls takes up a great part of the last book, which also serves as a philosophical basis for the whole anthology of mythological changes. Pythagoras

Met Whom What? Fritz Senn Zurich James Joyce Foundation note takes off from a remark that has been made in criticism Bloom in his explication of "metempsycho This several times-that swerves into a related notion, metamor sis" somehow mistakenly when he illustrates the term in his second didactic attempt: to believe you could be used an animal or a tree, 'They changed into for instance" (U4.375-76).1 As usual, Bloomis not really wrong (if the term has any meaning), but quite on target. phosis, Bloom's serial explication of "metempsychosis," after only a brief moment of getting his thoughts accurate: together, is surprisingly "That means the transmigration of souls" (114.341). This could have been taken straight out of a reference book that Gerty MacDowell once consulted about dic "halcyon days," "Walker's pronouncing which "The of reads: the soul tionary" (U13.342-43), transmigration into the bodies of other animals, as taught by Pythagoras, and still in some parts of the East."2 So the idea of transformation believed can be evoked by the term. The into animals or plants traditionally on had to the idea as derived later tended theosophists emphasize in the more exclusive sense of purely human ava from Hinduism, tars, But it is on record that human souls can pass into the lower spheres. Rebuffed byMolly in his resilient exemplifications Bloom indeed towards a more concept away from the narrower general that "you in the example already quoted, notion of transformation could be changed into an animal or a tree, for instance, What they called nymphs, for example" (LT4.376-77). As said before, such ex in been in had profusion by Ovid in his Metamorphoses, given amples to the into relates which the first extended change story Daphne's laurel Ovid, however, also had anticipated Bloom in reverse direc From multiple tion -towards mythological metempsychosis. into animals or plants,3 also humans into humans, changes (gods of the doctrines includes the poem into heavenly bodies), takes souls of of the whose transmigration description Pythagoras, serves as a philosophical up a great part of the last book, which also of mythological basis for the whole changes. Pythagoras anthology drifts

nor is the term from Samos"4), is "a man most reference mention works used; "metempsychosis" Pythagoras as the inventor of the term. But his views are paraphrased at length. of them within nature. The They describe all kinds of changes, many reads like this: message metempsychotic is not named (he morte carent animae semperque priore relicta sede novis domibus vivunt habitantque receptae (Met.15.158-59) (our souls are deathless, and ever, when they have left their former seat, do they live in new abodes and dwell in the bodies that have received them-M^.377) Ulysses run like this: "For souls are free of preceding /Their former death. Howbeit, are they leaving evermore dwellings received and live again in new" (Arthur Golding, "Nor dies 1567); the Spirit, but new Life repeats / In other Forms, and only changes Seats" (John Dryden, 1693); "Souls are not subject to death; and left their former abode, they ever inhabit new having dwellings, and, there received, live on" (Henry T. Riley 1889).5 Poetic forms too undergo changes in different minds; thoughts find new habitations, Translations is that the semantic soul and a justification underlying all translation is somehow preserved in ever new verbal embodiments. Bloom is not quoting Ovid's poem, nor is Joyce, but some phras we go on ings almost might be taken over: "that living" (114.362; some "or other "vivunt"); planet" (U4.364; "novis domibus"). Dryden's to a recollection "and only changes seats" could even be aligned Barn when he and Bloom has of the times at Dolphin's first Molly we also learn "Musical much chairs. We later, played charades, and, two the last-Round Such pairings and round slow" (till.726-27). are not but allusive, intentionally simply inevitable, given the nature of the subject. The nings, soul in its wanderings as Bloom well knows, its previous does not remember in we and so he expands: have "They say it. Some their past lives" (U4.364-65). say they remember oblivion (the next epi Remembering, memory-and conversely on that theme)-are basic sode, "Lotus Eaters," will ring changes and recalls and elaborates on principles. Ulysses celebrates memory on their memories. manifold Its readers depend With distortions. out knowing on record it, Bloom evokes a ghost. The first person with a memory of a past life is again Pythagoras himself. He had the city against the been, as he claimed, a Trojan hero defending forgotten Greeks:

ipse ego (nam memini) Troiani tempore belli Panthoides Euphorbus eram (Met. 15:160-61) [for I remember it], in the days of the Trojan war was (I myself the son of Euphorbus, Panthous~Riley522) On one occasion he even recognized a literary reincarnation of his own shield. So Joyce makes hero before Odysseus, Troy un call in who his former existence had been a up Pythagoras, wittingly minor Trojan warrior, Euphorbus, on the opposite side of the camp. was killed sources Classical Euphorbus (II. 17.59,.81). by Menelaos Laertius gave an even more detailed like Diogenes account of the of that particular soul; traiTsmigrations Bloom, He had once been Aethalides and was accounted to be Hermes' son, and Hermes told him he might choose any gift he liked except immor tality; so he asked to retain through life and through death amemory of his experiences. Hence in life he could recall everything, and when he died he still kept the same memories. Afterwards in the course of time his soul entered Euphorbus and he was wounded by Men then he told of the wanderings of his soul,6 how itmigrated elaus.,. hither and thither, into how many plants and animals it had come, in Hades-When and all that it underwent Euphorbus died, his soul passed into Hermotimus.. .he identified the shield?When Hermotimus died, he became Pyrrhus, a fisherman of Delos?But when Pyrrhus died, he became Pythagoras, and still remembered all the facts mentioned.7 was a most in all-round person, versed versatile, Pythagoras and numbers above all. Bloom's music, spec geometry mysteries, on "Numbers it is. All music when ulation you come to think" is lore (1/11.830). Ovid tells us that he was'a ultimately Pythagorean like Joyce, and exile ("exul sponte eraf-Met.15.61-62), voluntary of and carefulness attributes him the curiosity: "animo et vigili gives and examined all curd' ("he things with his mind, perspexerat omnia a is charac cura" with watchful 15.65). "Vigilis certainly study"-Met was interested and teristic of Bloom and of Odysseus. Pythagoras and the in such things as the origin of the universe knowledgeable or come snow causes of the from does lightning; what things (where course the stars); all the of laws direct makes the earth quake; what con are Bloomian in interest the of this, and in particular causes, on his to used is cerns as well The difference that Pythagoras pass set "He crowd: a to to make it public silently wondering knowledge, them openly /Abroad for other folk to learn" (Golding379). Bloom as well, but is rarely given the chance; to such instruction aspires Some projec even Molly is no longer listening to his clarification.

