A Phoenix Park Nocturne

When it comes to describing dusk and nightfall, nobody can beat James Joyce. Dusks run through all of Joyce's books, beginning with his 1905 short story, Araby:

When the short days of winter came, dusk fell before we had well eaten our dinners. When we met in the street the houses had grown sombre. The space of sky above us was the colour of ever-changing violet and towards it the lamps of the street lifted their feeble lanterns.

By the time Joyce wrote Finnegans Wake, his eyesight was so bad that his daylight had become twilight, and he needed to wear a white jacket to reflect what light there was onto his paper (left). You can't help finding this growing blindness in the book's dusks ('my sights are swimming thicker on me by the shadows of this place' 215.09). 

Dusks can be found on pages 158 ('Ah dew! It was so duusk that the tears of night began to fall') and 213-6 ('Look, look, the dusk is growing!'). But my favourite is the description of night falling in the children's games chapter, on pages 244-6, which Joyce wrote in 1932.

It was also one of Joyce's favourites. In 1938, when the Greek emigré Tériade (Stratis Eleftheriades) asked him for something for his avant-garde art review, Verve, Joyce gave him the piece, which he published under the title, 'A Phoenix Park Nocturne'. A nocturne is a night piece, a term used in both music and painting.

Here's the cover of the review, by Georges Braque. 

Verve Vol 1, No 2, March-June 1939

I've tweaked my photos to make them look  nocturnal!

'A Phoenix Park Nocturne' is a lyrical description of night falling on the park, where the birds in the trees and the exotic animals in the park zoo are saying their prayers and settling down for their night. It takes place during the first part of the night, which the Romans called 'Conticinium' (the time when all becomes still).  The central theme is of growing silence and peace.

So it's very different from the noisy nightfall at the end of the Anna Livia chapter, where the washerwomen's voices are drowned out by the sound of rushing waters and the 'bawk of bats'. There are no bats in 'A Phoenix Park Nocturne', and the river is still and silent.

Here's the text as it was published in Verve:

It darkles (tinct, tint), all this our funnaminal world. Yon marshpond is visited by the tide. Alvemmarea! We are circumveiloped by obscuritas. Man and belves frieren. There is a wish on them to be not doing or anything. Or just for rugs. Zoo koud. Drr, deff, coal lay on and, pzz, call us pyrress! Ha. Where is our highly honourworthy salutable spousefounderess? The foolish one of the family is within. Haha. Huzoor, where's he? At house, to's pitty. With Nancy Hands. Tsheetshee. Hound through the maize has fled. What hou! Isegrim under lolling ears. Far wol! And wheaten bells bide breathless. All. The trail of Gill not yet is to be seen, rocksdrops, up benn, down dell, a craggy road for rambling. Nor yet through starland that silver sash. What era's o'ering? Lang gong late. Say long, scielo! Sillume, see lo! Selene, sail O! Amune! Ark!? Noh?! Nought stirs in spinney. The swayful pathways of the dragonfly spider stay still in reedery. Quiet takes back her folded fields. Tranquille thanks. Adew. In deerhaven, imbraced, alleged, injoynted and unlatched, the birds, tommelise too, quail silens. ii. Was avond ere awhile. Now conticinium. As Lord the Laohun is sheutseuyes. The time of lying together will come and the wildering of the night till cockeedoodle aubens Aurore. Panther monster. Send leabarrow loads amorrow. While loevdom shleeps. Elenfant has siang his triump, Great is Eliphas Magistrodontos, and after kneeprayer pious for behemuth and mahamoth will rest him from tusker toils. Salamsalaim! Rhinohorn isnoutso pigfellow but him ist gonz wurst. Kikikuki. Hopopodorme. Sobeast! No chare of beagles, frantling of peacocks, no muzzing of the camel, smuttering of apes. Lights, pageboy, lights! Brights we'll be brights. With help of Hanoukan's lamp. When otter leaps in outer parts then Yul remembers Mei.

Soon after this was published, Joyce met the Swiss critic, Jacques Mercanton, who was planning to write about 'Work in Progress'.

