La Circe (nominal) de l’Ulisses de Joyce

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La Circe (nominal) de l’Ulisses de Joyce

16/10/2014 Lluís Ahicart Guillén Deixa un comentari Go to comments

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(S’obre la porta. Entra Bella Cohen, una massissa patrona de casa de putes. Porta un vestit tres quarts de color marfil amb un serrell de borles a la vora i es refresca ventant-se amb un ventall de banya negra com la Minnie Hauck de Carmen. A la mà esquerra porta anells de matrimoni i de seguretat. Els ulls molt pintats de carbó. Li apunta el bigoti. La cara d’un color d’oliva és feixuga, una mica suada i plena de nas, amb narius de tint ataronjat. Porta arracades amb grans penjolls de beril·le)

BELLA: Estic que rajo de suor, tal com us dic!

(Mira a l’entorn, a les parelles. Després els ulls s’aturen en Bloom amb dura insistència. El gros ventall li venta la cara arborada, el coll i les exuberàncies. Els ulls de falcó li resplendeixen.)

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BELLO: (Amb dura mirada de basilisc i veu de baríton) Mastí del deshonor!

BLOOM: (Delirant) Reina!

BELLO: (Amb els feixucs bistecs de la galta penjant) Adorador del cul adúlter.

BLOOM: (Planyívol) Massissa!

BELLO: Menjafems!

BLOOM: (Els genolls li tremolen) Monument!

BELLO: Avall! (Li dóna un cop a l’espatlla amb el ventall) Acotxa’t amb els peus cap endavant! Recula el peu esquerre un pas. Cauràs. Ja caus. Aguanta’t amb les mans.

BLOOM: (Els ulls mirant amunt en senyal d’admiració se li mig acluquen) Tòfones! (Amb un crit estrident d’epilèptica cau de quatre grapes, grunyint, ruflant, escarbotant als seus peus, després s’ajau, fent-se la morta amb els ulls tancats del tot, parpelles tremoloses, de cap a terra, en actitud d’amo i senyor meu.)

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James Joyce. Ulisses. Traducció de Joaquim Mallafré. pàg. 504-506.

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(Se abre la puerta. Entra Bella Cohen, una maciza patrona de putas. Va vestida con un traje tres cuartos marfil, con el borde adornado de borlas: se refresca agitando un abanico negro de cuerno como Minnie Hauck en Carmen. Lleva en la mano izquierda un anillo de matrimonio y una sortija de seguridad. Los ojos abundantemente sombreados de carbón. Tiene un principio de bigotillo. Su cara aceitunada es pesada, ligeramente sudada y con gran nariz, las aletas teñidas de naranja. Lleva grandes pendientes con colgantes de berilo.)

BELLA: ¡Palabra! Estoy desecha en sudor.

(Lanza una ojeada alrededor a las parejas. Luego posa los ojos con dura insistencia en Bloom. Su gran abanico cierne viento hacia su cara acalorada, su cuello y su gordura. Relampaguean sus ojos de halcón.)

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BELLO: (Con dura mirada de basilisco y voz de barítono) ¡Perro deshonroso!

BLOOM: (Enfatuado) ¡Emperatriz!

BELLO. (Con masculinas mejillas-chuletas colgándole pesadamente) ¡Adorador del trasero adulterino!

BLOOM: (Quejosamente) ¡Grandeza!

BELLO: ¡Devorador de estiércol!

BLOOM: (Con los tendones semifexionados) ¡Magnificiencia!

BELLO: ¡Abajo! (La golpea en el hombro con su abanico) ¡Inclínate con los pies por delante! Desliza el pie izquierdo un paso atrás. Te caerás. Te estás cayendo. ¡Abajo, sobre las manos!

BLOOM: (Sus hojos femeniles, elevados en admiración, se entrecierran) ¡Trufas! (Con penetrante grito de epiléptica, se desploma a cuatro patas, gruñendo, olfateando, escarbando a los pies de él, luego se tiende, haciéndose la muerta con los ojos bien cerrados, párpados temblorosos, inclinada hacia el suelo como ante su Excelentísimo Dueño y Señor.)

