At the end of Sirens Bloom looks through a shop
window at "a gallant pictured hero," probably on a poster, and
sees there "Robert Emmet's last words." These come,
ostensibly, from the speech that Emmet made from the dock
after a court convicted him of high treason and before it
sentenced him to die. Joyce lets Bloom's reading of the final
word, "Done," mark the end of his quasi-musical chapter, and
he also places it at the end of the motifs that constitute a
kind of introductory overture, just before the signal to
"Begin!" In addition to these ingenious involvements in the
musical structures of the episode, the speech gets pulled into
the theme of noble, futile resistance sounded in The
Croppy Boy.
Thornton cites Helen Landreth's observation in The
Pursuit of Robert Emmet (1948) that there are many
accounts of the eloquent courtroom speech but that all sources
agree on "the unforgettable last paragraph." Slote largely
goes along with this but he notes that R. N. C. Vance, in
"Robert Emmet's Speech from the Dock," Studies: An Irish
Quarterly Review 71 (1982), casts doubt on the
"authenticity and accuracy" of the entire speech, suggesting
that even the rousing patriotic conclusion may be a posthumous
invention. At the end of Sirens Bloom reads, in
italicized chunks, the words of the final two sentences of
this concluding paragraph:
Let no man write my epitaph; for as no man who knows
my motives dares now vindicate them, let not prejudice or
ignorance asperse them. Let them rest in obscurity and peace.
Let my memory be left in oblivion, and my tomb remain
uninscribed, until other times and other men can do justice to
my character. When my country takes her place among
the nations of the earth, then, and not till then, let my
epitaph be written. I have done.
Thornton notes that the
United Irishman ran an article
in its 19 September 1903 issue that commemorated the 100th
anniversary of Emmet's execution and quoted from these final
sentences. Various posters and other ephemeral publications,
starting well before 1903, displayed images of Emmet and parts
or all of his speech. One such production is no doubt displayed
in Lionel Marks's shop.
Inexperienced and unaided readers will know none of this as they
start the chapter. Even the rare one who senses that the chapter
is beginning with a list of the musical themes to be sounded
later will not think of Emmet. Instead, the effect of the final
two words may bring to mind an orchestra playing the final chord
of an overture, followed by the conductor raising his baton to
lead them into the opera proper:
Done.
Begin!
The end of the chapter identifies "Done" as part of Emmet's
speech, and it also prepares a musical context for the
reference. As Bloom leaves the Ormond through the bar Ben
Dollard is singing
The Croppy Boy, a ballad about
highminded patriotism rewarded with savage punishment. Emmet's
words, which were (and still are) themselves sometimes versified
and sung, held an identical resonance for Irish nationalist
ears. After Bloom has left, the other men, "deepmoved," gather
around Dollard "in right good cheer," praising his singing.
Other themes intrude, and then the song comes back in Bloom's
thoughts as he walks along the street: "Breathe a prayer, drop a
tear. All the same he must have been a bit of a natural not to
see it was a yeoman cap." Bloom turns toward a shop window to
avoid meeting a prostitute he knows, and then, two sentences
before he sees the "
gallant pictured hero," the men
inside the bar appear once more, clinking their glasses, "
brighteyed
and gallant."
In this way the strains of The Croppy Boy and the
sentiments conveyed by that song linger to the end of the
chapter and commingle with Emmet's last words: "When my
country takes her place among...Nations
of the earth...Then and not till then...Let my epitaph
be...Written. I have...Done." But a different
strain of notes has been brewing in Bloom's intestines the
whole time, and the chapter's penultimate word,
"Pprrpffrrppffff," sounds in concert with its ultimate
utterance, effectively deflating not only Bloom's colon but
also the uplifting sentiment.