'Since I had made known to him my wish to study in detail, as an example, one page from 'Work in Progress', he proposed the admirable fragment just published by the art review Verve, 'A Phoenix Park Nocturne', promising at the same time to help my enterprise....He told me about new difficulties with his editor, objectively moreover, knowing full well that his book was a monster. Yet that monster was his only pleasure, and his face brightened as he explained the meanings of words in the passage he had proposed I should study: Nancy Hands, the name of a pub in Dublin with an echo of Anna Livia in it; Laohun, “the tiger” in Chinese, and Sheutseuyes, the lion, which is much less ferocious in Asia and is said to have its eyes almost always closed. Joyce, stumbling among the pebbles on the shore, closed his eyes.'

'He loved animals apart from man, he said, which is the contrary of the Englishman's sentimental love and also of Kipling's. I pointed out to him that he spoke about animals just as he spoke of the English, with the same respect and the same distant curiosity.

  "It's true," he said, "but all the same, I understand animals better."

He cited as proof the marvellous page of "Work in Progress" that we were studying together at the time, a nocturne filled with the calls, the sighs, the uproar and the prayers of animals going to sleep."

Jacques Mercanton, 'The Hours of James Joyce', 1963, reprinted in Potts (ed), Portraits of the Artist in Exile.  

Joyce provided detailed notes on the passage, which Mercanton published as 'L'Esthetique de Joyce' in Études de Lettres, Lausanne XIII, 1 October 1938, p 39-46, which you can read online here. Some of them were republished, in French, in Roland McHugh's Annotations to Finnegans Wake. I remember being astonished, and dismayed by some of these notes when I first read them in the 1980s. You'll see what I mean shortly!

I've translated Mercanton's notes, and give the full text below in red.

Before the Nocturne begins, there's a prelude, which you should read aloud. In fact William York Tindall writes that the whole Nocturne 'calls for reading aloud, in a small tiled room, preferably' (A Reader's Guide to Finnegans Wake). 
 

Here Joyce describes the moon rising, the bells of the church ringing a curfew, and the children, who have been playing games outside the pub, called home by their parents, HCE and ALP.  The moon is combined with the evening lamplighter who, in Joyce's day, lit each gas lamp individually. In the dusk episode of Ulysses, Nausicaa, a lamplighter is described 'going his rounds'.

The bells would be those of St Laurence's Church, the village church of Chapelizod, which is a key Wake location. It's the church in Sheridan LeFanu's novel, The House by the Churchyard. We visited it last month and were disappointed to find it locked.












Below we come to the famous opening of the Nocturne, and Joyce's first explanatory note to Mercanton. 

 
It darkles (tinct, tint), all this our funnaminal world. 

tinct, tint: gradual disapppearance of the light, tinct losing the c, and the sound of the bells that grow weaker.

Thanks to Danis Rose and John O'Hanlon's magnificent James Joyce Digital Archive, we know that in 1932  Joyce originally wrote, 'It darkles, all this our fun nominal world.' Follow the Nocturne grow through several levels as Joyce adds extra material.

The most mysterious thing here is (tinct tint) - added to the Galleys in 1938. So the theme of falling silent is introduced by the fading sound of tinct tint. I couldn't see how the loss of the letter 'c' meant 'disappearance of the light', until I read the suggestion, in fweet, that 'c' is a play on 'see'! We lose our ability to see as it darkens. Was Joyce really making puns on individual letters?

'funnanimal: a simple example of Joyce's process: funny and animal, suggesting by the sound the word phenomenal: the world of appearances, the comical world of animals.'

On another occasion, Joyce told Mercanton that the central meaning of his book was that 'history repeats itself comically; this is our funnanimal world.' 

Alvemmarea! We are circumveiloped by obscuritas. Man and belves frieren. There is a wish on them to be not doing or anything. Or just for rugs. Zoo koud. Drr, deff, coal lay on and, pzz, call us pyrress! Ha.

'Alvemmarea: the French word marée and the Latin word alveus = riverbed, the mother's breast, evoke the prayer that rises to the lips with the evening tide: Ave Maria, mystery of the visitation that is accomplished in the soul and in nature: Yon marshpond is visited by the tide. It is the hour of evening angelus.'

  'circumveiloped - the great darknesses - obscuritad - envelop us like great veils. Man and animals are cold – the German word frieren. There is a desire to do nothing. Complete sinking (affaisement): or just for rugs.'

 'Zoo koud - too cold, with the word zoo = zoological garden with the Dutch word: koud = cold.'

'deff coal lay on: Deucalion, pronounced in modern Greek, Defcalion, and deff for deaf.'

