L’Arcs en His Ceiling Flee Chinx on the Flur

How many meanings can you get out of these nine words from Finnegans Wake?

L’Arcs en His Ceiling Flee Chinx on the Flur 104.13

In July 1927, Joyce came up with this line which he added to the list of titles of 'Anna Livia's mamafesta', her letter defending her slandered husband HCE.

He was so pleased with this that, on 27 July 1927,  he sent an explanation of it to Harriet Shaw Weaver in a letter. Here he described seven different layers of meaning, perhaps for the seven colours of the rainbow (arc-en-ciel).

Selected Letters, 326

In his letter, Joyce gives the text as 'L'Arcs en' rather than the 'Arcs in' of the published version (below). The loss of the 'L' undermines three of Joyce's readings, losing the 'birds flying' in 3, the 'merriment above (larks)' in 4 and the 'birds (doves and ravens)'  in 7.  Yet it's not in Rose and O'Hanlon's restored text.

1) God's in his heaven and All's Right with the World

This is a line from Browning's verse drama, Pippa Passes, where the verse also includes a lark on the wing.

The year's at the spring
And day's at the morn;
Morning's at seven;
The hill-side's dew-pearled;
The lark's on the wing;
The snail's on the thorn:
God's in his heaven—
All's right with the world!

2) The Rainbow is in the sky (arc-en-ciel) the Chinese (Chinks) live tranquilly on the Chinese meadowplane (China alone almost of the old continent(s) has no record of a Deluge. Flur in this sense is German. It suggests also Flut (flood) and Fluss (river) and could even be used poetically for the expanse of a waterflood Flee = free)

This rainbow, 'the sky sign of soft advertisement' (4.12) is one of 122 in the book, usually linked to Noah and the flood (also in 'arc'). 

Joseph Koch, 'Noah's Offering', 1803

'And God said: “This is the sign of the covenant which I make between Me and you, and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations: I set My rainbow in the cloud, and it shall be for the sign of the covenant between Me and the earth. It shall be, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the rainbow shall be seen in the cloud; and I will remember My covenant which is between Me and you and every living creature of all flesh; the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh.'

Genesis 9 12-16

I wonder where Joyce got the idea that the Chinese had no record of a deluge. The opposite is true. 

'The theme of flood control and myths of a great deluge constitute a fundamental and recurring topic in classical Chinese writing.' 

Anne Birrell, 'The Four Flood Myth Traditions of Classical China', T'uong Pau, 1997.

The earliest version of the line is a note 'Free Chinks on the Flure'. Then Joyce changed the 'free' to 'flee', creating the alliteration with 'flure' (which became ‘flur’) and also mimicking the supposed Chinese confusion pronouncing l and r. 

'Chinks' is a racist nickname for Chinese, going back to the 1880s.  

‘Flur’ also means hallway or passage in German! So that little word is packed with meanings.

3) The ceiling of his (HCE-siglum) house is in ruins for you can see the birds flying and the floor is full of cracks which you had better avoid.

This is a nice reading, which could also describe Noah's ark falling into ruins after it was stranded on Mount Ararat. So there’s an eighth interpretation! 

4) There is merriment above (larks) why should there not be high jinks below stairs?

'What larks!' (Great Expectations). From Francis Grose's 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue:

LARK. A boat.
LARK. A piece of merriment. People playing together jocosely.

I didn't know that a lark was a boat, though when I was young there were several excursion boats called the skylark. I wonder if Joyce knew that, since it fits with the ark theme. See the Word Detective for more about larks.

Skylark figurehead and name board in Brighton Fishing Museum

High Jinks - originally a dice game, in which the forfeit was drinking alcohol.

'below stairs' suggests the servants who in FW are called Kate and Joe.

5) The electric lamps of the gin palace are lit and the boss Roderick Rex is standing free drinks to all on the 'flure of the house'

Joyce expected Weaver to remember the very first Wake sketch he wrote, which features Roderick O'Conor, the last high king of Ireland as a Dublin publican, after closing time drinking the dregs and coming 'crash a crupper' - the first fall in Finnegans Wake. You can read it on pages 380-382 of FW.

Electric lamps are suggested by 'arcs', because of arc lamps, the first electric lighting system.

6) He is a bit gone in the upper storey, poor jink. Let him lie as he is (Shem, Ham and Japhet)

'gone in the upper storey' - one of many ways of describing crazy behaviour, like 'the rats in his garret, the bats in his belfry' (180.26).

'poor jink' - I can't find anything about this phrase online.

