JAMES JOYCE’S FINNEGANS WAKE
Episode 005
THE PRANKQUEAN
PAGE 19:20-24:15 | 2024-06-27
PODCAST AUDIO
PODCAST TRANSCRIPT
[Music: Richard Harte sings “The Ballad of Persse O’Reilly” from Finnegans Wake]
Have you heard of one Humpty Dumpty
How he fell with a roll and a rumble
And curled up like Lord Olofa Crumple
By the butt of the Magazine Wall
[Music fades out]
Adam Seelig: Welcome to James Joyce’s divine and delirious comedy, Finnegans Wake. In this episode, number 5, we’ll hear Irish-Canadian actor—and my good friend and colleague—Richard Harte reading pages 19 to 24 of Joyce’s last novel, which will include the famous “prankquean” fable. I’m Adam Seelig, the director of the reading you’ll soon hear.
[Music: Adam Seelig plays piano]
Adam Seelig: Finnegans Wake is a production of One Little Goat Theatre Company. For the next five years, One Little Goat will film and record all 17 chapters (roughly 30 Hours) of Joyce’s Finnegans Wake before live audiences in various locations, screening and releasing them along along the way, with the aim of completing the entire book in time for its 90th birthday, May 4, 2029. One Little Goat Theatre Company is an official charity in Canada and the United States — if you’d like to support our work, please visit us online at www.OneLittleGoat.org to make a charitable donation. And if monetary support is not an option, you can still help this podcast by rating and reviewing it and by spreading the word. To get in touch, you’ll find our email address on the One Little Goat Theatre Company website and we’d love to hear from you.
[Music fades out]
Adam Seelig: In 1899, forty years before James Joyce’s dream-language epic, Finnegans Wake, was published, Sigmund Freud pointed out in The Interpretation of Dreams that, “Words are often treated as things in dreams, and then they go through […] combinations, displacements, substitutions and […] condensations” (227). Dreams, in other words, play with words. They pun. Finnegans Wake multiplies such wordplay, often taking double entendres and doubling them (Dublin them?!) again.
Chapter 1 of Finnegans Wake, which can serve as an overture to the rest of the novel, has three standout scenes: the “museyroom” (which we heard in podcast Episode 3), Mutt and Jute (from our Episode 4) and the “prankquean”, which we’ll hear Richard Harte read in today’s episode.
While I’m eager to get you to Richard’s reading (and honestly, you can still enjoy the “prankquean” without an introduction so feel free to jump ahead), I’m going to outline and point out a few things in this brilliant, bewildering piece of writing. Deliberately bewildering, because this fairy tale for adults, like so much else in the Wake, takes us, readers and listeners, back to an almost pre-verbal state where sound can be pleasure before it is sense. That’s why I often think of the Wake as a kind of Mother Goose for grown-ups, as I mentioned in the first podcast episode. With the introduction of the “prankquean” we can now, to Mother Goose, add Hans Christian Andersen.
The “prankquean” is a rare case of sequential narrative in the famously nonlinear Wake. Like many children’s stories, it opens with ‘a long long time ago’ — or the Wakean equivalent of that proverbial beginning to a story — and follows the three-part structure of many fables involving conflict and resolution, from “The Three Little Pigs” to “The Three Billy Goats Gruff”: there’s a first event, a second similar event, and finally a most dramatic event, after which, you won’t be surprised to discover, ‘they all lived happily ever after’ — or the Wakean equivalent of that proverbial end to a story, which Joyce turns into something that sounds like ‘and they all drank tea’, but this being a fable for grownups, the Wake gives us, “And they all drank free.” (23:7-8)
The prankquean character is modeled on Ireland’s celebrated Sea Queen and Maritime Pirate, Grace O’Malley, and the story is modeled on a popular tale of her altercation with the Earl of Howth in Dublin in the late 16th century. So popular is the tale, that I’ll turn to a website representing one of the world’s most popular drinks — beer — for the tale’s retelling. Here is how Howth’s very own brewery, Hope Beer, summarizes it:
“According to the popular tale, [Grace O’Malley] was refused entry to Howth Castle in 1576 when she attempted to call in unexpectedly to the Earl of Howth. Furious with this social snub she kidnapped the Earl’s grandson and her ransom was a promise that unanticipated guests would never be turned away again. She also made the Earl promise that the gates of Deer Park, where the castle is located, would never be closed to the public again. The gates are still open to this day, and an extra place is set for unexpected guests during formal dinners in the dining room.”
