'Wather Parted from the Say'

Finnegans Wake includes lots of comic verse, often set out as verse, but sometimes hidden in the prose:

This is the beginning of a song mocking HCE at the close of the pub episode, on page 371. To set the scene, it's closing time in HCE's pub (based on the Mullingar House, Chapelizod). He is trying to throw the disorderly drinkers out, but they are 'clamatising for an extinsion on his hostillery'. Adding to his sense of urgency, he can hear the sound of an angry mob of 'Mullinguard minstrelsers' marching through Dublin to attack him.

The song is sung by Ostia, who is at the head of the mob. We last heard from him as 'Hosty (no slouch of a name) an illstarred beachbusker', who sings the 'Ballad of Persse O'Reilly' , another song attacking HCE, on pages 44-8.

The last line above is the cheering of the mob listening to Ostia's song, as on page 46:

Lift it, Hosty, lift it, ye devil ye! up with the rann, the rhyming rann!  

'Ostia' is Italian for host – the eucharist, raised by a celebrant, which gives an extra meaning to the mob's call, 'Ostia, lift it!' Orlando Mezzabotta has posted to the online Wake reading group that ''ostia!' is a very common imprecation in Venetian/Triestine dialect. Not really blasphemous: let's say -- a soft swearing. A variant is 'Pan da Ostia' (Host's bread), used to show surprise.'  There's also the Latin 'hostis', meaning enemy.

Ostia is also the port at the mouth of the River Tiber - a fitting name for the singer of a song about water. Its name comes from 'os', the Latin word for 'mouth'. Ostia is the mouthpiece of the mob – the hostile host – pursuing HCE.

'Dour douchy' is a play on Tenducci - the Italian soprano castrati, Giusto Fernando Tenducci (1736-90). He was a star in Britain and Ireland, famous for singing the role of Arbaces in Thomas Arnes' 1762 opera Artaxerxes.  Tenducci's big aria was 'Water Parted from the Sea': 

'Water parted from the Sea
May increase the river's tide;
To the bubbling fount may flee
Or thro' fertile valleys glide.
Tho' in search of soft repose,
Thro' the land 'tis free to roam,
Still it murmurs as it flows,
Panting for its native home.'

Tenducci sang this aria in his concerts, in which he also performed traditional Scottish songs.

This led to 'Water Parted from the Sea' being mistakenly included as an old Scottish song in the 'Scots Musical Museum' (right), edited by Robert Burns and James Johnson.

Later in the Wake we have 'tendulcis tunes like tunes like water parted fluted up from the westinders' 541.32 

On the left is another reference to the song in the 1826 memoirs of the Dublin actor and dramatist John O'Keeffe, which I found online.

He quotes a song sung by the 'frolicsome Dublin boys', which Joyce is parodying in his own verse.

The Dublin boys were themselves parodying another song, written in the 17th century.

Tommy was a Piper's Son,
And fell in love when he was young;
But all the Tunes that he could play
Was 'O'er the hills, and far away'.

The verses of Ostia's song are interspersed with descriptions of the marching mob, the disorderly drinkers and HCE's state of mind. The pub is also beginning to be transformed into a ship, which will sail away at the end of the chapter.  It's a classic anxiety dream.

Here's the whole song put together:

Dour douchy was a sieguldson.

He cooed that loud nor he was young.

He cud bad caw nor he was gray

Like wather parted from the say.

For be all rules of sport, ‘tis right

That youth bedower’d to charm the night

Whilst age is dumped to mind the day

When wather parted from the say.

From Dancingtree till Suttonstone

There’s lads no lie would filch a crown

To mull their sack and brew their tay

With wather parted from the say.

His bludgeon’s bruk, his drum is tore.

For spuds we’ll keep the hat he wore

And roll in clover on his clay

By wather parted from the say.

The gangstairs strain and anger’s up

As Hoisty rares the can and cup

To speed the bogre’s barque away

O’er wather parted from the say.

Try singing that to the tune of 'Over the hills and far away'!

Going through verse by verse:

Dour douchy was a sieguldson.

He cooed that loud nor he was young.

He cud bad caw nor he was gray

Like wather parted from the say.

HCE was a seagull's son? A sigurdson? Elsewhere, he's a Viking foreign invader, founder of Dublin. That's followed by one of more than forty Wake pairings of the dove and the raven, released by Noah from his Ark (below).  When HCE was young he cooed loudly, like a dove. Now he's old and gray, he can only 'bad caw', like a raven. 

Noah in his Ark is like HCE in his ship/pub.

He's like 'wather parted from the say', which could be water parted from the self (se = self in Latin), or piss. 

That's just a paraphrase, and no paraphrase can do justice to this strange and beautiful verse.

For be all rules of sport, ‘tis right

That youth bedower’d to charm the night

Whilst age is dumped to mind the day

When wather parted from the say.

This one's much clearer. He's washed up, dumped to mind the day while the young are 'bedower'd to charm the night'. This is the same message as the seagulls' mocking 'Three quarks for Muster Mark!' song on p.383.  It's now 'when' wather parted, the moment of transition to old age.

From Dancingtree till Suttonstone

There’s lads no lie would filch a crown

To mull their sack and brew their tay

With wather parted from the say.

Here's another common Wake pairing - the tree/Shem and the stone/Shaun, the young who will supplant HCE. Shem is the dancing tree, Shaun the sitting stone. Maybe also Dunsink and Sutton in Dublin. They will filch HCE's crown and mull their sack and brew their tea with his water.

His bludgeon’s bruk, his drum is tore.

For spuds we’ll keep the hat he wore

And roll in clover on his clay

By wather parted from the say.

His stick and drum are broken, but we'll keep his hat for our spuds, and roll in clover on his grave, which is the city of Dublin by the River Liffey ('by wather parted').

The gangstairs strain and anger’s up

As Hoisty rares the can and cup

To speed the bogre’s barque away

O’er wather parted from the say.

The mob's anger is up. Ostia is now Hoisty, raising a cup to speed the old bugger/ogre's barque away over the water.

This refers to the pub's transformation into a ship, described on the previous page, where we see the four old men leaving the pub and falling into the sea  ('The for eolders were aspolootly at their westend in the mailing water' 372.34).

At the end of the chapter, the ship sails away, becoming the setting for the Tristan and Isolde episode which follows.

So sailed the stout ship Nansy Hans. From Liff away.  382.27