'let him lie as he is (Shem Ham and Japhet)' Here's another story about Noah, who made and drank the first wine, which led to him drunkenly passing out and exposing himself to his three sons. 

In the Wake, these three are another version of the three soldiers who witness HCE's sin in the park on page 34.  They are HCE's sons, Shem, Shaun and a composite third son, a fusion of the two.

Joyce identified Noah with Arthur Guinness and John Jameson on the opening page of the book, where we have another rainbow described as 'arclight':

'Rot a peek of pa's malt had Jhem or Shen brewed by arclight and Rory end to the regginbrow was to be seen ringsome on the aquaface.' 3.13

'Noah planted the vine and was drunk

John James is the greatest Dublin distiller

Arthur Guinness " " " " brewer'

Joyce's gloss to Harriet Shaw Weaver, 15 November 1926

7) The birds (doves and ravens) (cf the jinnies is a cooin her hair and the jinnies is a ravin her hair) he saved escape from his waterhouse and leave the zooless patriark alone.

There are 43 uses of this dove/raven motif, which you can find listed in fweet. Would we find them in this line without Joyce's note?

This is another part of the Noah story in Genesis.

'the jinnies is a coin her hair...' is a quote from the Museyroom passage, on pages 8-10, where the jinnies are the two girls and also dove and raven. 

'Zooless patriark' is a great phrase. It's a shame he didn't use it in Finnegans Wake.  

We get a zookeeping Noah, with larks and the cooing of doves, in 'The Ballad of Persse O'Reilly', on page 47. But here HCE is one of the animals on show:

Begob he's the crux of the catalogue

Of our antediluvial zoo,

         (Chorus) Messrs. Billing and Coo.

          Noah's larks, good as noo. 47.3-6

Perhaps if Joyce hadn't been thinking of a seven layered rainbow he could have found even more meanings. How many more can you come up with?

This Wake line reminds me of Frank Budgen's story of the writing of 'Perfume of embraces all him assailed. With hungered flesh obscurely, he mutely craved to adore.' in Ulysses:

I enquired about Ulysses. Was it progressing?
"I have been working hard on it all day," said Joyce.
"Does that mean that you have written a great deal?" I said.
"Two sentences," said Joyce....
"You have been seeking the mot juste?" I said.
"No," said Joyce. "I have the words already. What I am seeking is the perfect order of words in the sentence. There is an order in every way appropriate. I think I have it."

He could have spent even longer working on 'L'arcs en his ceiling...' where he was not just rearranging English words but inventing new ones.

MORE SUGGESTIONS

After I posted this on social media, several Wake readers sent in suggestions.

'Fleets of arcs/ships in his head flee whirlpools on the floor'

Diego Pacheco

'I am no Wake scholar but to me it has the rhythm of the nursery rhyme "Ride a Cock Horse" - Rings on her fingers and bells on her toes - (She shall have music wherever she goes).'

Frederick J Hayn

'Ling is a a word packed with many meanings with idem spelling variations. It is, of course, a Chinese surname name with several meanings. One possible connection with flee (or free) is that it seems to be used by Chinese people outside of China, the diaspora which entails sea journeys and vessels....

  If you follow the Chinese theme then the His becomes an other God(s).
Wiki has handy info on Chinese cosmogony and deities. “The gods are energies or principles revealing, imitating and propagating the way of Heaven (Tian 天), which is the supreme godhead manifesting in the northern culmen of the starry vault of the skies and its order.”'

Paul Devine

'L'Arcs on the ceiling (with or without the "L") could indeed be electric arc lights (JJ's lamps) -- but due to their extreme brightness rather uncommon on ceilings, but used in cinema projectors, which JJ knew his way around. Flór is also an Irish word for flower (though only in imitation of the French -- Flór de lúis)'

Russell Potter

'Arcs remind me of the innards of a large ship or the ribbings of a large whale. Noah's Ark? Jonah and the Whale?'

Clint Carroll

'The phrase 'All aboard the skylark' has been around since the 19th century and 'Skylark' was, as you say, a popular name for small vessels that took holiday-makers for trips around the bay. We had one in Southend-on-Sea, and it was famously one of the small boast that took part in the Dunkirk operation.  But there's also the verb, meaning to muck about (as in 'No Skylarking on the Platform') - it's something schoolboys used to do. See attached (found in Armley Museum, Leeds)'

David Collard

‘Arc of the covenant = HCE siglum. *drops mic*’

Jonathan McCreedy

Jonathan's idea reminded me of the theory that the Ark of the Covenant was an electric capacitor, which could have powered the arc lights!

'our arc of the covenant' 507.33