The second book of Kings tells the gruesome story of
some young people (the King James says "little children," but
the Hebrew word means "youths") who unwisely mocked the
prophet Elisha: "And he went up from thence unto Beth-el: and
as he was going up by the way, there came forth little
children out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him,
Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head. And he turned
back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the
Lord. And there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and
tare forty and two children of them" (2:23-24). The Vulgate
Bible translates the youths' taunt as ascende calve.
Why this phrase should have found its way to the beginning of
Joachim's pseudonymous series of prophecies concerning late
medieval popes is unclear, but there seems to be some
connection to the fact that Nicholas III (the first pope
treated in the series) was a member of the Orsini family
(Italian for bears). In the version of the Vaticinia
shown here (and it is not unique in this way), the first
prophecy represents Nicholas seated between two
friendly-looking bear cubs, associating him with the prophet
Elisha. The text that accompanies the illustration is highly
obscure. It begins "Ascende, calve, ut ne amplius
decalveris, qui non vereris decalvere sponsam: ut comam
ursae nutrias" ("Go up, bald one, lest you be made more
bald, you who are not afraid to make your wife bald: so that
you nourish the hair of the she-bear").
Stephen's alterations to the beginning of this sentence,
changing "Go up" to "Go down" and "more" (amplius)
to "excessively" (nimium), also are hard to fathom.
Is he imperfectly remembering what he read? Or deliberately
changing the meaning somehow? (Thornton notes that Joyce had amplius
in the version of the chapter that he published in the Little
Review. He changed it before publishing the complete
novel.)
What does seem clear is that 1) Stephen thinks of Joachim
(not Elisha) as bald, associating him with the balding priest
in the swimming hole at the end of Telemachus ("garland
of gray hair"); 2) he thinks of Joachim as having
been threatened with censure by the church ("his
comminated head"); and 3) he sees Joachim as a
version of himself, the Stephen who could have entered the
priesthood ("see him me clambering down to the
footpace (descende!), clutching a monstrance,
basiliskeyed").
To comminate is to threaten with divine
punishment. Gifford notes that although Joachim's teachings
were never declared heretical during his lifetime, "some were
condemned by the Lateran Council of 1215," and a papal
commission censured one of his ardent advocates in 1255 while
sparing Joachim. A monstrance, in the
Catholic church, is a vessel in which the consecrated host of
the Eucharist is displayed (it comes from monstrare
= to show). A footpace is a platform or
raised section of floor, as below an altar
(dictionary.reference.com gives as an example, "The altar,
where a weekly requiem had been said for them, was gone, and
the footpace and piscina alone showed where it had stood").
The basilisk is a legendary serpent or
dragon whose gaze can kill.
Stephen seems to be comparing himself to Joachim as another
genius involved with the church, just as he compares himself
to Swift as another genius with the misfortune to be born
Irish. Both involvements (Catholicism, Ireland) lead to
torturing madness. Has Joachim's genius been reduced to the performance of a mere rite?
Are his bald head and the murderous look in his eyes images of
what Stephen could have become if he had answered the priestly
vocation?
In A Portrait Stephen's decision not to answer the
call is significantly motivated by thoughts of what the
priests look like: "The Reverend Stephen Dedalus, S. J. / His
name in that new life leaped into characters before his eyes
and to it there followed a mental sensation of an undefined
face or colour of a face. The colour faded and became strong
like a changing glow of pallid brick red. Was it the raw
reddish glow he had so often seen on wintry mornings on the
shaven gills of the priests? The face was eyeless and
sourfavoured and devout, shot with pink tinges of suffocated
anger" (174-75). Stephen associates this face with Father Richard Campbell, the
Jesuit priest that he has thought of just before saying "Descende"
to Joachim.
Although the meditation on men becoming bald and bears
ripping children to shreds is as obscure as anything in Ulysses,
it seems clear that Stephen is viewing Joachim as a man of the
church who has descended into anger as a result of his joyless
institutional commitment. These thoughts return in Wandering
Rocks, when Stephen is perusing a book of holy charms
about how to win a woman's love: "As good as any other
abbot's charms, as mumbling Joachim's. Down, baldynoddle, or
we'll wool your wool."
