In Oxen of the Sun Bloom remembers coming back from a
day's work as a traveling salesman to find
his father "seated with Jacob's pipe after like labours in the
paternal ingle." Jacob's, or Jacob, pipes had clay bowls
carved in the shape of a human head––very often, it seems,
that of the biblical patriarch. The object apparently holds
meaning for Bloom, because in Circe it comes back as
one of Henry Flower's possessions, but there the image is
markedly transformed.
Gifford calls this late 19th century product "a large
Continental pipe." Although he cites no evidence, the
provenance seems correct. John Simpson, in a short article
on JJON, observes that the May 1893 issue of the Revue
de Traditions Populaires identified the Jacob pipe as a
type that was "very popular in the Latin Quarter of Paris, and
in Belgium" (270). "Le beau Jacob," Simpson goes on to note,
"was well-known in France and elsewhere on the continent of
Europe in the second half of the nineteenth century and some
production continued well into the twentieth century.
Manufacturers included Gambier, Fiolet, and Wingender."
Although the face of Jacob was depicted on many of these
pipes, the name may have originally referred also to the
manufacturer. Simpson notes that a French source cited in a
dictionary (OED?), the Trésor de la Langue
Française, speculates that the etymology may derive
either from the Hebrew patriarch or from Austrian pipemaker
Jacob Vilarius. Both explanations seem to be borne out in an
antique pipe offered for sale on Etsy, seen here in three
photographs. The patriarch's headband has text that appears to
read "Je suis le beau Jacob." But below the artististry, on
the part of the bowl that would rest on a user's palm, the
name Jacob appears much more prominently in large block
letters, accompanied by some identifying numbers, as one might
expect from a manufacturer branding his wares. A pipemaker
may, one supposes, have attached his own name to his product
but played on that of his namesake, the father of the Jewish
nation.
In Circe this type of pipe is reincarnated as an
accessory to the wardrobe of Bloom's fictive persona: "From
left upper entrance with two gliding steps Henry Flower
comes forward to left front centre. He wears a dark mantle
and drooping plumed sombrero. He carries a silverstringed
inlaid dulcimer and a longstemmed bamboo Jacob's pipe,
its clay bowl fashioned as a female head. He wears
dark velvet hose and silverbuckled pumps. He has the
romantic Saviour's face with flowing locks, thin beard and
moustache." The transformation here is quite striking.
The homely artifact preserved in Bloom's memory––an old Jewish
immigrant sitting comfortably by his fireplace cradling the
father of his people in his warm hands––now becomes part of
Bloom's dashing self-image as an elegant troubadour.
In this connection it should probably be noted that Henry has
a thing for female heads. Several pages later in Circe
this self-regarding troubadour is seen carrying a more
disturbing burden, perhaps suggested by the historical Henry
Flower who was accused of murder: "(Caressing on his
breast a severed female head, murmurs.) Thine heart,
mine love. (He plucks his lutestrings.) When first I
saw..."
