Many details in Nestor, and not just the prominence
of horses and cattle in the
chapter, invite a comparison between Mr. Deasy and the wise
old counselor to whom Homer's Telemachus goes for advice in
the Odyssey. But the analogy seems mostly ironic,
and Stephen feels oppressed by "the same wisdom" as on his
last two visits to the headmaster's office—unwanted advice,
like a noose around his neck.
Athena, disguised as Mentor, advises Telemachus to journey
to Pylos to seek news of his father from Nestor: "Go to old
Nestor, master charioteer, / so we may broach the
storehouse of his mind." Deasy's invitation to
Stephen, "Will you wait in my study," implies
some wisdom on Deasy's part. It is also the place where Deasy
will pay Stephen his month's wages, picking up on the metaphor
of Nestor's mind as a storehouse. Stephen thinks, "And
now his strongroom for the gold."
Athena urges Telemachus to "Ask him with courtesy,"
and overcomes Telemachus' reluctance when he objects that "for
a young man to interrogate an old man / Seems
disrespectful." Stephen treats his employer with impeccable
courtesy, but he has no interest, bashful or otherwise, in
interrogating him. Rather, it is Deasy who interrogates
Stephen, badgering him with condescending and corrective
questions and observations.
Athena says that Nestor must have wisdom because his "rule
goes back over three generations," and Telemachus
believes that he must know "the ways of men" because he is "so
old, it seems death cannot touch him." Deasy is old, he is a
unionist who identifies with Ireland's rulers, and he feels
qualified to speak about Irish history because "I saw
three generations since O'Connell's time." But his
knowledge of the ways of men is undercut by his utter lack of
resemblance to Daniel O'Connell.
Athena says that Nestor "will tell you history and no
lies." Deasy's history is full of lies: that his
ancestor Sir John Blackwood planned
to vote for the Union, that "the orange lodges agitated for repeal of the
union," that there has been a conspiracy to sabotage Irish shipping
interests, that women have sabotaged
political order throughout history, that the Jews "sinned against the light,"
that Ireland "never persecuted
the Jews" and has never had a Jewish population, that an
international Jewish conspiracy is undermining the nations of
Europe.
In his lack of respect for authority Stephen is much like
the young Joyce, who was utterly unwilling to accept direction
from his elders. Ellmann records a meeting with William Butler
Yeats in which the young and completely unaccomplished writer
impertinently asked the great poet how old he was. Yeats
answered, and with a sigh Joyce replied, "I thought as much. I
have met you too late. You are too old" (103). The meeting in
Deasy's study represents one of several instances in the book
in which Stephen finds the advice of an older man useless. The
only exceptions to this pattern are Almidano Artifoni and Leopold
Bloom.