“Eve and Adam in the Garden of Eden,” oil on canvas by Heinz Seelig.
In the Wake’s version, Grace O’Malley becomes the prankquean, who is also referred to as “grace o’malice”, and the Earl of Howth becomes Jarl van Hoother — “Jarl” meaning “chief” in Danish, a reminder of the cultural and literal clashes between the Irish and Ireland’s Viking invaders (as we heard in the previous episode with the dialogue of Mutt and Jute).
The tale begins a long time ago in an Edenic setting that references Adam and the woman born from his rib, the eternal “ribberrobber,” Eve (21:8). It’s a beginning that echoes and “recirculates” the very opening line of Finnegans Wake, which took us “past Eve and Adam’s […] to Howth Castle and Environs” (3:1). This being a kind of Paradise, we’re in a prelapsarian world of universal love when “everybilly lived alove with everybiddy else” (21:9, I love that phrase).
Enter Jarl van Hoother positioned high up in his fortress — the text initially calls it “his lamphouse,” which corresponds to the Baily Lighthouse in Howth — where we discover van Hoother suggestively “laying cold hands on himself.” (21:11) It can get lonely at the top, so who can blame him. We then hear of his children, described as “two little jiminies”, or Geminis, i.e. they are twins, and also introduced to “their dummy”, which continues to be a mystery for virtually everyone who reads this fable, myself included.
From there, the story carries out its three-peating structure: the “prankquean” spontaneously appears, she poses a riddle to van Hoother, gets denied or shut down (notice how the word “shut”, so close to “shit”, pops out at that moment), leading her to kidnap one of the twins, unleash a flood of rain, and disappear with the child for 40 years — 40 years being a Biblical number for the passage of an entire generation, echoing the 40 Biblical days of the flood survived by Noah. Then the prankquean returns and the event repeats with some variation. And again she returns for a third and final and most dramatic, explosive iteration that breaks the cycle of conflict between her and the Jarl, bringing the tale to its happy resolution: “And they all drank free.” This is followed by a summation of the story that foreshadows later moments in the Wake, establishes the novel’s family unit and closes with a riff on the official motto for the city of Dublin, that is (translated from the Latin), “The obedience of citizens produces a happy city”.
Of the many things that can be said about this story, here are four:
(1) “quean” in “prankquean” is spelled Q-U-E-A-N, allowing us to hear her as a ruler (Q-U-E-E-N) while reading her as the archaic, Old English definition of a Q-U-E-A-N quean, which my dictionary defines as, “an impudent or ill-behaved girl or woman; a prostitute.” (By the way, for those who want to read along with today’s excerpt, you can always find the complete text in the podcast transcript on One Little Goat’s website.)
(2) Of the 35 sentences comprising the “prankquean” fable, 21 of them begin with the word ‘And…’, with the other sentences beginning with the words ‘But…’, ‘So…’, and a few others. This highlights the oral quality of the storytelling — so called proper written grammar would never begin a sentence with the word ‘And’ — and it contributes to the continuous flow and stream of the tale. The Wake here, to my ear, is working with the cadences of ancient storytelling, exemplified by the rhythms of the Hebrew Bible. Take a look at the first chapter of the Bible’s first book, Genesis, referenced by the “prankquean” fable with its Adam-and-Eve beginning, and you’ll see that every single verse starts with the word ‘And…’.
(3) Jarl van Hoother’s stuttering, explosive response to the prankquean’s third and final visit includes the second of the Wake’s 10 famous 100-letter ‘thunderwords’, and just as the first ‘thunderword’ marked Tim Finnegan’s fall from the ladder (and by extension humanity’s fall from grace), this second ‘thunderword’ marks the Jarl’s fall from the heights of his fortress.
(4) Keep an ear out for the names of the “jiminies”, or twins, and how they go through those “combinations, displacements, substitutions and condensations” we heard Freud mention earlier. One is named Tristopher, which likely makes Tristopher sad, or in French, triste; while the other is named Hilary, which likely makes Hilary happy. After the prankquean abducts them, their names change: the syllables in Hilary swap to become “Larryhill” (22:19) and those in Tristopher become “Toughertrees” (22:24).
