The trial of Festy King continues with evidence from two witness: W.P. and Hyacinth O’Donnell. In the original 1939 edition of James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake this section comprised a single unbroken paragraph more than four pages long. In The Restored Finnegans Wake it has been broken into three paragraphs: two long ones separated by a very short one. We will try to swallow it all in one go.
As usual, we begin our analysis by examining the first draft of this passage as recorded by David Hayman:
An eyewitness said he saw or heard a man named Pat O’Donnell beat another of the Kings, Simon, but when the ambush was laid there was not as much light as wd light a child’s altar ... ―David Hayman 77
These few lines grew to 146 by the time Joyce was through with them. Between the first and last drafts, however, there was an intermediate version―92 lines―that appeared in Number 4 of Eugene Jolas’s literary journal transition in July 1927. The first draft draws on the story about a feud between Pat O’Donnell and the Kings, which Joyce came across in The Connacht Tribune and Tuam News:
Peter Naughton deposed that he was at the fair. He saw Pat O’Donnell beating Simon King. He came to his assistance, and the Volunteers then came and arrested O’Donnell. ―The Connacht Tribune and Tuam News Saturday 20 October 1923, Page 7, Columns 4–5
This dispute took place in broad daylight, during a fair in the coastal village of Kilkerrin, County Galway. The final detail, about how dark it was, was taken from the other story that informs this passage: the Maamtrasna Massacre:
An inquest was held yesterday at Maamtrasna on the bodies of the five members of the Joyce family, who were so barbarously massacred in the dead of the night ... ―The Connaught Telegraph Saturday 26 August 1882, Page 3, Column 5
Joyce greatly expanded this brief passage by introducing two mysterious witnesses of his own invention, W.P. and Hyacinth O’Donnell, who are cross-examined at great length and with considerable confusion. The passage concludes, fittingly enough, with another of the hundred-letter words that represent the voice of God.
What do the initials of the first witness stand for? In her Third Census of Finnegans Wake Adaline Glasheen declines to identify W.P. with any particular character from history, myth or literature. In the earliest draft of this section, Joyce wrote W― P―, implying that these are initials. There are subsequent references in the text to a wordpainter, Pegger’s Windup, and Wet Pinter, but it is not always clear who is being referred to. As abbreviations, W.P. and P.W. can also mean a variety of things:
Witness for the Prosecution
Warming Pan a temporary office-holder, locum tenens or substitute, especially among the clergy
Parnell Witness In John MacDonald’s Diary of the Parnell Commission, P.W. is used in the index to refer to a witness called by Parnell, as opposed to one called by The Times (MacDonald 350). The Parnell Commission was a judicial commission of inquiry into allegations made by The Times that Parnell and other members of the Irish Parliamentary Party had condoned or were complicit in the Phoenix Park Assassinations. During the commission, Richard Pigott was exposed as having forged letters in Parnell’s name. Famously, his failure to spell the word hesitancy correctly was instrumental in his exposure (MacDonald 154–159).
In his Annotations to Finnegans Wake, Roland McHugh identifies W.P. with Shaun, marking his appearance with Shaun’s siglum: V (McHugh 086.32). In A Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake Joseph Campbell and Henry Morton Robinson identify the Witness for the Prosecution with Shem, having previously identified Festy King with Shaun (C&R 85). In their Chicken Guide to Finnegans Wake, Danis Rose & John O’Hanlon hedge their bets:
W.P. is possibly a version of the priest-policeman, Sigurdsson. This guard is first mentioned at [RFW] 51.03 ([FW] 63.18) and his court statements are cited at 53.40ff. (67. 10ff.), where he is renamed ‘Long Lally Tobkids,’ and also ‘Madam Tomkins.’ W.P. is eventually to metamorphose fully into Shaun. ―Chicken Guide to Finnegans Wake
The truth of the matter seems to be that W.P. is Shem (C), Shaun (V), the Oedipal Figure (Y), who embodies them both, and possibly also Sackerson (S). Note that his Remarkable evidence is given anon. This could simply be the adverb anon, meaning straight away, soon. Alternatively, it could be an abbreviation for anonymously, underlining the fact that W.P.’s identity is uncertain.
