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' ('the space of sky above us was the colour of ever-changing violet and towards it the amps of the street lifted their feeble lanterns'). By the time he wrote Finnegans Wake, Joyce's 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. 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 1938

'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.

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

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 along with his article, 'L'Esthetique de Joyce' in Études de Lettres, Lausanne XIII, 1 October 1938, p 39-46, which you can read online here. Brief extracts from 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 early 1980s. You'll see what I mean shortly!

While the information in the notes is all from Joyce, they are shaped by Mercanton's powerful emotional response to the book, where he found a 'deeply religious human sadness.' You can find this also in his account of spending Good Friday with Joyce in 1938.

I've translated Mercanton's notes, and give his text below in red - for the first time in English!

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 lit each gas lamp individually. In the dusk episode of Ulysses, Nausicaa, a lamplighter is described 'going his rounds'.  

'Who come yond with pire on poletop?'

The Phoenix Park still has 224 gas lamps, maintained since 1890 by five generations of the Flanagan family. See Donal Fallon's book The Lamplighters of Phoenix Park and his excellent podcast, There is a Light that Never Goes Out.

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 and its stained glass windows are lit up in the final chapter of the Wake. I've visited it and was 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?

C is also the symbol for the speed of light in physics, as in Einstein's formula.

'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.' 

Yon marshpond is visited by the tide.

Joyce had nothing to say to Mercanton about this line, which in the final published text became 'Yon marshpond by ruodmark verge is visited by the tide.'  Ruodmarg is simply 'bog' in Bog Latin, one of the Secret Languages of Ireland. 

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. 

'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. In his explanations, Joyce hardly ever revealed the sources of quotations. But 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 now the name of a pub on the eastern side of Phoenix Park. But it was originally the nickname of the Black Horse pub, also known as the Hole in the Wall pub (its present name), on the north side of the park.

'The present Blackhorse Lane, starting from the Dublin Corporation Abattoir … derives its name from the Black Horse tavern, better known to Dubliners as “Nancy Hand's” from its popular hostess at the time, or the “Hole in the Wall”, from a turnstile into the adjoining Phoenix Park.''  

Dillon Cosgrave, North Dublin City and Environs, 1909.

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 creates the 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 was 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 thought to be 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. 

  '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.'

In deerhaven, imbraced, alleged, injoynted and unlatched, the birds, tommelise too, quail silens. ii.

 '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 was 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.

Roland McHugh identified 'imbraced, alleged, injoynted and unlatched' as terms for carving various birds, from Randle Holme's The Armory of Blazonry, 1688, which I've found online here. Ducks are unbraced, pheasants allayed, bitterns unjointed, and curlews unlatched. Where on earth did Joyce find that?!

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 didn't tell Mercanton that he was quoting another great list maker, Francois Rabelais, in Sir Thomas Urquhart's magnificent 17th century translation of Gargantua and Pantagruel, Bk III chapter 13:

'He gave us also the example of the philosopher who, when he thought most seriously to have withdrawn himself unto a solitary privacy, far from the rustling clutterments of the tumultuous and confused world, the better to improve his theory, to contrive, comment, and ratiocinate, was, notwithstanding his uttermost endeavours to free himself from all untoward noises, surrounded and environed about so with the barking of curs, bawling of mastiffs, bleating of sheep, prating of parrots, tattling of jackdaws, grunting of swine, girning of boars, yelping of foxes, mewing of cats, cheeping of mice, squeaking of weasels, croaking of frogs, crowing of cocks, cackling of hens, calling of partridges, chanting of swans, chattering of jays, peeping of chickens, singing of larks, creaking of geese, chirping of swallows, clucking of moorfowls, cucking of cuckoos, bumbling of bees, rammage of hawks, chirming of linnets, croaking of ravens, screeching of owls, whicking of pigs, gushing of hogs, curring of pigeons, grumbling of cushat-doves, howling of panthers, curkling of quails, chirping of sparrows, crackling of crows, 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, pioling of pelicans, quacking of ducks, yelling of wolves, roaring of lions, neighing of horses, crying of elephants, hissing of serpents, and wailing of turtles, that he was much more troubled than if he had been in the middle of the crowd at the fair of Fontenay or Niort.'