 'pyress -Pyrrha and kalispera, in Greek: good evening to you. The sense of the phrase: is deaf old man put coal on the fire and busy woman of the house sees that it catches fire.  There is an added allusion to the legend of Deucalion and Pyrrha which is repeated many times, in different forms, in the text.'

Deucalion and Pyrrha are the Greek Mr and Mrs Noah. In myth, after the flood, they created a new race of humans by throwing pebbles behind them.

'Ha. Where is our highly honourworthy salutable spousefounderess? The foolish one of the family is within. Haha. Huzoor, where's he? At house, to's pitty. With Nancy Hands. Tsheetshee.'

'Where is...Form of Japanese politeness to which the reply makes a contrast full of humour. The foolish one..' 

Here, Joyce has muddled his Japanese and Chinese. Thanks to the detective work of Robbert-Jan Henkes and Mikio Fuse, we know he took this from Lady Susan Towneley's 1922 memoirs, Indiscretions, in which she describes her time in China:

'The ceremonial form of Chinese conversation always amused me. It abounded in flowery compliments and quaint self-depreciatory remarks....
I: How is Your Excellency's favoured wife?
He: Thank you, madam! The foolish one of the family is well.'

'Haha: in Japanese - father, as well as a laugh that appears half a dozen times in the book. And - Tsheetshee: in Japanese: mother.'

'to's pitty: in Greek at home'

'Nancy Hands: a famous inn in Dublin near the Phoenix Park and Nancy, diminuitive of Anna, heroine of the book: Anna Livia.'

'Tsheetshee: silence and mystery: the beast's flight: Hound through the maize has fled.'

Nancy Hands is on the eastern side of Phoenix Park. 

Hound through the maize has fled. What hou! Isegrim under lolling ears. Far wol! And wheaten bells bide breathless. All. 

  'Isegrim: name of the wolf in Reynard the Fox ('le Roman de Renart'): cf higher: haha: the wolf's leap: next far wol! Farewell and wolf = the wolf already in the distance.'

'And wheaten: the assonance gives the impression of the stillness of the wheat without a breath of wind and of the sound fading away.'

This is the werewolf described in the introductory paragraph ('the wild worewolf's abroad').

The trail of Gill not yet is to be seen, rocksdrops, up benn, down dell, a craggy road for rambling.

'Gill: name which appears often in the book: of the person who attacks the hero, HCE; he drops pebbles from his pocket to mark the road: allusion to the legend of Deucalion and Pyrrha.'

This is the cad with a pipe whose encounter with HCE in the park on p.35-7 leads to the hero's public disgrace. There's no mention there of Gill dropping any pebbles, but he does leave a trail of dandruff! (one could hound him out had one hart to for the montucules of scalp and dandruff droppings blaze his trail 37.10).  Here are Deucalion and Pyrrha again. In Greek myth, after the flood, they created a new race of humans by throwing pebbles behind them.

'rocksdrops: the idea of rock, of swinging and falling;'

'benn: in Irish, head or hill; Ben Eder, the hill of Howth, near Dublin, whose name is of Scandinavian origin, as is the city. He is the hero of the book as Anna Livia, the Liffey, is the heroine. It's the character H.C.E. and, among all the forms he takes,  under his mythical aspect, the legendary Irish hero, Finn MacCool, known to us through the poems of Ossian-Macpherson (where he has the name of Fingal) of whom some claim today that he is also of Scandinavian origin.'

The next bit looks up at the night sky. The craggy road for rambling leads Joyce to think of the Milky Way.

'a craggy road for rambling: a continual allusion in the book to the song which ends with: the rocky road to Dublin. The reflection: Nor yet...appearing in the sky under the aspect of the Milky Way; the milky road to Juno' '

'dell, a wooded valley: the race over hill and dale that makes the very rhythm of the sentence.'

'The Rocky Road to Dublin' is sung here by Luke Kelly of the Dubliners and here, by Shane MacGowan of my favourite band, The Pogues.

Stephen thinks of the song in the 'Nestor' episode of Ulysses too:

Lal the ral the ra.
The rocky road to Dublin.

A gruff squire on horseback with shiny topboots. Soft day, sir John. Soft day, your honour... Day... Day... Two topboots jog dangling on to Dublin. Lal the ral the ra, lal the ral the raddy.

Nor yet through starland that silver sash. What era's o'ering? Lang gong late. Say long, scielo! Sillume, see lo! Selene, sail O! Amune! Ark!? Noh?!