In the newspaper report about Festy King, Festy’s adversary is Pat O’Donnell. The change of name evokes Hyacinth O’Flaherty, a character in Sheridan Le Fanu’s The House by the Churchyard, which is set in Chapelizod and is a key source for Finnegans Wake. In Greek mythology Hyacinth was a Spartan youth beloved of Apollo, who accidentally killed him but later resurrected him and made him immortal.
Hyacinth was once a popular boy’s name in Ireland, though why I cannot say. Hyacinth is also the name of a flowering plant and an alternative name for the gemstone jacinth. Jacintha is still a popular girl’s name in Ireland. In the Greek myth, drops of the dead Hyacinth’s blood were transformed into the flowering plant of the same name.
FWEET also notes that ὗς [hys] is the Ancient Greek for pig, continuing the porcine theme that has been current throughout this episode. And John Gordon notes that Hyacinth’s initials spell hod, which Tim Finnegan carries in the ballad Finnegan’s Wake.
Pat O’Donnell was the name of the man who killed James Carey, the informer who gave evidence against the perpetrators of the Phoenix Park Assassinations, when the latter was on his way to settle in South Africa under the assumed name of Power.
Finally, O’Donnell may echo the surname of John MacDonald, author of Diary of the Parnell Commission. On the title page, his name is followed by the initials M.A. (Master of Arts), while Hyacinth O’Donnell is identified as a B.A. (Bachelor of Arts).
So, who is Hyacinth O’Donnell? Note that he is described as a wordpainter, which seems to imply that he and W.P. are ultimately one and the same person: as usual, HCE is his own worst enemy. He is also called a mixer. In slang, this means troublemaker, but it may be another clue that W.P. and Hyacinth O’Donnell are hybrid characters―mixtures of several different figures. Adaline Glasheen has the following entry:
Hyacinth―youth beloved of Zeus and Apollo, slain by Zeus, changed into a flower by Apollo. See O’Connell, O’Flaherty. Hyacinth Halvey is a play of Lady Gregory’s ... ―Glasheen 134
I have not been able to find any sources for the claim that Hyacinth was beloved of Zeus and slain by him. Hyacinth’s death―he is struck by a discus thrown by Apollo―was an accident or was caused by Zephyrus, the jealous god of the West Wind. McHugh repeats this error. It is significant that O’Donnell’s victims are called Gush Mac Gale and Roaring O’Crian, Jr., names evocative of the West Wind, so Joyce knew his mythology.
Lady Gregory’s play is a short comedy about a sanitary inspector who arrives in a remote village with such glowing recommendations that he is taken for a pious and saintly man. Finding the pressure of living up to such a reputation too onerous, he commits various petty crimes to cultivate a more dishonourable reputation. But his crimes are farcically misinterpreted by the villagers, only adding to his stellar reputation.
The allusions to Tim Finnegan’s hod and his death & resurrection might imply that Hyacinth O’Donnell represents HCE. This was certainly the conclusion drawn by Susan Swartzlander in an article she wrote in 1986 for the James Joyce Quarterly, when she was a PhD student at Penn State University:
Critics have never fully understood the Festy King section of Finnegans Wake (85.20-93.22), and with good reason. Joyce’s technique in this passage is to present the details of a court proceeding in such a way that the reader is left with only confusion. The witness does not understand the prosecutor; the prosecutor does not understand the witness; the defendant does not understand the prosecutor or the witness; the judges understand little of the proceedings, and the reader is hard pressed to understand anything. Through a series of misunderstandings, the narrative becomes a parody of blind (and deaf) justice. I propose to show, through an explication of the section, how the reader can find some meaning amidst all this misunderstanding. ―Swartzlander 465
Swartzlander demonstrates just how confusing Festy’s trial is when she later claims that Hyacinth O’Donnell does not actually appear in the scene. This is simply not true. When Hyacinth is first introduced, he is described as a mixer. A page later we read:
The mixer, accordingly, was bluntly broached ...
There follow three pages of cross-examination, in which Hyacinth is asked no less than sixty-four questions (if I haven’t miscounted). How Swartzlander failed to see that Hyacinth not only appears in this scene but is the principal participant I cannot say. She reads these pages as the continuing cross-examination of W.P.