There’s so much more to say about the ever evocative “prankquean” fable. Much has been made of its relation to the rest of the Wake, especially in how it represents — or as Freud might put it, condenses — the establishment of the novel’s central family of ALP, HCE and their children. For those who’d like to read more about it, I’ll list some resources in this episode’s transcript, which again you can find on One Little Goat’s website.
It's time for a quick overview of the rest of today’s excerpt, which begins on page 19, a couple of pages before we meet the “prankquean”.
The “meandertale” we heard on the previous page and in the previous podcast episode has now grown into a “meanderthalltale” (19:25), so not only is it ancient and meandering, it also stretches the truth. And again we’re reminded of the Wake’s ancient underpinnings: “All was of ancientry.” (19:33)
One of my favourite phrases in the book comes up here: “But the world, mind, is, was and will be writing its own wrunes for ever, man” (19:35-6). It’s such an expressive moment, suggesting, among many things, that the world: rights (with an R) its wrongs, writes (with a W) its own ruins, and writes (with a W) its own wrunes (with a W), with that word alone, “wrunes” (with a W) connoting a whole range of writing and prophecy, including mysterious symbols, spells and incantations, ancient Norse wisdom poetry. “writing its own wrunes” — it’s one of the Wake’s many resonant phrases that keeps on giving.
The novel’s male and female protagonists, Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker and Anna Livia Plurabelle, are then invoked right before the “prankquean” fable begins: “Hark, the corne entreats! And the larpnotes prittle” (21:3-4) — the beginning letters of each word spelling out HCE and ALP.
The “prankquean” episode then unfolds.
And immediately after, we hear a motif that runs throughout the novel: “O foenix culprit!” (23:16) This is the first of many Wakean variations on the Catholic concept of felix culpa, referring to Adam’s happy fall — happy because without the fall there would be no redemption. With “foenix culprit” the Wake has combined felix culpa with the mythological Phoenix that falls and rises, the central movement of Finnegans Wake, as well as with Dublin’s Phoenix Park, the central location of the novel.
Our excerpt closes with what appears to be Tim Finnegan rising, as he does in the eponymous folk song, from the dead following a splash of whiskey. The alcoholic resurrection, though, really shouldn’t surprise us given that whiskey, formally known as usquebaugh, derives from the Gaelic uisge beatha [ishka baha], meaning ‘water of life’.
Richard Harte’s reading of Finnegans Wake Chapter 1 was shot and recorded in 2022 in my home in Toronto with a small audience. It premiered at the Toronto Irish Film Festival, European Union Film Festival, and Bloomsday Film Festival at the James Joyce Centre in Dublin.
And now it’s time to welcome you all back into my home for Richard’s continued reading of James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake, page 19 line 20 to page 24 line 15 in Chapter 1.
[Richard Harte reads Finnegans Wake 19:20-24:15.]
[p19] Axe on thwacks on thracks, axenwise. One by one place one
be three dittoh and one before. Two nursus one make a plaus-
ible free and idim behind. Starting off with a big boaboa and three-
legged calvers and ivargraine jadesses with a message in their
mouths. And a hundreadfilled unleavenweight of liberorumqueue
to con an we can till allhorrors eve. What a meanderthalltale to
unfurl and with what an end in view of squattor and anntisquattor
and postproneauntisquattor! To say too us to be every tim, nick
and larry of us, sons of the sod, sons, littlesons, yea and lealittle-
sons, when usses not to be, every sue, siss and sally of us, dugters
of Nan! Accusative ahnsire! Damadam to infinities!
