James Joyce's Ulysses: A Photo Tour of Dublin

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15. Circe

16. Eumaeus

17. Ithaca

18. Penelope

Aida Yared's Circe images

James Joyce's Ulysses: A Dublin Tour
15. Circe

Scene: The Brothel

Hour: 12 midnight

Organ: Locomotor apparatus

Art: Magic

Colour: --

Symbol: Whore

Technic: Hallucination

Correspondences:

Circe: Bella

Little of the old Nighttown district survives. Much of it is now new housing estates, or new office developments. There are cranes on the skyline everywhere.

Just before this chapter begins, Stephen and Lynch will have got off the train at Amiens Street Station (at the left), and walked down Talbot Street (at the right, as seen from outside the Station).

	A bit further down Talbot Street, beyond the railway bridge on the left hand side of the street, are the sites where Antonio Rabaiotti's and Olhousen's used to be.			(At Antonio Rabaiotti's* door Bloom halts, sweated under the bright arclamps. He disappears. In a moment he reappears and hurries on.)* BLOOM Fish and taters! N. G. Ah! (He disappears into Olhousen's the pork butcher's, under the downcoming rollshutter. A few moments later he emerges from under the shutter, puffing Poldy, blowing Bloohoom. In each hand he holds a parcel, one containing a lukewarm pig's crubeen, the other a cold sheep's trotter, sprinkled with wholepepper. He gasps, standing upright. Then bending to one side he presses a parcel against his rib and groans.) BLOOM Stitch in my side. Why did I run? (He takes breath with care and goes forward slowly towards the lampset siding.The glow leaps again.) BLOOM What is that? A flasher? Searchlight? (He stands at Cormack's corner, watching.) (413)
	Cormack's pub is now Mother Kelly's.
	This is what the first stage-direction of the chapter describes as "The Mabbot street entrance of nighttown" (408), as seen from Cormack's corner in the previous shot. Mabbot Street has been renamed several times, no doubt in order to escape its reputation. Currently, it is called -- surprise! -- James Joyce Street.
	A lot on James Joyce (Mabbot) Street, across from which one can get a glimpse of some of the few remaining fragments of buildings from Joyce's day.

(Zoe Higgins, a young whore in a sapphire slip, closed with three bronze buckles, a slim black velvert fillet round her throat, nods, trips down the steps and accosts him.)

ZOE
Are you looking for someone? He's inside with his friend.

BLOOM
Is this Mrs Mack's?

ZOE
No, eightyone. Mrs Cohen's. (449)

This isn't Bella Cohen's, which used to stand a few doors down to the left of the frame (though at 82, rather than 81, as Joyce has it). It's the remnants of a convent, which, according to McCarthy, "housed St Mary's Penitent Retreat, a laundry where reformed prostitutes worked" (Joyce's Dublin 78). Lower Tyrone Street, as it was then, is now Railway Street.

The corner of Beaver Street and the former Lower Tyrone Street, where Stephen is knocked down by two British soldiers.

(At the corner of Beaver Street beneath the scaffolding Bloom panting stops on the fringe of the noisy quarelling knot, a lot not knowing a jot what hi! hi! row and wrangle round the whowhat brawlaltogether.)

STEPHEN
(With elaborate gestures, breathing deeply and slowly.) You are my guests. The uninvited. By virtue of the fifth of George and the seventh of Edward. History to blame. Fabled by mothers of memory.

PRIVATE CARR
(To Cissy Caffrey.) Was he insulting you? ... Was he insulting you while me and him was having a piss?

PRIVATE COMPTON
Biff him, Harry. (545-46)

The contents of these pages are © 2004, Tony Thwaites, The University of Queensland, Queensland, Australia 4072

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