Half a paragraph of Oxen of the Sun is dominated by
the idea that the young men marching down Holles Street to
Burke's pub are soldiers on campaign. Mulligan's quotation of
Xenophon
("Thence they advanced five parasangs") seems to start the
ball rolling, and then someone brings up "Slattery's mounted
foot," a comical song by Percy French. The idea of the song,
perfectly suited for the context, is that Slattery's troops
are marching in search of drink.
The song announces its absurdity from the get-go. Foot
soldiers are by definition not mounted, and some battles do
not appear in the historical record:
You've heard of Julius Caesar and the great Napoleon
too,
And how the Cork Militia beat the Turks at Waterloo;
But there's a page of glory that as yet remains uncut,
And that's the warlike story of bold Slattery's Mounted Fut.
The song's chorus tells how two dozen men "and a couple of
stout gossoons"
came down from the mountains with muskets "and marched
along." The men recount their deeds:
Well, first we reconnoitred 'round O'Sullivan's
Shebeen—
It used to be the shop house but we called it the canteen;
And there we saw a notice which the bravest heart unnerved:
"All liquor must be settled for before the drink is served."
After several such setbacks, Slattery declares that the current
campaign is ended. Praising his men for "The eager way you
followed when I headed the retreat," he affirms a "soldier's
maxim": "Best be a coward for five minutes than a dead man all
your life."
Later in the paragraph in which the song is mentioned,
someone appears to echo its line about the shebeen being
called a canteen: "Get a spurt on. Tention. Proceed
to nearest canteen and there annex liquor stores. March!"
The entire paragraph continues a theme announced in Telemachus
when Mulligan perverts a famous message from Lord Nelson:
"Hurry out to your school kip and bring us back some money.
Today the bards must drink and junket. Ireland
expects that every man this day will do his duty."