True there was in nillohs dieybos as yet no lumpend papeer
in the waste, and mightmountain Penn still groaned for the micies
to let flee. All was of ancientry. You gave me a boot (signs on
it!) and I ate the wind. I quizzed you a quid (with for what?) and
you went to the quod. But the world, mind, is, was and will be
writing its own wrunes for ever, man, on all matters that fall
[p20] under the ban of our infrarational senses fore the last milch-
camel, the heartvein throbbing between his eyebrowns, has still to
moor before the tomb of his cousin charmian where his date is
tethered by the palm that's hers. But the horn, the drinking, the
day of dread are not now. A bone, a pebble, a ramskin; chip them,
chap them, cut them up allways; leave them to terracook in the
muttheringpot: and Gutenmorg with his cromagnom charter,
tintingfast and great primer must once for omniboss step rub-
rickredd out of the wordpress else is there no virtue more in al-
cohoran. For that (the rapt one warns) is what papyr is meed
of, made of, hides and hints and misses in prints. Till ye finally
(though not yet endlike) meet with the acquaintance of Mister
Typus, Mistress Tope and all the little typtopies. Fillstup. So you
need hardly spell me how every word will be bound over to carry
three score and ten toptypsical readings throughout the book of
Doublends Jined (may his forehead be darkened with mud who
would sunder!) till Daleth, mahomahouma, who oped it closeth
thereof the. Dor.
Cry not yet! There's many a smile to Nondum, with sytty
maids per man, sir, and the park's so dark by kindlelight. But
look what you have in your handself! The movibles are scrawl-
ing in motions, marching, all of them ago, in pitpat and zingzang
for every busy eerie whig's a bit of a torytale to tell. One's upon
a thyme and two's behind their lettice leap and three's among the
strubbely beds. And the chicks picked their teeths and the domb-
key he begay began. You can ask your ass if he believes it. And
so cuddy me only wallops have heels. That one of a wife with
folty barnets. For then was the age when hoops ran high. Of a
noarch and a chopwife; of a pomme full grave and a fammy of
levity; or of golden youths that wanted gelding; or of what the
mischievmiss made a man do. Malmarriedad he was reverso-
gassed by the frisque of her frasques and her prytty pyrrhique.
Maye faye, she's la gaye this snaky woman! From that trippiery
toe expectungpelick! Veil, volantine, valentine eyes. She's the
very besch Winnie blows Nay on good. Flou inn, flow ann.
Hohore! So it's sure it was her not we! But lay it easy, gentle
[p21] mien, we are in rearing of a norewhig. So weenybeeny-
veenyteeny. Comsy see! Hetwis if ee newt. Lissom! lissom!
I am doing it. Hark, the corne entreats! And the larpnotes
prittle.
It was of a night, late, lang time agone, in an auldstane eld,
when Adam was delvin and his madameen spinning watersilts,
when mulk mountynotty man was everybully and the first leal
ribberrobber that ever had her ainway everybuddy to his love-
saking eyes and everybilly lived alove with everybiddy else, and
Jarl van Hoother had his burnt head high up in his lamphouse,
laying cold hands on himself. And his two little jiminies, cousins
of ourn, Tristopher and Hilary, were kickaheeling their dummy
on the oil cloth flure of his homerigh, castle and earthenhouse.
And, be dermot, who come to the keep of his inn only the niece-
of-his-in-law, the prankquean. And the prankquean pulled a rosy
one and made her wit foreninst the dour. And she lit up and fire-
land was ablaze. And spoke she to the dour in her petty perusi-
enne: Mark the Wans, why do I am alook alike a poss of porter-
pease? And that was how the skirtmisshes began. But the dour
handworded her grace in dootch nossow: Shut! So her grace
o'malice kidsnapped up the jiminy Tristopher and into the shan-
dy westerness she rain, rain, rain. And Jarl van Hoother war-
lessed after her with soft dovesgall: Stop deef stop come back to
my earin stop. But she swaradid to him: Unlikelihud. And there
was a brannewail that same sabboath night of falling angles some-
where in Erio. And the prankquean went for her forty years'
walk in Tourlemonde and she washed the blessings of the love-
spots off the jiminy with soap sulliver suddles and she had her
four owlers masters for to tauch him his tickles and she convor-
ted him to the onesure allgood and he became a luderman. So then
she started to rain and to rain and, be redtom, she was back again
at Jarl van Hoother's in a brace of samers and the jiminy with
her in her pinafrond, lace at night, at another time. And where
did she come but to the bar of his bristolry. And Jarl von Hoo-
ther had his baretholobruised heels drowned in his cellarmalt,
shaking warm hands with himself and the jimminy Hilary and
[p21] the dummy in their first infancy were below on the tearsheet,
wringing and coughing, like brodar and histher. And the prank-
quean nipped a paly one and lit up again and redcocks flew flack-
ering from the hillcombs. And she made her witter before the
wicked, saying: Mark the Twy, why do I am alook alike two poss
of porterpease? And: Shut! says the wicked, handwording her
madesty. So her madesty aforethought set down a jiminy and
took up a jiminy and all the lilipath ways to Woeman's Land she
rain, rain, rain. And Jarl von Hoother bleethered atter her with
a loud finegale: Stop domb stop come back with my earring stop.
