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By Root 1468 0

little sense of which of these conventions Joyce finally preferred—we have chosen to punctuate direct speech uniformly with the single introductory dash, a technique that we know Joyce favored by the time Ulysses was published in 1922. In that novel, it is clear that Joyce valued the ambiguity a single introductory dash lent to a paragraph that might begin with direct speech but then wander off into interior monologue or even third-person narration, with these different registers of discourse remaining unmarked. While the clues to Joyce’s preferred style early in his career are somewhat contradictory, by the time he was in a position to have his texts set in the way he wanted, he chose to indicate where a quotation began, but not where it ended. This willful ambiguity is altogether characteristic of the slippery stylistics of the greatest English prose writer of the twentieth century.

A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN

Et ignotas animum dimittit in artes.

Ovid, Metamorphoses, VIII, 188 a

CHAPTER I

ONCE UPON A TIME and a very good time it was there was a moocow coming down along the road and this moocow that was down along the road met a nicens little boy named baby tuckoo....

His father told him that story: his father looked at him through a glass:b he had a hairy face.

He was baby tuckoo. The moocow came down the road where Betty Byrne lived: she sold lemon platt.c

0, the wild rose blossoms

On the little green place.d

He sang that song. That was his song.

0, the green wothe botheth.

When you wet the bed, first it is warm then it gets cold. His mother put on the oilsheet.e That had the queerf smell.

His mother had a nicer smell than his father. She played on the piano the sailor’s hornpipeg for him to dance. He danced:

Tralala lala,

Tralala tralaladdy,

Tralala lala,

Tralala lala.

Uncle Charles and Danteh clapped. They were older than his father and mother but Uncle Charles was older than Dante.

Dante had two brushes in her press.i The brush with the maroon velvet back was for Michael Davitt and the brush with the green velvet back was for Parnell.1 Dante gave him a cachouj every time he brought her a piece of tissue paper.

The Vances lived in number seven. They had a different father and mother. They were Eileen’s father and mother. When they were grown up he was going to marry Eileen. He hid under the table. His mother said:

—O, Stephen will apologise.

Dante said:

—O, if not, the eagles will come and pull out his eyes.

Pull out his eyes,

Apologise,

Apologise,

Pull out his eyes.

Apologise,

Pull out his eyes,

Pull out his eyes,

Apologise.

The wide playgrounds were swarming with boys. All were shouting and the prefectsk urged them on with strong cries. The evening air was pale and chilly and after every charge and thud of the foot-ballers the greasy leather orb flew like a heavy bird through the grey light. He kept on the fringe of his line,l out of sight of his prefect, out of the reach of the rude feet, feigning to run now and then. He felt his body small and weak amid the throng of players and his eyes were weak and watery. Rody Kickham was not like that: he would be captain of the third line all the fellows said.

Rody Kickham was a decent fellow but Nasty Roche was a stink. Rody Kickham had greaves in his numberm and a hamper in the refectory. Nasty Roche had big hands. He called the Friday pudding dog-in-the-blanket. And one day he had asked:

-What is your name?

Stephen had answered: Stephen Dedalus.

Then Nasty Roche had said:

-What kind of a name is that?

And when Stephen had not been able to answer Nasty Roche had asked:

-What is your father?

Stephen had answered:

-A gentleman.

Then Nasty Roche had asked:

-Is he a magistrate?

He crept about from point to point on the fringe of his line, making little runs now and then. But his hands were bluish with cold. He kept his hands in the side pockets of his belted grey suit. That was a belt round his pocket. And belt was also to give a fellow a belt. One day a fellow had said to Cantwell:

-I’d give you