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James Joyce. Ulises. Traducción de José María Valverde. Vol. II, págs. 165-168.

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(Ábrese a porta. Entra Bella Cohen, unha alcaiota impoñente. Viste un tres cuartos marfil rematado cunha franxa de borlas, e fai revoar un abano de corno negro como Minnie Hauck en Carmen. Leva na man esquerda unha alianza matrimonial e un garda aneis. Ten os ollos moi sombreados con carbón. Bigote incipiente. A faciana olivácea é grande, transpita lixeiramente e ten manxas laranxa nas ventas do nariz groso. Loce pesados pendes con colgantes de berilo.)

BELLA: Mi madriña! Veño suada como unha vaca.

(Olla para as parellas ao redor. Detense inquisitiva ao chegar a Bloom. Co seu gran abano zafrea ar contra o rostro, o pescozo e as redondeces requecidos. Faíscanlle os ollos de falcoa.)

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BELLO: (Cunha ollada fixa de basilisco e voz de barítono). Cuzo innobre!

BLOOM: (Arroubado) Emperatriz!

BELLO: (Cólganlle as pesadas moufas) Adorador de ancas adúlteras!

BLOOM: (Queixoso) Inmensidade!

BELLO: Papabosteiras.

BLOOM: (Cos músculos semiflexionados) Magmagnificencia!

BELLO: Ao chan! (Dálle un golpiño no ombro co abano) Inclínate cos pés para diante! O pé esquerdo, un paso atrás! Vas caer. Que caes. As mans no chan!

BLOOM: (Coa vista levantada en sinal de admiración, fechando os ollos, late) Trufas!

(Cun berro lacerante de epiléptica, cae sobre as patas, gruñindo, osmando, fozando aos pés del; despois, déitase no chan arqueada, facendo a morta cos ollos ben fechados e as pálpebras a tremer, na posición de excelentísimo mestre.)

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James Joyce. Ulises. Traducció d’Eva Almazán, María Alonso Seisdedos, Xavier Queipo i Antón Valle. págs. 695-698

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(The door opens. Bella Cohen, a massive whoremistress, enters. She is dressed in a three-quarter ivory gown, fringed round the hem with tasseled selvedge, and cools herself flirting a black horn fan like Minnie Hauck in Carmen. On her left hand are wedding and keeper rings. Her eyes are deeply cartooned. She has a sprouting moustache. Her olive face is heavy, slightly sweated and full nosed with orangetanted nostrils. She has large pendant beryl eardrops.)

BELLA: My word! I’m all of a mucksweat.

(She glances round at the couples. Then her eyes rest on Bloom with hard insistence. Her large fan winnows wind towards her heated faceneck and embonpoint. Her falcon eyes glitter.)

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BELLO: (with a hard basilisk stare, in a baritone voice) Hound of dishonour!

BLOOM: (infatuated) Empress!

BELLO: (his heavy cheekchops sagging) Adorer of the adulterous rump!

BLOOM: (plaintively) Hugeness!

BELLO: Dungdevourer!

BLOOM: (with sinews semiflexed) Magmagnificence!

BELLO: Down! (he taps her on the shoulder with his fan) Incline feet forward! Slide left foot one pace back! You will fall. You are falling. On the hands down!

BLOOM: (her eyes upturned in the sign of admiration, closing, yaps) Truffles!

(With a piercing epileptic cry she sinks on all fours, grunting, snuffling, rooting at his feet: then lies, shamming dead, with eyes shut tight, trembling eyelids, bowed upon the ground in the attitude of most excellent master.)