But the prankquean swaradid: Am liking it. And there was a wild
old grannewwail that laurency night of starshootings somewhere
in Erio. And the prankquean went for her forty years' walk in
Turnlemeem and she punched the curses of cromcruwell with
the nail of a top into the jiminy and she had her four larksical
monitrix to touch him his tears and she provorted him to the
onecertain allsecure and he became a tristian. So then she started
raining, raining, and in a pair of changers, be dom ter, she was
back again at Jarl von Hoother's and the Larryhill with her under
her abromette. And why would she halt at all if not by the ward
of his mansionhome of another nice lace for the third charm?
And Jarl von Hoother had his hurricane hips up to his pantry-
box, ruminating in his holdfour stomachs (Dare! O dare!), and
the jiminy Toughertrees and the dummy were belove on the
watercloth, kissing and spitting, and roguing and poghuing, like
knavepaltry and naivebride and in their second infancy. And the
prankquean picked a blank and lit out and the valleys lay twink-
ling. And she made her wittest in front of the arkway of trihump,
asking: Mark the Tris, why do I am alook alike three poss of por-
ter pease? But that was how the skirtmishes endupped. For like
the campbells acoming with a fork lance of lightning, Jarl von
Hoother Boanerges himself, the old terror of the dames, came
hip hop handihap out through the pikeopened arkway of his
three shuttoned castles, in his broadginger hat and his civic chol-
lar and his allabuff hemmed and his bullbraggin soxangloves
and his ladbroke breeks and his cattegut bandolair and his fur-
[p23] framed panuncular cumbottes like a rudd yellan gruebleen or-
angeman in his violet indigonation, to the whole longth of the
strongth of his bowman's bill. And he clopped his rude hand to
his eacy hitch and he ordurd and his thick spch spck for her to
shut up shop, dappy. And the duppy shot the shutter clup (Per-
kodhuskurunbarggruauyagokgorlayorgromgremmitghundhurth-
rumathunaradidillifaititillibumullunukkunun!) And they all drank
free. For one man in his armour was a fat match always for any
girls under shurts. And that was the first peace of illiterative
porthery in all the flamend floody flatuous world. How kirssy the
tiler made a sweet unclose to the Narwhealian captol. Saw fore
shalt thou sea. Betoun ye and be. The prankquean was to hold
her dummyship and the jimminies was to keep the peacewave
and van Hoother was to git the wind up. Thus the hearsomeness
of the burger felicitates the whole of the polis.
O foenix culprit! Ex nickylow malo comes mickelmassed bo-
num. Hill, rill, ones in company, billeted, less be proud of. Breast
high and bestride! Only for that these will not breathe upon
Norronesen or Irenean the secrest of their soorcelossness. Quar-
ry silex, Homfrie Noanswa! Undy gentian festyknees, Livia No-
answa? Wolkencap is on him, frowned; audiurient, he would
evesdrip, were it mous at hand, were it dinn of bottles in the far
ear. Murk, his vales are darkling. With lipth she lithpeth to him
all to time of thuch on thuch and thow on thow. She he she ho
she ha to la. Hairfluke, if he could bad twig her! Impalpabunt,
he abhears. The soundwaves are his buffeteers; they trompe him
with their trompes; the wave of roary and the wave of hooshed
and the wave of hawhawhawrd and the wave of neverheedthem-
horseluggarsandlisteltomine. Landloughed by his neaghboormis-
tress and perpetrified in his offsprung, sabes and suckers, the
moaning pipers could tell him to his faceback, the louthly one
whose loab we are devorers of, how butt for his hold halibutt, or
her to her pudor puff, the lipalip one whose libe we drink at, how
biff for her tiddywink of a windfall, our breed and washer givers,
there would not be a holey spier on the town nor a vestal flout-
ing in the dock, nay to make plein avowels, nor a yew nor an eye
[p24] to play cash cash in Novo Nilbud by swamplight nor a' toole o'
tall o' toll and noddy hint to the convaynience.