  'Then it's the sky which, little by little become the country of the stars:  starland: a mysterious and gentle shift: through starland that silver sash. It's the hour of the sky: the era of time that questions: What era's o'ering?: What astronomical hour is it? The hour that chimes, deep slow and late: Lang gone late It is long past eight. The evocation of the sky where the moon and stars drift, gliding their luminous boats, where the slow night lights up : Say long, scielo! Sillume, see lo! Selene, sail O! Amune! Three phrases announce it is quarter to nine. Cf Ulysses at the end of the Calypso episode: Hey ho. Ark!? Noh!? It's the night of the stars which glide silently, as in Vergil.'

Joyce is thinking of Vergil, The Aeneid, Book IV, here translated by A.S.Kline:

It was night, and everywhere weary creatures were enjoying
peaceful sleep, the woods and the savage waves were resting,
while stars wheeled midway in their gliding orbit,
while all the fields were still, and beasts and colourful birds,
those that live on wide scattered lakes, and those that live
in rough country among the thorn-bushes, were sunk in sleep
in the silent night.

See lo! - the Italian 'cielo' (sky). 
Selene, sail O! is the moon (Selene is the Greek name for the moon and its goddess). So the capital 'O' is an image of the Moon.

Selene, the horned moon goddess, on a Roman sarcophagus

Thomas Moore has an Irish Melody 'Sail on, sail on, thou fearless bark'  

Sail on, sail on, thou fearless bark
Where'er blows the welcome wind,
It cannot lead to scenes more dark,
More sad than those we leave behind. 

All of Thomas Moore's Irish Melodies are in the Wake.

Amune! Ark!? Noh?! 'A moon! Is it Noah's Ark?! No?!' - there because of the animals theme, and the references to Pyrrha and Deucalion.

According to Roland McHugh, Jacob Bryant, the early mythographer, identified Noah's Ark with the new moon.

There's also the Egyptian Barque of the god Amun (Amune! Ark?!), in which the statue of the god was carried in processions. The Egyptians imagined their gods crossing the night sky in barques like this.

Next is a beautiful passage, describing the total peace that falls on the park's wild animals.  This one is another great one to read aloud. 

Nought stirs in spinney. The swayful pathways of the dragonfly spider stay still in reedery. Quiet takes back her folded fields. Tranquille thanks. Adew. In deerhaven, imbraced, alleged, injoynted and unlatched, the birds, tommelise too, quail silens. ii.

  'Again in the evening among the beasts, the little winged creatures which stop moving: swayful, to sway:  reedery: reeds, straws: heavy sentence that oscillates like the path of an insect.'

'Quiet takes back her folded fields' is a lovely phrase. To me it always suggested that the day has been folded up, like sheets, and put away by the night. But Joyce's note reveals he was thinking of a sheepfold:

 'Rest takes the fields - its fields - her folded fields - fold also means: sheepfold. As if rest were the shepherdess of these fields, letting them graze during the day and bringing them back in the evening to the fold of night.  Thanksgiving - Tranquille thanks - the dew moistens their farewell.'

Roland McHugh has identified imbraced, alleged, injoynted and unlatched as medieval terms for carving various birds.

 'In the woods - embraced, lightened, united in joy - injoynted - to joint, and joy - and freed, the chirping of the birds - tommelise too - creates a trembling silence.'

Joyce provided an extraordinary note on the ‘ii’ at the end, which were only added at galley stage in 1938:  

 'ii - two little birds - male and female, announced by the Norwegian name of a single little bird - tommelise, which in English forms a combination of Tommy and Lisa. Probably the shortest sentence in all of literature - the last prayer of the two birds huddled together, uttering their tiny, joint prayers, the two dots on the 'i', and affirming their identity before the entire astonished universe.'

So here Joyce is using his letters as pictures! It was this that suggested to me that the capital O in Selene, sail O! is a picture of the Moon.

When I first read this note, I was astonished by the genius of a writer who could look at a letter and see it as a picture of a bird praying (and Joyce said he had no imagination!). But I was also dismayed to realise that I would only ever understand a fraction of what he intended. How many other letters in Finnegans Wake are also pictures?! 

'Tommelise' is Hans Christian Anderson's tiny girl, known in English as Thumbelina or Thumbkin. In the first draft, the name was 'thumb tit'. I can't find the Norwegian bird referred to in the note.