When Joyce expanded the very brief first-draft of this passage, the greater part of the published version was taken up by the grilling of Hyacinth O’Donnell in the witness box. The barrister and the witness are often at cross purposes―as was the case in the infamous trial of Myles Joyce for the Maamtrasna Murders. Like Mutt & Jute in I.1, they fail to see eye to eye. At times O’Donnell seems to think that he is being asked about a horse race. At times they seem to be discussing a bad case of the clap that O’Donnell has contracted from a prostitute. There are confused allusions to Chinese, Ogham, and the Papal bull Laudabiliter. Note that The Restored Finnegans Wake makes several emendations to the 1939 edition:
1 Are you one of those for whom the audible-visible-smellable-edible world exists? Yes.
In Hester Travers Smith’s Psychic Messages from Oscar Wilde, the spirit of Oscar Wilde says: “I was always one of those for whom the visible world existed”, paraphrasing his own novel The Picture of Dorian Gray: “Like Gautier, he was one for whom ‛the visible world existed’”. Théophile Gautier was once quoted in the Journal des Goncourts as saying: “Je suis un homme pour qui le monde visible existe” (“I am a man for whom the visbile world exists”). The question also harks back to the fact that W.P. is an eye, ear, nose and throat specialist, as were Oliver St John Gogarty and Oscar Wilde’s father William Wilde. This implies that W.P. and Hyacinth O’Donnell are one and the same.
2 Are you sure of all that you have heard in this Festy King affair? Yes.
3 Satisfied? As much as I could be.
Certified can also mean officially declared to be insane. And cad suggests that the witness is also the Cad with a Pipe, who accosted HCE in the Phoenix Park.
4 Are you lying? Baloney!
5 It was Morbus O’Somebody? It was.
Morbus is Latin for disease. A’quite can also be read as a plea for an acquittal.
6 Saturday’s Son? Yes.
In the nursery rhyme Monday’s Child, “Saturday’s child works hard for a living”. But szerda is Hungarian for Wednesday: “Wednesday’s child is full of woe.” This is the first of a cluster of Hungarian words.
7 How did the jealous man acquire a B.A.? It’s like his poll.
This apparently irrelevant reply was taken from another newspaper report (Irish Independent 5 June 1924, 5/4: “West Cork Horror.” A police sergeant testifying in a case in which a farmer was murdered and his corpse dismembered by other members of his family: “Witness took the head out of a sack and turned an electric torch on it, and asked Leary could he identify it ... ‛I am not sure, but it is like his poll’”. In Cambridge University, a poll is a derogatory name for a pass degree, a B.A. without honours. Jealousy is the green-eyed monster in Shakespeare’s Othello.
8 Cross-eyed, with pierced ears, aquiline nose, and treacherous mouth? Yes.
Another allusion to W.P. as an eye, ear, nose and throat specialist.
9 Who could outdrink you? To the left and to the right.
Does O’Donnell think he is being asked about Buridan’s Ass? More Hungarian terms.
10 A tiresome bore? Yes, indeed.
Hungarian: igenis = yes, indeed. And Guinness from #9.
11 HCE? The very phoenix!
An acrostic for Here Comes Everybody.
12 It was Charlemagne? The two girls were spying at him from the foliage, but the three soldiers rent his rocks. RFW has restored the missing full-stop after Vuncouverers. But why the allusion to Vancouver?
13 Are you sure the forests were bent down? You bet!
There is an allusion here to Thomas Moore’s lyric Fairest! Put on Awhile, which is sung to the traditional air Cummilum (Irish: Is cuma liom = I don’t care).
14 A member of the Vikings’ Parliament in Dublin? Really and beefishly beautiful with his ox-head.
The Thing was the public assembly in Norse Dublin, which convened on a hill at the top of Trinity Street―the Thingmote or Thingmount. There appears to be an allusion here to Alexander the Great’s horse Bucephalus, whose name means Ox-Head. The text of the 1939 edition has been corrupted by eye-skip. I am following The Restored Finnegans Wake (2010).