This is a massive expansion of Rabelais' French text, which lists only nine animals, and many of these words were invented by Urquhart, who was as inventive as Joyce. 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.

  "We call the page the torch bearer: the lamps are lit: the festival of the night begins. The nocturnal animals awaken, and the soul remembers God: then Yul remembers Mei. Hebrew always marks, in Work in Progress, a solemn, religious passage, which does not mean it lacks humour: Hanoukan's lamp. While preparing the Jewish prayer (Hanukah – the Jewish festival of dedication or lights), which concludes the episode, it recalls the Irish song: Hannigan's Aunt.
 Yul: Then you'll remember me: an Irish song, quoted just by its opening words: when the otter leaps... And Yule: Christmas, December, recalls the month of May: Mei. The old remember their youth, and the old husband remembers his wife, younger than himself.'

'Then you'll remember me' is from Michael Balfe's The Bohemian Girl:

When other lips and other hearts
Their tales of love shall tell,
In language whose excess imparts
The pow’r they feel so well,
There may perhaps in such a scene
Some recollection be.
Of days that have as happy been,
And you’ll remember me.

 

That's another Wake motif.

'when Bohemiand lips' 170.10

'When older links lock older hearts then he'll resemble she' 135.32

'till you'll resemble me' 460.34

'Bussoftlee mememtormee! 628.13
 

'I interrupt my quotation with this reminiscence of a psalm, this anguished call of the night: the animal world stirs, then falls asleep; the fields of the sky light up while those of the earth reconnect in their rest: the soul of man keeps watch and murmurs. It is this fusion, sometimes perceptible in a single word, of the most inventive humor and the most aware, deeply religious human sadness, that gives meaning to so many pages of Work in Progress. Hence the emotion of the soul alongside the joy of the senses, hence the trembling of the heart while the mind is excited, entertained, and questioning itself."

That's the end of Mercanton's explanation, but not of the Nocturne, which continues:

Her hung maid mohns are bluming, look, to greet those loes on coast of amethyst; arcglow's seafire siemens lure and wextward warnerforth's hookercrookers.

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.

And now, with robby brerfox's fishy fable lissaned out, the threads simwhat toran and knots in its antargumends, the pesciolines in Liffeyetta's bowl have stopped squiggling about Junoh and the whalk and feriaquintaism and pebble infinibility and the poissission of the hoghly course, and if Lubbernabohore laid his wizard's horker to the ribber, save the qireqareqol and dabardin going on in his mount of knowledge (munt), he would not hear a flip flap in all Finnyland.

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.

Witchmam, watch of your night? Es voes, ez noes, nott voes, ges, noun. Darkpark's acoo with sucking loves. Rosimund's by her wishing well. Soon tempt-in-twos will stroll at venture and hunt-by-threes strut musketeering. 

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.'

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 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.'

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

 

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. This motif is 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

Hulkers cieclest elbownunsense

This is HCE, which introduces his pub in the lines which follow.

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

Hesperons! And if you wand to Livmouth, wenderer, while Jempson's weed decks Jacqueson's Island, here lurks, bar hellpellhullpullthebell, none iron welcome. Bing. Bong. Bangbong. Thunderation! You took with the mulligrubs and we lack mulsum? No sirreebob! Great goodness, no! Were you Marely quean of Scuts or but Chrestien the Last (our duty to you, Chris! royalty, squat!), how matt your mark, though luked your johl, here's dapplebellied mugs and troublebedded rooms and sawdust strown in expectoration. And, for ratification by specification of your information, Mr Knight, tuntapster, buttles; his alefru's up to his hip. And Watsy Lyke sees after all rinsings and don't omiss Kate, homeswab homely, put in with the bricks. A's the sign and one's the number. Where Chavvyout Chacer calls the cup and Pouropourim stands a stirrup. De oud huis bij de kerkegaard. So who over comes ever for Whoopee Weeks must put up with the Jug and Chambers.

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.