Now we move to the zoo, where we find the lion and tiger going to sleep. 

Was avond ere awhile. Now conticinium. As Lord the Laohun is sheutseuyes. The time of lying together will come and the wildering of the night till cockeedoodle aubens Aurore. Panther monster. Send leabarrow loads amorrow. While loevdom shleeps.

'Was avond: in Dutch, the evening, in Irish avon: water, the river, and it's the river of Shakespeare.'

A fallow deer stag in the Phoenix Par

'Conticinium: phase of the night for the Romans, the hour when silence falls. Further, concubium – the time of lying together – intempesta nox – the wildering of the nicht, with the German word 'nicht' = nothingness, it’s the agitation in the void, the storm of nothingness. Finally, cockeedoodle = gallicinium and aubens aura = Aurora alba. It’s the mystery full of anguish and prayers of the deep hours of the night that come.'

These are the Four Roman Watches, or divisions, of the Night, whose names were given by Macrobius as Conticinium (growing quiet/still), Concubium (lying down), Intempesta Nox (Dead of Night) and Gallicinum (cockcrow). You can also find these at 143.16: 

comesilencers to comeliewithhers and till intempestuous Nox should catch the gallicry and spot lucan’s dawn.

 
'Laohun: in Chinese, the tiger, but whose sound evokes for us the word lion, the universal king of animals, just as the tiger is for Asians what the lion is for Africans. Sheutseuyes: in Chinese, means lion, and he has his eyes closed because he is already asleep. Earlier we had Japanese, now we have Chinese: this relationship of succession and antagonism is one of the constants of the book, symbolizing Bruno’s idea that everything brings forth its exact opposite as the very condition of its reality.

  sheutseuyes - shut and eyes.'

Mercanton has more to say about this in his memoir:

'His face brightened as he explained the meanings of words in the passage he had proposed I should study...Laohun, “the tiger” in Chinese, and Sheutseuyes, the lion, which is much less ferocious in Asia and is said to have its eyes almost always closed. Joyce, stumbling among the pebbles on the shore, closed his eyes.'   Mercanton, 'The Hours of James Joyce' in Potts, p.218.

By the way, the Phoenix Park Zoo is famous for its success at breeding lions. Slats, the first lion used as the MGM mascot, was born here in 1919.

Like the birds, the animals in the zoo are saying their prayers.

Panther monster. Send leabarrow loads amorrow. While loevdom shleeps.

'Panther Monster. The 'Pater Noster' addressed to the ancestral monster, the god of animals. Further, the little elephant – the infant – prays for its antediluvian ancestors: behemoth and mahamoth.'

'Panther monster. Send leabarrow loads amorrow is a play' on 'Pater Noster' (Our Father) and 'sed libera nos a malo' (but deliver us from evil' in the Lord's Prayer).

There was a widespread Jewish and pagan belief that Jesus Christ's true father was a Roman centurion called Panthera. So this may be a blasphemous joke - Jesus saying 'Our Father' would be addressing Panthera. 

'Loevdom shleeps. A very well-known song, While London Sleeps. 'Loevdem' also alludes to the reign of love established in the night and to the power of the lion: Loewe.

  shleeps: sleep and sheep.'

'Loewe' is German for lion.  The song is an 1896 musichall one by Harry Dacre (who also wrote 'Daisy Daisy').

We now move from the lion and tiger to the elephant.

Elenfant has siang his triump, Great is Eliphas Magistrodontos, and after kneeprayer pious for behemuth and mahamoth will rest him from tusker toils. Salamsalaim!

  'siang - Burmese name for elephant and to sing.

  Triump - triumph and the French word trompe (trunk) of an elephant: it's with its trunk that the elephant sings its own triumph.'

 'great is eliphas - the Greek name of the elephant, since it celebrates its race, its noble and ancient origin – magistrodontos – master or majestic through its tusks.

  Tusker toils: the elephant’s labour; also – a task imposed by a tyrant: task. And toils: traps, snares.

  Salamsalaim: the Eastern greeting, from the elephant’s homeland, made by its swinging trunk.

The elephant has fallen silent - he has finished singing his trumpeting/ triumphant song of 'Great is the Elephant of the Big Teeth'. After kneeling to say his pious prayers, he will rest from the 'tusker toils' of the day. Lovely!

Here's a photo I took of a modern elephant in the Phoenix Park zoo in 2010. Imagine him kneeling to say his prayers.
 

