Under the Astrolabe with Hercules Fig. 1, S1, S2, S3. Samuel de Champlain with astrolabe, Ottawa. "And I built in Urbs in Rure, for minne elskede, my shiny brows, under astrolobe from my upservatory, an erd- closet"(551.24-26) Enclosed within a very long sentence (see ST1) the above line describes, on one level, the monument to Samuel de Champlain1, 17th century explorer and cartographer, atop Nepean Point, overlooking the Rideau Canal where it steps down to the Ottawa River, Ottawa. The sentence is constituted of 680 words however the density of these words and passage, as well as the echoes farther afield, are vast. The “:” technique which Joyce uses, in this sentence, appears to allow a change in narrator over a range of subjects, places, and times. In this particular case (550-552), the sentence displays a layering of themes much like Fig. 2, S4. Topo sheet 31G/5, the stack of scribable acetates that were Ottawa. used in creating a topographical (Ordnance Survey) map during the last century: separate layers for relief (contour lines mimicking hills, ravines and so on -- natural or man-made); drainage (rivers! lakes, bogs, estuaries...); vegetation; settlement (towns, mines, military installations...); transportation (railways, roads...); cultural features (edifices, monuments, historical landmarks...); and coordinates (Lat. & Long., UTM); reference marks for alignment before photographing; much like separate Ukiyo-E wood blocks for each colour are aligned on reference points to produce one print). I mean to review the part of the sentence contained by page 551 (see ST1) in relation, mostly, to the colossus theme of Finnegans Wake2, of which Champlain is a member. I‘ll be working with several "acetates" loosely applying the cartographic model 1 Fischer, D. H. 2009. Champlain's Dream. Simon and Schuster, N.Y., 834 p. 2 Paré, D.G. The Farnese Hercules, Man of Calp. fuyublog.wordpress.com. In prep. 1 described above. I will, regrettably, skip over many enticing echoes and themes and go back and forth within the 680 word sentence with, hopefully more attention to order, time, and space than Joyce has, not without reason, chosen in its writing. I'll reconnoitre the scene, occasionally colouring outside the lines. The Colossus theme type locality First, a review of the Wake's Colossus theme “type locality”3, a Farnese Hercules, a "cultural feature" in cartographic terms, an imaginary colossus, fixing us in our dreams? alone, along the last edge of the Liffey: Pool Beg Lighthouse, its light shone on us: “the things that pertained unto fairnesse, this wharom I am fawned on, that which was loost.” (547.05-06); “on strond of south, with mace to masthigh” (547.20); “brings us by a Commodius vicus” (003.02). Here, four pages before 551, in the midst of the W.T. Stead - Eliza Armstrong scandal 4 , we find a Roman sculpture of Hercules, known as the Farnese Hercules after its 16th century owner. This statue of Heracles (he was Greek) and it‘s Greek sculptor Glykon, were adopted by Rome as echoed in “the things that pertained unto“(547.05) deformed from Jesus' "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's". Apparently Joyce sees Hercules on the "strond"/strand with his "mace"/club, very big club, like a mast of a ship! but only waist high for the Colossus and his massive thigh, "masthigh". And at 03.02 "Commodius", the Antonine, Marcus Aurelius Commodus, is also bidding us farewell in the form of Hercules Romanus (Commodus) 5 , as we head out to sea along the Liffey. Commodus would dress up in a lion’s skin and Fig. 3, S5. Farnese’s Hercules. carry a big stick much as the Farnese Hercules is presented. Past Adam and Eve’s and after high Mass: the pagan’s mace! as we head out through "those therrble prongs!“6 (628.05). Below, in guise of evidence for my association of "Rideau" and the "astrolobe" on page 551, is a tour of Ottawa. Some of the details 3 Term stolen from geology: the location from which a type specimen comes. 4 Eckley, G. 1993. The Steadfast "Finnegans Wake". University Press of America, 354 p. 5 Neither his ink or sword being strong, his father, Marcus Aurelius, had his personal, Greek Roman physician, Galen (185.13, 424.07), care for little Caesar Commodus. 