Having mocked his roommate's "absurd name, an ancient Greek,"
the man previously known as "Buck" says ingratiatingly, "My
name is absurd too: Malachi Mulligan, two dactyls."
The resonances in this name may not be quite as numerous as
those of Stephen Dedalus,
but they evoke ancient Irish leaders (at least fleetingly), an
ancient Hebrew prophet (in a false, mocking way), and Greek
epic poetry. Later details in Telemachus fold Roman
mythology into the mix.
Noting that both names are "dactyls" confirms the typical
Irish pronunciation of the first one: MAL-uh-kee, which rhymes
rhythmically with the last name just as Oliver rhymes with
Gogarty. The dactyls also insinuate one more hint that Joyce's
novel is somehow retelling the story of the Odyssey,
because Homer's long poem was composed in dactylic hexameter:
prosodic lines of six DUH-duh-duh feet. It is possible, though
to my knowledge no one has explored the idea, that Joyce may
be inviting his readers to listen for dactylic rhythms as they
read his first chapter, just as he has asked them to hear the
Catholic Introibo being
chanted, and will ask them to hear countless musical tunes.
Malachy is a common Anglicized form of Máelachlainn, an Irish
name borne by a High King and by one of the companions of St. Patrick. But the
relative rareness of the name in Ireland, the highly unusual
"i" spelling, and Mulligan's own comments point toward a more
symbolic meaning. In Hebrew Malachi, the last of the twelve
"minor prophets," means “My Messenger.” Indeed, some biblical
scholars have argued that it was not a man’s proper name at
all, but a symbolic one indicating the prophet’s function as a
messenger of God. Mulligan is clearly aware of the biblical
significance of his name. In Scylla and Charybdis he
borrows a scrap of paper on which to jot down an idea for a
play: "May I? he said. The Lord has spoken to Malachi."
Mulligan's determination to “Hellenise”
Ireland arguably does make him a kind of prophet, albeit an
anti-Christian one. This assumption is supported by the way Telemachus
presents him as the bearer of evangelical "tidings": “He
swept the mirror a half circle in the air to flash the
tidings abroad in sunlight now radiant on the sea.”
In Hart and Hayman's James Joyce's Ulysses, Bernard
Benstock argues that the book makes Mulligan a kind of John
the Baptist to Stephen’s Christ, in the very limited sense
that he appears first, dramatically preparing the way for
Stephen to emerge as a character shortly after. By this logic,
Mulligan’s crudely anti-Christian message could perhaps be
characterized as a proclamation of Good News that introduces
Stephen’s similar but much more
complex and nuanced message.
Later in the chapter Mulligan calls himself "Mercurial
Malachi" and the narrative refers to his Panama hat
as a “Mercury’s hat,” alluding to the famous
winged hat of the god Mercury. Since Mercury, the Romanized
version of the Greek Hermes, was often represented as the
gods' messenger,
carrying decrees down from Mount Olympus to human beings on
earth, this detail builds upon Mulligan’s Hebrew name of
Malachi.
By adding in references to Mercury, Joyce was apparently
paying tribute to one part of Oliver Gogarty's fanciful
personal mythology. In It Isn't This Time of Year at All:
An Unpremeditated Autobiography, Gogarty wrote, "It is
with the unruly, the formless, the growing and illogical I
love to deal. Even my gargoyles are merry and bright; my outer
darkness by terror is unthronged. My thoughts are subjected to
no rules. Behold the wings upon my helmet and my
unfettered feet. I can fly backwards and forwards in
time and space."