Now Joyce moves on to the rhinoceros in the zoo.

Rhinohorn isnoutso pigfellow but him ist gonz wurst. Kikikuki. Hopopodorme. 

  Isnoutso: snout – the horn of the rhinoceros. It’s not as big as the elephant’s tusk, but it doesn’t matter to him because he’s so sleepy: gone west, in American slang, means he’s gone, he’s dead from desire/ envy (l'envie).

  pigfellow: the rhinoceros, pig: Es geht im wurst: literally and figuratively.

ChatGPT suggested: 'The phrase "Es geht im Wurst" seems to be a variation of the German idiom "Es geht um die Wurst," which literally translates to "It's about the sausage." This idiom is commonly used to mean "it's do or die" or "it's all or nothing," referring to a situation where everything is on the line.'

Phoenix Park Zoo rhinos

  

  'Kikkuku, hippopodorme: we are right in the middle of a zoological garden, amidst a concert of earthly sounds, with their contrasts of voices: deep and high-pitched, heavy and light. The hippopotamus, too, is going to sleep heavily: hippopo-dorme (sleep); you can hear the sound of its footsteps in the shallow water.

Sobeast! No chare of beagles, frantling of peacocks, no muzzing of the camel, smuttering of apes.

 Sobeast: so be it: It is the amen of the animals' prayer. No more daily task for the hound, no more frantic pride of the peacocks, no more the dazed gaze of the camel or the obscene gesture of the monkey. It is sleep for all and peace on earth.'

Here Joyce quotes another great list maker, Francois Rabelais, in Thomas Urquhart's translation of Gargantua and Pantagruel. It's from the account of a philosopher who retreats from the world, but is unable to find peace because of the racket from all the animals:

'nuzzing of camels, wheening of whelps, buzzing of dromedaries, mumbling of rabbits, cricking of ferrets, humming of wasps, mioling of tigers, bruzzing of bears, sussing of kitlings, clamouring of scarfs, whimpering of fulmarts, booing of buffaloes, warbling of nightingales, quavering of mavises, drintling of turkeys, coniating of storks, frantling of peacocks, clattering of magpies, murmuring of stock-doves, crouting of cormorants, cigling of locusts, charming of beagles, guarring of puppies, snarling of messens, rantling of rats, guerieting of apes, snuttering of monkeys...' 

That's from a much longer list, which you can read here. I wonder why Joyce chose the beagles and not the buffaloes or bears...

Lights, pageboy, lights! Brights we'll be brights. With help of Hanoukan's lamp. When otter leaps in outer parts then Yul remembers Mei.

This bit describes Irish lightships and lighthouses being illuminated around the coast. arcglow's seafire siemens: E & W Siemens fitted out the lighthouse at Arklow. The Tuskar ('tusker toils') is another Irish lighthouse.

Elsewhere, Joyce associates nightfall with the Irish lighthouses and lightships. At the end of Anna Livia, one of the washerwomen says, 'Is that the Poolbeg flasher beyant, pharphar, or a fireboat coasting nyar the Kishtna or a glow I behold within a hedge or my Garry come back from the Indes?' (215.01). In Nausicaa, Bloom sees the Bailey lighthouse on Howth head and thinks, 'Howth. Bailey light. Two, four, six, eight, nine. See. Has to change or they might think it a house. Wreckers. Grace Darling. People afraid of the dark. Also glowworms, cyclists: lightingup time. Jewels diamonds flash better. Light is a kind of reassuring.'

Hung maid mohns are bluming is from  another Thomas Moore ballad, 'The Young May Moon, She's Beaming, Love.'

We move south from the park to the River Liffey, where the little fishes (pesciolines) have finished hearing their bedtime stories and gone to sleep.

They've stopped arguing about Jonah and the Whale and Papal Infallibility and the Procession of the Holy Ghost (the bonkers theological controversy which caused the great split between the Eastern and Western Churches, and which is often mentioned in the Wake).

In the second sentence, Joyce is saying that if a tramp ('liobar na bóthair' in Irish) laid his ear to the river, save for the din going on in his own mind, he would not hear a flip flap in all Finnyland - because the fish have all fallen asleep! I love that image of a tramp listening to the river.  

Back to the park, we look forward from Conticinium to the second Watch of the Night, Concubium, the 'time of lying together'. Lovers are arriving, and the silence of the First Watch is broken.