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James Joyce. Ulysses

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Joyce himself is the Circe of “Circe.” As writer-director he preempts the maga’s magic, her ability to change given forms at will. As on Aiaia, in “Circe” anything can happen, and the episode’s atmosphere of vaudeville tinged with terror results from this fact. In this chapter Joyce, as Robert Newman has remarked, “seeks to dissolve distinctions by collapsing Ulysses into a memory where the laws of intellect are no longer operative . . . the network of connections within Ulysses grows and becomes increasingly elaborate until we realize that everything somehow connects with everything else.” It would be foolish to regard Joyce’s nominal Circe, Bella Cohen, as the figure who presides over this vast network of possibility. She is merely one character in a script with others, on a par with Bloom, Stephen, and the dubiously young women who work for her.

As the magus, Joyce pulls fantasies from his characters’ unconscious minds like rabbits from a hat. They are complete, surprising, suddenly there in all their fullness. Bloom’s psyche provides most of the content for these fantastical dramas, and yet Bloom himself—the chief actor within them—does not seem to be aware that they are taking place.

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[…], I want now to focus on that moment when Bloom meets its nominal Circe, Bella Cohen, and on the dynamic scenes that follow. Joyce’s casting of this archetypal figure as whore sports with a centuries-old tradition—the motto over the 1621 Alciati emblem of Circe had warned readers to “Beware of Prostitutes.” But Joyce does not accept this tradition uncritically, and he does not allow his hero to heed the Alciati motto. Bloom engages with Bella as thoroughly in imagination as Odysseus had engaged with the transforming goddess in actuality. The guilt and fear he feels in her presence spring from the depths of his psyche and bring the entire syndrome of Bloomean sexuality to the surface of our awareness.

This Circe is “a massive whoremistress”, a formidably vulgar figure. She has kohl-rimmed, glittering “falcon” eyes: a detail that suggests Joyce’s awareness that her name means “hawk” in Greek. In place of the bowl of transforming brew and of her driver’s stick, she carries a black horn fan that immediately springs into a life of its own. This, in Joyce’s version, is her instrument of phallic power. The fan keeps tapping Bloom until he pays homage to its holder, hailing her as “powerful being” and declaring that he “enormously” desires her domination. The fan demands that he kneel and lace Bellas shoes. Bloom at once complies, thus assuming the old Greek posture of surrender, the posture that Circe had assumed at her doorway with Odysseus.

This sex reversal shortly becomes an overt fact of the drama. Bella becomes Bello and Bloom becomes a female slave avidly participating in an orgy of humiliation. As he becomes female he also figuratively becomes a pig. She (or he) exclaims “Truffles!” and Joyce’s stage direction at this point reads “with a piercing epileptic cry she sinks on all fours, grunting, snuffling, rooting at his feet”. Perhaps these transformations or degradations would not have happened if Bloom had held on to the potato he habitually carried in his pocket because it was his grandmother’s preventative against disease. But when he entered the bordello he gave it to the whore who greeted him, Zoe, and he realizes too late that “I should not have parted with my talisman”. Surrendering it, he surrenders to the inevitability of women’s emotional domination over him.

Is the potato Joyce’s version of the Homeric moly? Superficially, yes. Joyce must have enjoyed inventing this homely equivalent of Homer’s mysterious plant. But the notion of moly as a protective and beneficent influence Joyce, like the Homeric allegorical commentators, took figuratively as well. He wrote to Budgen in 1920, when he was working on the Circe episode, that “Moly is the gift of Hermes, god of public ways, and is the invisible influence (prayer, chance, agility, presence of mind, power of recuperation which saves in case of accident. This would cover immunity from syphilis—swine love). … In this special case his plant may be said to have many leaves, indifference due to masturbation, pessimism congenital, a sense of the ridiculous, sudden fastidiousness in some detail, experience.” Though Joyce does not list Molly in this catalogue of Bloom’s guardian influences, surely the similarity between her name and that of the Homeric herb is not accidental. Joyce as master wordsmith probably named Molly after the magical plant; above all, it is Bloom’s love for his wife and his desire to return to her that enable him—though he gives up his potato—to pass through Nighttown fundamentally unscathed.

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Judith Yarnall
Imitations of Circe

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