& solid ivory16 and a first rate pair of bedroom eyes17, cared at that precise physiological moment about tiresome old King Mark, that tiresome old ourangoutan beaver with is duty peck18 & his bronchial trouble in his tiresome old twentytwoandsixpenny shepherd’s plaid trousers? Not as much as a pinch of hen shit and that’s the meanest thing that was ever known in this wide world. No, far from it, if the real truth must be told lovingly she lovegulped his pulpous propeller and both together in the most fashionable weather they both went all of a shiveryshaky quiveryquaky mixumgatherum yumyumyum. After which before the traditional ten seconds were up Tristan considerately allowed his farfamed chokegrip to relax and precautiously withdrew the instrument of rational speech from the procathedral of amorous seductiveness. >VF

— I’m real glad to have met you19, Tris, you fascinator, you ! she said, awfully bucked20 by the gratifying experience21 of the love embrace22 from a bigtimer with an interesting tallow complexion from whom great things wear expected23 like him who was evidently a notoriety also in the poetry department for he never saw an orange but he thought of a porringer and to cut a long story short taking him by and large he meant everything to her just then, being her beau ideal of a true girl friend. >VF

d) [The Four Old Men

and the kiss of Tristan & Isolde 1]

Over them the winged ones screamed their glee, seahawk, seagul curlew and plover kestrel capercailzie. All the birds of the sea they trolled out rightbold and they heard of the kiss of Tristan and Isolde. So sang sea birds: >VF

— Three caws for Mister Mark >VF

Sure he hasnt got much of a bark >VF

And sure any he has is all beside the mark. >VF

O Wreneagle2 Highflighty would’nt it be a sky of a lark >VF

To see that old busard whooping around in his shirt in the dark >VF

And he hunting about for his speckled trousers in Palmerston Park >VF

O moulty Mark >VF

Yourse the rummest old rooster ever crawled out of a Noah’s3 ark >VF

And you think you’re the cock of the walk. >VF

Fowls up! Tristan’s a spry young spark >VF

That’ll tread her and wed her and bed her and red her4 >VF

Without even winking the tale of a feather >VF

And that’s how that chap’s going to make his money and mark >VF

The Four Waves of Erin5 also heard, leaning upon the staves of memory. Four eminently respectable old heladies6 they looked got up in sleek holiday toggery for the occasion, grey half tall toque7, tailormade frock coat to match fathomglasses and soforth, you know, for all the world, apart from the salt water[,] like the fourth viscount Powerscourt or North the auctioneer 8 at the royal Dublin soci[e]ties annual horseshow. They had seen their share: the capture of Sir Arthur Casement in the year 1132, Coronation of Brian by the Danes at Clonmacnois[,] the drowning of Pharaoh Phitzharris in the (proleptically) red sea9[.] The drowning of poor Mat Keane of Dunlearery the scattering of the flemish armada off the coasts of Galway and Longford, the landing of St Patrick at Tara in the year 1798, the dispersal of the French fleet under General Boche in the year 2002. And such was their memory that they had been appointed extern professors to the four chief seats of learning in Erin, the Universities of killorcure, killthemall, killeachother, killkelly-on-the-Flure, whither they wirelessed four times weekly lectures in the four modes of history, past, present, absent and future.10 >VF

Saltsea widowers all four they had been many ages before summarily11 divorced by their respective shehusbands12 (with whom they had parted on the best of terms) by a decrees absolute issued by Mrs Justice Squelchman13 in the married male offenders court at Bohernabreena, one for inefficiency in backscratching, too for having broken rerewind14 without having first made a request in writing on stamped foolscap paper[,] three for having attempted hunish familiarities after a meal [of] decompsed crab, four on account of his general cast of countenance15. >VF

Though that was ever so long ago they could still with an effort of memory and by counting accurately16 the four periwinkle17 buttons of the fly of their knickybockies18 recall the name of the four beautiful sisters Brnabride who were at the moment touring the United States of Africa19. >VF