tions in "Circe" see him as public adviser, but when he tries to hold "Mister Knowall. Teach your forth in "Cyclops," he is easily mocked: to milk ducks" how (LT12.838). grandmother as speaking Bloom is remembered up for "Humane methods. Because the poor animals suffer" (LZ12.843). Pythagoras appears in he enjoins re above all as a preaching vegetarian; Metamorphoses that one is not to kill and eat animals, because they contain peatedly no vegetarian, a souls. Bloom is pointedly though he appreciates from meat. One of his thoughts of abstaining few advantages ap "If you do [eat beefsteak] the injunctions: proximates Pythagorean cow will pursue you through all eternity" eyes of that (U8.535-36). are elucidators At any rate, both Bloom in Ulysses and Pythagoras Later on, Molly will make fun of his of metempsychosis. proclivity the scene: "hed say its she remembers to teach and instruct when from the Greek leave us as wise as we were before" (U18.241-42). a term that is Bloom is right, however, when he patiently explains "It's Greek: connected from the originally with wise Pythagoras: Greek" (LT4.341). a final note on Molly's need for an explanation of "Met Perhaps in the first place ("final" in the sense of terminating him..." this Bloom's note, that is, not the debate). She thwarts with contempt first try, and as he keeps groping for better instruction, she seems to lose interest altogether and attends entirely to her tea cup until she here is that she notices the smell from the kitchen. The contention does not even primarily want to know. Some moments the before, conversation-an intricate connubial game (where both know what the other may have inmind and yet agree to stay clear of a touchy visit this afternoon. close to the impending Casu subject)-comes then ally diverting him, Molly asks about the time of the funeral, It is a bait to divert points towards the book and offers the word. Bloom's attention and is entirely successful. Molly knows how her loves to explain, to hold forth, to instruct, so she throws husband him a bone, and he gnaws at it, along with us readers (who of course at this early stage do not know either of the characters). It is a of wise it herself. And stands stratagem worthy Penelope Joyce in a stead term with ramifications. good by introducing multiple NOTES 1The most recent view is from Patrick McCarthy's "Reading inUlysses," in JoyceanOccasions: Essays from theMilwaukee JamesJoyceConference, ed. Janet E. et al. (Newark: Univ. of Delaware Press, 1991), p. 23. Dunleavy, 2 John Walker, Walker's Pronouncing Dictionary (London: Longman and Company 1860).

Compare the Protean variant: "God becomes man becomes fish be comes barnacle goose becomes featherbed mountain" (113.477-79). 4 Ovid, Metamorphoses, ed. Frank Justus Miller (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1976). Further references will be cited in the text parenthetically as Met. 5 Ovid, SelectedWorks, trans. Arthur Golding (London: J.M. Dent, 1939), p. 380; John Dryden, The Poems of JohnDryden, ed. John Sargeaunt (London: Oxford Univ. Press, 1935), p. 498; Ovid, TheMetamorphoses of Ovid, trans. T. Riley (London: George Bell and Sons, 1889), Henry p. 522. 6 of "xrjq ipvxr]<;mQLnoXr\oiy," the soul." which seems to be the origin of "transmigration 7 Diogenes Laertius, "Pythagoras" VIII.4-6, in Lives of Eminent Philoso phers, Book Four. Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge and London: Harvard Univ. Press, 1925), pp. 323-25. Djuna Barnes Remembers James Joyce Phillip Herring University of Wisconsin, Madison Barnes's famous interview with James Joyce came out in of Ulysses in 1922; after the publication Djuna Vanity Fair a few months of him in "Vagaries Malicieux," then she continued her impressions an unmalicious, if definitely rambling article describing her first trip to Paris.1 Richard Ellmann used some of her details in his biography James Joyce. known as the brilliant New When they met, Barnes was mostly in the fall of 1921 to observe York journalist sent by McCall's Magazine friends and the Left Bank scene. There were any number of mutual Barnes had met Helen Fleischman, Peggy Gug in 1917. Joyce and cousin and Joyce's wife-to-be, Giorgio genheim's Barnes were friends of Robert McAlmon and, of course, Sylvia at her bookstore. to meet them for who Beach, arranged perhaps across from aux Deux at the Caf took Their meetings Magots, place a from Barnes's throw stone's des church St. the of Germain Prfes, connections: in Paris, she had flat. Barnes said that, during her four months talked with him often. With the keen eye of a portrait painter, Barnes saw Joyce emerge from the fog sporting goatee, blue gray coat, and heirloom waist she says that she had read Dubliners during coat,2 In the interview, and Exiles to theatrical committees, World War I, had recommended a its as after Man Artist had perused A Portrait of the shortly Young she read when in but she only spotted the singer Joyce publication,