15 And he had been refreshed by fountains of ale? He had a great thirst for lots of ale but little water.
The Lord Edward is a pub next to the site of the Thingmount. The monument of Dublin surgeon Philip Crampton doubled as a public drinking fountain. [Lone Gougane Barra] is a popular poem by Jeremiah Joseph Callanan. It describes a lake in County Cork where St Finbarr founded a monastery. Guinness is a species of porter.
16 White-arsed and with fallen breasts? Whose wouldn’t fall, after spending a lifetime in Dublin!
Irish: Duiblinn = Blackpool.
17 He could call himself Tem too? You bet!
In Egyptian mythology Tem or Atum was the first god, who procreated by masturbating on a mound of mud. In A Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man, Simon Dedalus addresses a bartender: “Here, Tim or Tom or whatever your name is, give us the same again here.”
18 When he pleased? Win and place.
Hyacinth O’Donnell thinks he is being asked about gambling on horse races. In Ireland, place refers to a horse that finishes 1st, 2nd, 3rd or 4th.
19 He was tempted by Eve? How the devil did they guess it!
20 Two twins in one? Yes.
A reference to the Oedipal character (Y), who embodies both Shem (C) & Shaun (V).
21 As like as two peas in a pod? Precisely.
This phrase recalls the Prankquean’s riddle: why do I am alook alike a poss of porterpease?
22 So he was publicly humiliated? That he was.
FWEET detects an allusion to the rivalry of Jacob and Esau, who struggled within the womb. Esau sold his birthright to Jacob for a pottage of lentils.
23 The prince, in principle, should not expose himself? Machiavelli!
In Italian, ma che vuole = what does he want. While misunderstanding the question, Hyacinth unconsciously recognizes the barrister's allusion to Machiavelli’s Il principe [The Prince].
24 A Russian comrade? More of a Galwegian.
Hyacinth understands this as a reference to Rooskey, a village in Roscommon.
25 Drunk? As a bishop!
26 He asked her [Eve?] if he could smoke? She didn’t care whether he burst into flames.
27 What about his ejaculations to his cruiskeen lawn? It was corsi and ricorsi.
A cruiskeen lawn is a little jug full of whiskey. There are obvious allusions here to Napoleon, who was born in Ajaccio, Corsica. The Italian corsi e ricorsi = flows and reflows, is often used to characterize the repeating cycles of history in the philosophy of Giambattista Vico, though I don’t think he ever used this exact phrase.
28 The woman was aware that the old fox had been castrated? She was.
Thomas Moore’s lyric Oh! Doubt Me Not, sung to the air Yellow Wat and the Fox. There are also two borrowings here from Otto Jespersen’s _ The Growth and Structure of the English Language_: “the artificialities of the modes of address in different nations ... in Swedish ... ‛The gracious Miss is probably aware’” (§239) : ‛to alter is said in the Southern States instead of to geld’ (§247). Note the echo of Esau in Hyacinth’s reply.
29 His religion? It was the see-you-Sunday sort.
Note that it is often unclear whether Hyacinth is being asked about himself or about HCE, or whether there is even any difference between the two. His evidence may be hearsay rumours about HCE or personal confessions.
30 What exactly did he mean by pedigree pig? The gentleman who pays the rent.
The gentleman who pays the rent was a whimsical reference to the household pig, which ate all the leftovers and could be sold to pay the rent if needed.
31 And was this door-eating beast useful? As useful as damn it!
As we have seen, the door-eating pig was taken from a newspaper report.
32 Had he recognized their courts martial? He had.
The addition of initial consonants in this Q&A reflects the Irish grammatical practice of urú or eclipsis, in which the initial letter of a word is replaced by another sound. No doubt, Joyce was remembering the linguistic confusion during the trial of Myles Joyce for the Maamtrasna Murders. The trial was conducted in English, a language the accused could not speak, and the interpreter appointed to translate for him used the Ulster dialect, with which he was not familiar.
33 Londonderry, Cork and Kerry, spell me that without an K? Hardly a drop.
Irish riddle: Londonderry, Cork and Kerry, spell me that without an K Answer: T-H-A-T. Hyacinth thinks he is being asked if he has drink taken. Unwittingly, his reply conceals heliotrope, which is the correct answer to the riddle Glugg (Shem) must answer in the children’s game of Angels or Colours in II.1.
