Mulligan says, "I'm hyperborean as much as you," using a word
that Friedrich Nietzsche applied to the Übermensch,
the superman who will free himself from Christian ethics and
transcendental metaphysics. Later in Telemachus,
Mulligan playfully declares, “I’m the Uebermensch."
"Hyperborean" means literally “beyond the north wind” (the
Greeks personified winds from the north as Boreas). Various
ancient Greek writers referred to the home of hyperborean
peoples as a kind of paradise, a place of perpetual spring,
sunshine, and youth. The legend became popular in the
nineteenth century and might have reached Joyce through many
different sources, but the most likely one is Nietzsche.
Thornton notes the philosopher's use of the term in The
Antichrist (1888, publ. 1895): "Let us face ourselves.
We are Hyperboreans; we know very well how far off we live.
'Neither by land nor by sea will you find the way to the
Hyperboreans'—Pindar already knew this about us. Beyond the
north, ice, and death—our life, our
happiness. We have discovered happiness, we know the way, we
have found our way out of the labyrinth of thousands of
years." Gifford adds that the adjective is used in The
Will to Power (1896) to characterize the Übermensch.
Nietzsche's anti-Christian philosophy is almost certainly the
operative context for Mulligan's earlier statement, because he
is commenting on Stephen’s
refusal to surrender to his mother’s request for a show of
Christian piety. The more interesting question is how
Mulligan, Stephen, and Joyce understand the German
philosopher's ideas. Mulligan seems to find in his writings an
inspiration for irresponsible, selfish hedonism. Stephen's
thoughts are not made clear. There is good reason to think
that Joyce, at least by the time he wrote Ulysses,
may have come to a much more
penetrating understanding of these writings.
