In the Sirens episode of the Odyssey Odysseus manages to sail past the Sirens without being lured by their irresistible song because he has stuffed his ears with wax, and when that didn’t work his crew tied him to the mast of their ship. Though, as Blamires notes there is not “a point for point correspondence...the episode contains two charming siren barmaids as well as much song, and the style represents an elaborate attempt to imitate form in words.” (106)
“Joyce peppers the episode with lines and phrases taken from opera and operetta popular at the time, from Victorian and Edwardian drawing-room ballads, from music –hall favorites and from traditional songs.” (106)
It is now 4pm and we find our characters in the bar of the Ormond Hotel. Joyce repeats sounds as markers throughout that keep pace and time. There is the Tap and tapping of the blind piano tuner, various musical references, imagery, and the most interesting aspect- the Jingling that was ascribed to Molly and her bed in the fourth episode and is now used in reference to Blazes Boylan and his car that is approaching Molly’s house. Joyce takes this type of characterization much further in this episode: in a narrative sense Joyce describes characters by using onomatopoeia and a musical vocabulary. There are many puns at the expense of music; here noise, sound, and music are blended together here.
“Bloowhoo went by by Mulligan’s pipes.” (258)
“For them unheeding him he banged on the counter his tray of chattering china.” (258)
In other places Joyce’s lines themselves have a musical quality: “Those things only bring out a rash, replied, repeated.” ( )
On 259 when discussing Miss Douce and Miss Kennedy he brings up Siren details: “sweet tea Miss Kennedy having poured with milk plugged both two ears with little fingers.” (259)
The way he describes Miss Douce’s breathing makes her seem almost like an instrument herself: “Miss Douce huffed and snorted down her nostrils that quivered imperthnthn like a shout in quest.” (259)
The question of the organ (piano or phallice) appears later. Both the structure and the details in this episode work with and reference music. The technical way in, which Joyce weaves, and repeats- noises- words- and themes is like music theory ABACABA, for example. Joyce plays with theme and variation in a Peter and the Wolf, or Fugue sort of way.
“The Sweets of Sin. Sweet are the sweets. Of sin.” (260) Here the erotic novel he has bought for Molly (his adulterous wife) is repeated. The themes of this piece of pulp are echoed in his real life- Boylan is “Raul” and they are committing a sin. Along the line of sin, religion is strung along as well. Father Conmee is present along with the ballads. There is a percussion section: “Miss Kennedy lipped her cup again, raised, drank a sip and giggle-giggled. Miss Douce, bending again over her tea tray, ruffled her nose and rolled droll faltered eyes.” (260)
Later in this passage there is one of a few cadences- the music (if you will) returns home, a climatic moment – a lewd moment: “Exhausted, breathless, their shaken heads they laid braided and pinnacled by glossy-combed, against the counterledge. All flushed (o!), panting, sweating (O!), all breathless...” Then one of the barmaids says: “I feel wet.” (260)
This story doubles back on itself on 261 “Not yet Sweets of Sin: Flushed legs, still less, goldenly paled. Into the bar strolled Mr. Dedalus. Chips, picking off one of his rocky thumbnails.” This echoes the first lines of the episode, 256, where we see Dedauls performing the same act.
On 262 Molly’s Jingle is re-introduced and continued throughout the episode and is co-mingled with Boylan by Joyce’s attribution which combines music and its sensual and seductive qualities:
256: “Jingle jingle jaunted jingling.”
262: “Jingle jaunty jingle.”
263: “With patience Lenehan waited for Boylan with impatience, for Jingle jaunty blazes boy.”
264: “Jingle in supple rubber it jaunted from the bridge to Ormond quay”
264: “Jingle jaunted by the curb and stopped.”
267: “Jingle a tinkle jaunted.”
268: “Bloom heard a jing, a little sound. He’s of. Light sob of breath sighed on the silent bluehued flowers. Jingling. He’s gone. Jingle. Hear.” Using the word silence among such an aural chapter puts an extra emphasis on this moment of Bloom’s.
269: “By bachelor’s walk jogjaunty jingled Blazes Boylan, bachelor, in sun, in heat.”
271: “Jiggedy jingle jaunty jaunty.” This punctuates Boylan as a character, even though Joyce doesn’t mention him specifically.
272: “Jingle jogged.”
273: “innocence in the moon. Still hold her back. Brave, don’t know their danger. Call name. Touch water. Jingle jaunty. Too late. She longed to go.”
276: “jingle by monuments of sir john Gray.”
277: “Jingle on Dorset street.”
279: “Jingle, have you? So excited. This is the jingle that jogged and jingled.”
The music in this episode taunts and comments on Bloom’s situation.
Next Joyce introduces the opposing ideas of “The conquering hero” (Boylan) and “the unconquered hero” (Bloom) (264). Bloom secretly watches Boylan and there is an emphasis on seeing without being noticed or seen in return. As we saw in the pres room Bloom is often ignored, so much so that the door was opened onto him. Here again he is able to use this invisibility to spy on Boylan, whereas inside the hotel it is a nuisance to him when he can’t get the attention of the waiter Pat. Later this need to be secretive is illuminated when he is writing a letter to Martha, which he could explain away in a variety of way s when he is questioned, or he could even brag, as some men do, of a mistress, yet he feels guilt and shame and hides the letter (280).
The O!’s are picked up and repeated again on 265 and on 267 themes and motifs collide: “Tossed fat lips his chalice, dranfoff his tiny chalice sucking the last fat violet syrupy drops.” (267) The chalice is the ultimate convergence of religion (the sacrament) femininity, usurpation and eroticism.
As much as there’s a musical back and forth there is a dance-like back and forth in the writing:
274: “Bloom looped, unlooped, nodded, disnoded.”
275: “Lydia for Lidewey squeak scarcely hear so ladylike the muse unsqueaked a ray of hope.”
It seems that on 276 one of the performances (a ballad) has come to an end: “Come well sung. All clapped.”
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