34 The grazing rights expired? I can’t say.
An altercation about animal grazing rights in Ballybricken, Waterford, was taken from another newspaper report. As for the stuff about Hyacinth’s mother-in-law having a receipt for a coffin, and her being a velocipede (a forerunner of the bicycle) who could tell them kitcat (a type of portrait)―I’ve got nothing.
35 A maundering tale? Further orders about the matter of pronunciation.
More allusions to the difficulties of communication in the Maamtrasna trial. The Italian phrase lingua Toscana in bocca Romana (a Tuscan tongue in a Roman mouth) is the traditional definition of good Italian. Ezra Pound translated Chinese poetry from Mandarin into English.
36 Distributive endings? And we recommence.
Hungarian has a distributive case, which expresses the manner in which something happens to each member of a set one by one (per head, in some case), or the frequency in time (once a week, every ten minutes). Distributaries are the smaller streams into which a river splits―eg the branches of the Nile Delta. Hyacinth’s reply seems to allude to the recurrent image in Finnegans Wake of the endless cycle of the waters of the Liffey, in which rain falling in the Wicklow Mountains gives birth to the river, which dies as it flows out into Dublin Bay, where the water is evaporated into clouds, which then drop rain on the Wicklow mountains―corsi e ricorsi.
37 Why the goat? No answer.
Hyacinth referred to a goat a few lines above―meaning HCE, the great sire? The use of legal Latin once again leads to difficulties in communication.
38 Where on earth are you hurrying from? Noah.
In a letter to his patron Harriet Shaw Weaver, Joyce loosely translated this question as: “Where the dickens are you hurrying to?” The introduction of Noah once again evokes the end of one Viconian cycle and the beginning of the next.
39 Are you not dancing on the edge of a volcano? I am indeed.
The French statesman Narcisse-Achille de Salvandy, who was of Irish extraction, said shortly before the July Revolution of 1830: “Here, Monseigneur, is a truly Neapolitan party: we are dancing on a volcano?” (Trogan 108). The occasion was a party in honour of Francis I of the Two Sicilies, whose kingdom included Naples and Mount Vesuvius. At the time, archaeological excavations were daily uncovering the remains of Pompeii, revealing the voluptuous lifestyle that preceded the eruption of 79 AD.
40 And how odd of him? He was intending to study Pali.
More linguistic difficulties.
41 Which meant what in Ogham? Cryptic.
This and the following Q&A’s include a plethora of terms from R A S Macalister’s The Secret Languages of Ireland. These languages include Ogham, a lapidary script of early Irish used for inscribing memorial stones. Hyacinth’s reply references several Ogham ciphers used to transmit messages secretly.
42 ABCDEF in Ogham, perhaps? Sure, and GHI as well.
43 In an epexegesis? As sure as there’s a tail on a cat.
Epexegesis refers to the addition of words to clarify the meaning intended in a preceding sentence. More porcine references. In addition to Macalister’s Pig-Ogham, there may also be an allusion to the pigpen cipher, which Joyce may have drawn upon when devising some of his sigla for Finnegans Wake. And pigpen suggests pidgin, which perhaps explains the subsequent allusions to China and Chinese.
44 As a Glory be to God? Really and truly.
Some Chinese allusions: joss = god. Joyce also can’t resist the stereotypical switching of L and R by the stage Chinaman.
45 But why Hankou and Sun Yat-sen? He had to kowtow in his trousers.
The city of Hankow was involved in the 1911 Revolution, which resulted in Sun Yat-sen becoming the first President of the Republic of China. Hankou was also involved in the Boxer Rebellion, a failed attempt to rid China of foreign interference at the end of the 19th century.
46 Laudabiliter? And Tom, Dick & Harry were unplaced.
Laudabiliter was the name of a bull issued in 1155 by Pope Adrian IV, allegedly granting Ireland as a Papal fief to Henry II of England. The existence of the bull continues to be debated by scholars. Adrian was Nicholas Breakspear, the only English Pope, who features later in Finnegans Wake as the Mookse. Hyacinth thinks he is being asked about a horse race. There was a race horse called Defiance in the 1920s. An earlier Defiance was the dam of Epsom Derby winner Dangerous. Recall Ulysses, when Bloom’s throwaway remark was misinterpreted by Bantam Lyons as a racing tip.