He dug in and dug out by the skill of his tilth for himself and
all belonging to him and he sweated his crew beneath his auspice
for the living and he urned his dread, that dragon volant, and he
made louse for us and delivered us to boll weevils amain, that
mighty liberator, Unfru-Chikda-Uru-Wukru and begad he did,
our ancestor most worshipful, till he thought of a better one in
his windower's house with that blushmantle upon him from ears-
end to earsend. And would again could whispring grassies wake
him and may again when the fiery bird disembers. And will
again if so be sooth by elder to his youngers shall be said. Have
you whines for my wedding, did you bring bride and bedding,
will you whoop for my deading is a? Wake? Usgueadbaugham!
Anam muck an dhoul! Did ye drink me doornail?
[End of reading excerpt]
Adam Seelig: That was my friend and colleague Richard Harte reading from Finnegans Wake, Chapter 1, pages 19-24, recorded live in Toronto on August 31st, 2022.
Join us for Episode 6 in a fortnight when Richard continues with the next five pages of Finnegans Wake to conclude Chapter 1 of Joyce’s extraordinary epic. To be sure you don’t miss any episodes, why not follow or subscribe to this podcast? And for more on One Little Goat’s Finnegans Wake project, including transcripts of this podcast and trailers for the films, visit our website at OneLittleGoat.org.
[Music: Adam Seelig plays piano]
Adam Seelig: Finnegans Wake is made possible by Friends of One Little Goat Theatre Company and the Emigrant Support Programme of the gov’t of Ireland. Thank you for your support!
And thank you to the artists for this episode: Richard Harte; Sound by William Bembridge; Podcast production by Sean Rasmussen; Stage Management by Laura Lakatosh; Rehearsal Stage Management by Sandi Becker; Directed by yours truly, Adam Seelig.
Thanks to our live audience of Pip Dwyer, Kevin Kennedy, Cathy Murphy, Nomi Rotbard, Arlo Rotbard-Seelig. And thanks to our rehearsal audience of Jackie Chau, Jordy Koffman, Andrew Moodie & Shai Rotbard-Seelig. Thank you to the Embassy of Ireland in Ottawa and the Irish Consulate in Toronto. And to Production Consultants Cathy Murphy and Andrew Moodie.
One Little Goat Theatre Company is a not-for-profit, artist-driven, registered charity. To find out more and to join our mailing list please visit www.OneLittleGoat.org
Thank you for listening!
[Music fades out]
Mentioned: Sigmund Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams (1899), puns, Mother Goose, Hans Christian Andersen, the “prankquean”, linear/nonlinear narrative, fables, fairy tales, tripartite structure, Hope Beer in Howth, Grace O’Malley, Earl of Howth, Howth Castle, Baily Lighthouse, Jarl (Danish “chief”), Eden, Adam and Eve, quean and queen, ancient storytelling cadences, “And…”, Hebrew Bible, Genesis, second thunderword, wordplay with twins’ names, family unit, “meanderthalltale”, “writing its own wrunes”, ALP and HCE, felix culpa and happy fall, whiskey as water of life, synopsis.
Resources:
Transcript for this episode, including the text of Finnegans Wake pages 19-24.
Finnegans Wake (1939) by James Joyce: there are many free copies of FW to read online or download, e.g. finwake.com
James Joyce Digital Archive, “Chicken Guide” to Finnegans Wake provides a ‘plain English’ paraphrase of each chapter by Danis Rose.
Brendan Ward’s blog post on the “prankquean”.
Edmund Epstein, A Guide through Finnegans Wake. University Press of Florida, 2009.
William York Tindall, A Reader’s Guide to Finnegans Wake. Syracuse University Press, 1996.
Roland McHugh, Annotations to Finnegans Wake (4th edition). Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 2016.
John Gordon’s annotations on his Finnegans Wake blog.
Richard Ellmann’s biography of James Joyce. Oxford University Press, 1982.
Cited:
Sigmund Freud. The Interpretation of Dreams (1899). Trans. Joyce Crick. Oxford University Press, 1999.
“Stories of Howth”, Hope Beer website.