6 The Bull and South Bull walls (see S7) funneling the Liffey into the Irish Sea. 2 may help others to see various associations which I suspect were pricked into the pages of Finnegans Wake. Rideau Hall "interloopings, fell clocksure off my ballast: in our windtor palest it vampared for elenders, we lubded Sur Gudd for the sleep and the ghoasts: " (551.01-03) The King or Queen's official residence when in Canada is the Canadian Governor General's (GG) official home, Rideau Hall... “windtor palast” 7 (551.01). This winter Windsor Palast (Ger. Palace) is kept warm for His or Her Majesty by the Governor General of Canada. Since 1864. Governor General James Bruce, Lord Elgin (Viceroy of India to be), son of the 7th Lord Elgin of the “ampire“ (549.16) of “cut them out of the Parthenon and ship them home” infamy, did not reside at Rideau Hall but was however, instrumental in Queen Victoria's decision to relocate capital, of the then province of Canada, to Ottawa. He and Rideau Hall can be seen here: "in Wastewindy tarred strate and Elgin's marble halles lamping limp from black to block," (549.14-16) A little farther along we read: "she chauffed her fuesies at my Wigan's jewels... in pay- cook's thronsaale she domineered, lecking icies off the dormer panes all admired her in camises: on Rideau Row Duanna dwells," (551.03-06) where "she" may be Queen Victoria warming her guns in her dirty throne room, ruling the Dominion (of Canada), liking (Du. lecker) licking icies (frost) off the gable dormer windows of the Gothic Revival style Parliament. The Rideau River Although “Rideau (Fr. curtain) Row” suggests a theatre street or the first row of seats in a theater, it can also be rue Rideau, Ottawa, as Roland McHugh8 suggests; a street with large, turn of the (20th) century residences at one end and the CNR train station, Château Laurier CNR hotel, Canadian Parliament etc.. at the other where Rideau Street meets Wellington and Elgin streets at the Cenotaph. “Row” may oarring along the Rideau River or nearby Rideau Canal in which case it is preferable to be on the canal to avert Rideau Falls.9 Then again, “row“ may be an Ottawa, lumber town fight between established Canadien lumberjacks, “sturdy traemen“ (551.13) and Irish navvies, known as shiners/“shinners“10 (552.06) (from Fr. Chêneur, a cutter of oaks or from canal worker's shiny 7 Windsor Castle is an official residence of the Regent of England. 8 McHugh, R. 1991. Annotations to Finnegans Wake. The John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 648 p. 9 "Samuel de Champlain”. Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica Inc. 1911, vol. 5, p. 830. 10 « shinners' rifuge: descent from above on us,” (552.06-07) 3 hats) brought to Canada by Colonel John By in the late 1820s to build the Rideau Canal joining the Ottawa River at Ottawa with the St-Lawrence River at Kingston, Ontario. In this mix of ethnic rivalries we also read: "when open noise should stilled be: did not I festfix with mortarboard my unniversiries, wholly rational and gottalike, sophister agen sorefister, life sizars all?:" (551.27-30) Are the "sophisters" the Oblate taught from the University of Ottawa just up by motorboat on the encased Rideau Canal (Joyce‘s “erdcloset“ 551.12)?: "mortarboard my unniversiries" (551.28) and the sorefister men of hod. Lastly, row can be "roe", eggs from the sturgeon once plentiful in the Ottawa River. The city and its canal; "Urbs in Rure" “my towtugs steered down canal grand, my lighters lay longside on Regalia Water.” (551.22) "Regalia Water" is tantamount to assigning a plural noun that has no singular to a singular noun that has no plural. Regalia‘s singulars and plurals are more often the Mace and Crown, the royal scissors or the Prince‘s Genitals. Or is it simply a Royal‘s urine. In any case, the “canal grand“ offered access to Ottawa, Queen Victoria’s hid away capital for Canada abutting the rosy, crenulated fringe of the Precambrian Shield where it meets the Paleozoic limestone of the Ottawa Group (See S9) which underlies much of the St. Lawrence and Ottawa valleys. An "Urbs Fig. 4, S6. Little Red in Rure" or city in the country... wilderness Ridding Hood. really; a matter of putting some distance and bush between the seat of Government and a manifestly bellicose United States who could easily attack previous Canadian capitals such as Kingston and Montréal as they attempted during the War of 1812. The canal, built in the 1830s, provided a strategic, alternative route from Montreal, via Bytown (now Ottawa), to Kingston on Lake Ontario; a route that avoided St-Lawrence River ambushers lurking in the woods, in estuaries. "in littleritt reddinghats and cindery yellows and tinsel and glitter and bibs under hoods: I made nusance of many well pressed champdamors and peddled freely in the scrub: I foredreamed for thee and more than full- maked: I prevened for thee in the haunts that joybelled frail light- a-leaves for sturdy traemen:" (551.08-13) Is it a, somewhat temporally out of phase, Queen Victoria that we can imagine walking in the forests of her new Dominion in her “littleritt reddinghats”, (551.08) her Little Red Riding Hood, Son 4 petit chaperon rouge; along the Ottawa R., safe from the big bad wolf ("bibs under hoods" 351.09, yum, woof) lurking on the St- Lawrence (also out of phase)? “Stay close to your Duenna11, and far from the “Duanna” (551.06) (St-Lawrence R.), the memories of 1775, 1776, and 1812 are still fresh in My basket." Joyce mentions the St-Lawrence River by its Mohawk12 name Duanna13.