Yet were they fettlesome and lured by the immortal rose of Wombman’s beauty20 often would they cling tentacularly about the ships’ waists of21 the Northwall and Hollyhead boats and the Isle of Man tourist steamers, peering with glaucomatose eyes through the cataractic portholes of honeymoon cabins or saloon ladies toilet apartements. But, when those jossers aforesaid[,] the Four Waves of Erin, heard the detonation of the osculation (cataclysmic cataglotism)22 which with ostentation (osculum cum basio necnon suavioque)23 Tristan to Isolde gave then lifted they up round Irelands shores the wail of old men’s planxty24: >VF

Highchanted the elderly Waves of Erin, in-four-part Palestrian melody, four for all, all one in glee of grief of loneliness of age but with a bardic licence there being about of birds and stars and noise25 quite a sufficient quantity26. This plashed27 their wavechant28: >VF

A birdless heaven, seadusk and one star, >VF

low in the west >VF

And thou, poor heart, loves image, faint and far, >VF

Rememberest >VF

—

Her seacold29 eyes and her soft foamwhite30 brow >VF

And fragrant hair, >VF

Falling as through the silence falleth now >VF

Dusk from the air. >VF

—

A why wilt thou >VF

A why wilt thou remember these, >VF

A why, >VF

Poor heart, repine, >VF

If the dear love she yielded with a sigh >VF

Was never thine! >VF

Isolde, her longfamous lashes butterflykissing his near and farfamous cheek, felt him sweeter than cherry or plum, than candykisses or Lipton’s fruitcake, than the hawthorn valley in the 1st fortnight31 of May, than the finest band32 music going than lovely thick with the33 sleep. She murmured googooeyes34: >VF

My precious since last we parted it seems to me that I have been continually in your company, even when I close my eyes at night, I am continually35 seeing you hearing you, meeting you in different places so that I am36 beginning to wonder whether my soul does not take leave of my body in sleep and go to seek you and what is more find you, or perchance37 this is only a phantasy38. Tell me Daniel39, my precious darling. >VF

He, her whitehaired doughboy,40 Hero of tens of scrums, carrier of the ovum,41 Kisser of hundreds, blocker of thousands, ejaculater of jugfuls42 aloudly sniffled43 his nasal44 voice falling in strange ineffectual dropkick45, so in the language of diplomacy: >VF

—Mais bourquoi es-tu andrée dans ma fie, Henriette46 S je groyais47 mon âme déjà morte >VF

e) [Mamalujo 1]

And there they were too listening in as hard as they could to the solans & the sycamores and the mistlethrushes and all the birds all four of them listening they were the big four the four master waves of Erin all listening four there was old Matt Gregory and then besides old Matt there was old Marcus Lyons the four waves and oftentimes they used to be saying grace together right enough here now we are the four of us old Matt Gregory and old Marcus Lyons and old Luke Tarpey the four of us and sure thank God there are no more of us and sure now you won’t go & leave out old Johnny MacDougall too four of us and no more of us and so now pass the fish for Christ’ sake amen the way they used to be saying grace before fish for auld lang syne there they were spraining their ears listening and listening to all the kissening with their eyes glistening all the four when he was kiddling & cuddling his colleen the colleen bawn cuddling her and kissing her with his pogue like arrah na Pogue the dear annual they all four remembored how they used to be cuddling and kissing under the mistlethrush and listening in the good old bygone days Dion Boucicault in Arrah na Pogue when they knew [the] man on the door in one of those centuries when they were all four collegians in the queen’s colleges it brought it all back again as fresh as ever Matt and Marcus and now there he was and his Arrah na Pogue before the four of them and now thank God there were no more of them and he poguing and poguing they were listening with their mouths watering so pass the pogue for Christ sake Amen listening & watering all the four Luke and Johnny MacDougall of the bygone times for anything at all for a cup of kindness yet for four big tumblers of woman squash with them all four listening and spraining their ears and all their mouths making water >VF

Ah well sure that’s the way up and there up was poor Matt Gregory up and Gregory and up the others and now really & truly they were four dear old heladies and they looked so nice and respectable with their grey half tall hat and tailormade frock coat and then they had their fathom glasses to find out all the fathoms and their tall hats just now like the marquess of Powerscourt only for all the saltwater or the auctioneer there in front of the place near that street Thingmote[,] Essex, Sackville? the statue of Mrs Dan O’Connell behind Trinity College that arranges all the auctions of the valuable houses Smith like the auctioneer Smith or not Smith that sells all the fine houses & mansions James