Solasistras must refer to the two maidens in the park, implicated in HCE’s crime. As John Gordon recalls, the Cyclops episode in Ulysses includes the line: Here he is, setting the odds at defiance, meaning charging ahead recklessly, regardless of opposition and likely outcome. But I have no idea what the barrister is asking Hyacinth.
47 But leaving the pub and going outside, where the stars were still visible and dawn approaching, how did they appear to him? It was Walpurgis Night.
Another question I cannot make head or tail of. The barrister seems to be alluding to the assault of HCE.
48 A fight ensued? It did.
The allusion to Genesis 1 is obvious. This seems to lead to a confusion between HCE’s Crime in the Park and Adam’s Original Sin in the Garden.
49 On the side of the angels, you said? Ginnunga-gap.
A dense thicket of allusions to Benjamin Disraeli, Genesis, Guinness, and Norse mythology.
50 In the middle of the garden, then? That they mustn’t touch it.**
Obvious allusion to Genesis and the Forbidden Fruit in the Garden of Eden, but there are also overtones of sexual misconduct.
51 The two females were disappointed prostitutes? That was about it, yes.
52 And Gamal said to Camel: I should know you? Perfectly.
Gamal and Camel were doorkeepers at Tara during the reign of Nuada of the Silver Arm, a legendary king of the Tuatha Dé Danann. The allusion seems to be to the Cad accosting HCE in the Park.
53 And Camel said to Gamal: Yes, your brother? Absolutely.
But of course the sibling rivalry between Shem & Shaun is also included.
54 And if it was all about that egregious gentleman? About that and the other.
I presume HCE is the egregious sir.
55 Are you alluding to the Hole in the Wall? I am, when I’m not alluding to the whole of the woman.
The Hole in the Wall was a hole in the boundary wall of the Phoenix Park where electoral bribes were passed from briber to bribed without either revealing his identity to the other. The Hole in the Wall is also a nickname for the nearby Black Horse Tavern (also known as Nancy Hand’s), a pub on Blackhorse Avenue, adjacent to the Phoenix Park. Another story claims that British soldiers from nearby McKee Barracks would discreetly order drinks through a small opening in the wall. Or perhaps members of An Garda Síochána, whose headquarters are located in the Phoenix Park, would slip into the pub through an actual hole in the wall for a quick pint. Take your pick.
56 Briefly, how does the be-all and end-all strike you now? Like the Man that Broke the Bank at Monty Carlo.
Multyfarnham is a village in County Westmeath. It was the scene of an important Franciscan assembly at the outbreak of the Catholic Revolt in 1641.
57 Do you agree with what they meant? I suppose I do.
The pox is slang for syphilis, a sexually-transmitted disease, which underscores Hyacinth’s meretricious opinion of the two strumpets.
58 Tomrair? The bloodiest rotter in Roebuck.
Thomar or Tomrair was Norse warlord, who campaigned in Ireland in the middle of the 9th century. He died in 848 at the Battle of Sciath Nechtain in County Kildare. Roebuck is a townland in Dublin. Roebuck Castle was attacked during the Catholic Revolt.
59 Surtopical? And subhuman.
I don’t know what the barrister is asking. Hyacinth may have misheard subtropical.
60 ABC in Japanese? Oo!
Translating into Japanese foreshadows the meeting of St Patrick and the Archdruid in IV.1. Hyacinth mistakes the Japanese expression as a bad dose of the clap. The clap is slang for gonorrhea, another sexually-transmitted disease.
61 Godawful, mister? Shocking!
Hyacinth hears godawful. The first edition of Finnegans Wake corrupts the closing lines of this paragraph.
62 A whore? Ay!
This hundred-letter word is comprised of polyglot words associated with prostitution. This one is not so much a thunder_bolt_ as a thunder_clap_.
63 Such as truly pierced our ears? That he might never that night.
Persse O’Reilly is HCE, from the French perce d’oreille = earwig.
64 Eye, ear, nose and throat, right? You have it right.
And with this question-and-answer the Viconian circle closes, and we have the eye-ear-nose-and-throat specialist once again.
And that’s as good a place as any to beach the bark of our tale.
