Dublin's Phoenix Park as a Giant Male Arse

Here's a male arse, from the Farnese Hercules 

'This is his big wide harse' 8.20

And here's a map of the Phoenix Park. Can you see the similarity?

James Joyce could!

In Book 3 chapter 4, we are taken on a tour of Earwicker's pub at night, where most of the family is sleeping. After visiting the rooms of Issy and the twins, we go into the parents' bedroom. The first thing we see is Earwicker's huge backside, as he lies on top of Anna Livia in another of the book's grotesque sex scenes.

'Jeminy, what is the view which now takes up a second position of discordance, tell it please? Mark! You notice it in that rereway because the male entail partially eclipses the femecovert. It is so called for its discord the meseedo. Do you ever heard the story about Helius Croesus, that white and gold elephant in our zoopark? You astonish me by it. Is it not that we are commanding from fullback, woman permitting, a profusely fine birdseye view from beauhind this park? Finn his park has been much the admiration of all the stranger ones, grekish and romanos, who arrive to here. The straight road down the centre (see relief map) bisexes the park which is said to be the largest of his kind in the world. On the right prominence confronts you the handsome vinesregent’s lodge while, turning to the other supreme piece of cheeks, exactly opposite, you are confounded by the equally handsome chief sacristary’s residence. Around is a little amiably tufted and man is cheered when he bewonders through the boskage how the nature in all frisko is enlivened by gentlemen’s seats. Here are heavysuppers — ’tis for daddies housings for hundredaires of our super thin thousand. By gum, but you have resin! Of these tallworts are yielded out juices for jointoils and pappasses for paynims. Listeneth! ’Tis a tree story. How olave, that firile, was aplantad in her liveside. How tannoboom held tonobloom. How rood in norlandes. The black and blue marks athwart the weald, which now barely is so stripped, indicate the presence of sylvious beltings. Therewithal shady rides lend themselves out to rustic cavalries. In yonder valley, too, stays mountain sprite. Any pretty dears are to be caught inside but it is a bad pities of the plain. A scarlet pimparnell now mules the mound where anciently first murders were wanted to take root. By feud fionghalian. Talkingtree and sinningstone stay on either hand. Hystorical leavesdroppings may also be garnered up with sir Shamus Swiftpatrick, Archfieldchaplain of Saint Lucan’s. How familiar it is to see all these interesting advenements with one snaked’s eyes! Is all? Yet not. Hear one’s. At the bodom fundus of this royal park, which, with tvigate shyasian gardeenen, is open to the public till night at late, so well the sissastrides so will the pederestians, do not fail to point to yourself a depression called Holl Hollow. It is often quite guttergloomering in our duol and gives wankyrious thoughts to the head but the banders of the pentapolitan poleetsfurcers bassoons into it on windy woodensdays their wellbooming wolvertones. Ulvos! Ulvos!' 

564.01-565.05

This is a verbal equivalent of an 18th century puzzle picture - popular prints of landscapes with human features concealed within them.

Joyce read a description of the park in Warburton Whitelaw and Walsh's 1818 History of the City of Dublin, which I've found online. So 'man is cheered when he bewonders through the boskage how the nature in all frisko is enlivened by gentlemen’s seats' is inspired by this passage:

'The straight road down the centre (see relief map) bisexes the park which is said to be the largest of his kind in the world.'

Earwicker's arsecrack is the long straight Chesterfield Avenue, which bisects the park.  A relief map would show the rising buttocks on each side. 

Elsewhere Joyce says that Dublin 'can boost of having...the most extensive public park in the world' 140.10.  But look how Joyce has made the park male ('his kind').

'On the right prominence confronts you the handsome vinesregent’s lodge while, turning to the other supreme piece of cheeks, exactly opposite, you are confounded by the equally handsome chief sacristary’s residence.'

The right buttock has the Viceregal Lodge, the left cheek the Chief Secretary's lodge.   Look out for the HCE initials ('equally handsome chief').

 
'The black and blue marks athwart the weald, which now barely is so stripped, indicate the presence of sylvious beltings.'

The marks on the relief map are a belt of trees – and black and blue bruises on Earwicker's stripped/striped bum. They indicate the presence of beltings – erotic flagellation.  'Weald' is an old English name for woodland which also includes 'weal', a red swollen mark.  
'Sylvious' - associated with forests, from Latin 'Silva', and so birchings. Maybe also 'serious'.

This reminds me of Leopold Bloom in Circe:

THE HONOURABLE MRS MERVYN TALBOYS (Stamps her jingling spurs in a sudden paroxysm of sudden fury.) I will, by the God above me. I'll scourge the pigeonlivered cur as long as I can stand over him. I'll flay him alive.
BLOOM (His eyes closing, quails expectantly.) Here? (He squirms.) Again! (He pants cringing.) I love the danger.
THE HONOURABLE MRS MERVYN TALBOYS Very much so! I'll make it hot for you. I'll make you dance Jack Latten for that.
MRS BELLINGHAM Tan his breech well, the upstart! Write the stars and stripes on it!
MRS YELVERTON BARRY Disgraceful! There's no excuse for him! A married man!
BLOOM All these people. I meant only the spanking idea. A warm tingling glow without effusion. Refined birching to stimulate the circulation.

'A scarlet pimparnell now mules the mound where anciently first murders were wanted to take root.'

The Phoenix Park murders location is marked by a pimple on the bum, a scarlet pimParnell in the park, because Parnell was falsely accused of complicity in the murders, with forged letters written by the journalist Richard Piggott - who was found out by his mispelling 'hesitency'.

Joyce doesn't play with the word 'assassination', even though it includes the American form of 'arse' twice – too obvious for him?

'Do you ever heard the story about Helius Croesus, that white and gold elephant in our zoopark?'
 

An elephant I photographed in the Phoenix Park Zoo in 2010

 
Parnell's enemy, Tim Healy, is also here, as the elephant in the zoo - the elephant who says his prayers in the Phoenix Park Nocturne.  When Joyce started writing the Wake, Healy was Governor General of Ireland, and lived in the park in the Viceregal Lodge.  

'At the bodom fundus of this royal park, which, with tvigate shyasian gardeenen, is open to the public till night at late, so well the sissastrides so will the pederestians, do not fail to point to yourself a depression called Holl Hollow. It is often quite guttergloomering in our duol and gives wankyrious thoughts to the head but the banders of the pentapolitan poleetsfurcers bassoons into it on windy woodensdays their wellbooming wolvertones. Ulvos! Ulvos!'

This is the Hollow, the unnamed area above between the Zoological Gardens and the People's Garden on the map above. There's a bandstand here, representing Earwicker's arsehole - the 'Hol Hollow'.
 

Earwicker's anus, from google earth

The windy sound of the Dublin Police brass band instruments are farts - and the howling of the twelve wolves hunting down Parnell/HCE.

In Dublin this week, for Finnegans Wake at 80, I made a pilgrimage to Earwicker's arsehole

'I go to bed and then that man sits in the next room and continues laughing about his own writing, And then I knock on the door, and I say, 'Now Jim, stop writing or stop laughing.'  

Nora Barnacle to Carola Giedion-Welcker