 
Darkpark's acoo with sucking loves. 

The dark park echoes with kissing lovers cooing like doves. 'Sucking dove' jumped into my head. I googled it and found that it's a quotation from A Midsummer Night's Dream, where Bottom says, 'I will aggravate my voice so that I will roar you as gently as any sucking dove. I will roar you an ’twere any nightingale.'

Rosimund's by her wishing well.  

Rosamund's pond in St James's Park London, was a rendezvous for lovers and a place where jilted lovers committed suicide, until it was filled in 1770.

Soon tempt-in-twos will stroll at venture and hunt-by-threes strut musketeering. Brace of girdles, brasse of beauys.

Soon the two temptresses and three musketeers hunting for sex (witnesses of HCE's sin in the park on page 34) will be strolling and strutting. The Phoenix Park at night was a popular place for lovers. This reminds me of another night scene in the park, in Joyce's Chapelizod story, A Painful Case:

When he gained the crest of the Magazine Hill he halted and looked along the river towards Dublin, the lights of which burned redly and hospitably in the cold night. He looked down the slope and, at the base, in the shadow of the wall of the Park, he saw some human figures lying. Those venal and furtive loves filled him with despair.

 

Joyce often uses repeated rhythmic motifs in the Wake - something familiar for the baffled reader to grasp hold of. There are more than a thousand of them in the book, catalogued by Clive Hart in Structure and Motif in Finnegans Wake.

There are two motifs here.

Brace of girdles, brasse of beauys. With the width of the way for jogjoy

A description of the two girls and three soldiers, whose rhythm can be found here:

'a roof for may and a reef for hugh butt under his bridge suits tony' 6.06
'Sudds for me and supper for you and the doctor's bill for Joe John.' 215.17
'A palashe for hirs, a saucy for hers and ladlelike spoons for the wonner' 246.14
'Oil for meed and toil for feed and a walk with the band for Job Loos.' 448.21
'Her sheik to Slave, his dick to Dave and the fat of the land to Guygas.' 494.26
'cuffs for meek and chokers for sheek and a kink in the pacts for namby' 614.06

Dithering dathering waltzers of. Stright!

A water motif which echoes the last words of the Anna Livia chapter: 'Beside the rivering waters of, hitherandthithering waters of. Night!' 216.04. Like a musical leitmotif, it summons up Anna Livia. Here are the other appearances:

'wasching the walters of, the weltering walters off. Whyte.' 64.20
'and watch her waters of her sillying waters of' 74.29
'arride the winnerful wonders off, the winnerful wonnerful wanders off' 265.15
'baffling with the walters of, hoompsydoompsy walters of. High!' 373.06
'Amingst the living waters of, the living in giving waters of. Tight!' 462.04

Hulkers cieclest elbownunsense is HCE, which brings us to his pub.

And if you wend your way to the Liffey, wanderer, you'll find a warm welcome in the pub. 

You took with the mulligrubs and we lack mulsum? Mulligrubs is an old word for depression, 'mulsum' is a Roman drink mixing wine and honey. In other words, there's no need to feel depressed while the pub is supplied with booze.  'What, are you sick of the mulligrubs' is from Sheridan LeFanu's The House by the Churchyard, where it is a quotation from Swift's Polite Conversation.

Why did he choose 'mulligrubs' and 'mulsum'? Because the pub is the Mullingar Inn!

You'll find 'dapplebellied mugs and troublebedded rooms and sawdust strown in expectoration.' Those '-ation' words characterise the twelve drinkers in HCE's pub.

So the Nocturne ends with the pub, the setting of the following two chapters of the book.

You don't need to know any of the above to enjoy 'A Phoenix Park Nocturne'. Joyce once said of Finnegans Wake, 'It's pure music', and many of his techniques, such as the use of leitmotifs, are musical. 'Nocturne' is a term borrowed from music. Just read it aloud and let the music take you.

After reading the Nocturne, in Verve, the Russian composer, Arthur Lourié (1892-1966), an emigré in Paris, was inspired to write a piece of piano music dedicated 'to the memory of James Joyce'. Lourié would missed many of the references, but he loved Joyce's prose.

If you google 'A Phoenix Park Nocturne', you're more likely to find Arthur Lourié's music than Finnegans Wake. Listen to it played by Shawn Heller and imagine night falling on a park in Dublin.