Gemini.Finnegans.Wake.06

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Phew!

What a warm time we were in there but how keling is here the airabouts! We nowhere she lives but you mussna tell annaone for the lamp of Jig-aLanthern! It’s a candlelittle houthse of a month and one windies. Downadown, High Downadown. And nummered quaintlymine. And such reasonable weather too! The wagrant wind’s awalt’zaround the piltdowns and on every blasted knollyrock(if you can spot fifty I spy four more) there’s that gnarlybird ygathering, a runalittle, doalittle, preealittle, pouralittle, wipealittle, kicksalittle, severalittle, eatalittle, whinealittle, kenalittle, helfalittle, pelfalittle gnarlybird. A verytableland of bleakbardfields! Under his seven wrothschields lies one, Lumproar. His glav toside him. Skud ontorsed. Our pigeons pair are flewn for northcliffs. The three of crows have flapped it southenly, kraaking of de baccle to the kvarters of that sky whence triboos answer; Wail, ‘tie well! She viver comes out when Thon’s on shower or when Thon’s flash with his Nixy girls or when Thon’s blowing toomcracks down the gaels of Thon. No nubo no! Neblas on you liv! Her would be too moochy afreet. Of Burymeleg and Bindmerollingeyes and all the deed in the woe. Fe fo fom! She jist does hopes till byes will be byes. Here, and it goes on to appear now, she comes, a peacefugle, a parody’s bird, a peri potmother, a pringlpik in the ilandiskippy, with peewee, and powwows in beggybaggy, on her bickybacky, and a flick flask fleckflinging its pixylighting pacts’ huemeramybows, picking here, pecking there, pussypussy plunderpussy. But it’s the armitides toonigh, militopucos, and toomourn we wish for a muddy kissmans to the minutia workers and there’s to be a gorgeups trucefor happinest childher everwere. Come nebo me and suso sing the day we sallybright. She’s burrowed the coacher’s headlight the better to pry(who goes cute goes siocur and shoos aroun) and all spoiled goods go into her nabsack: curtrages and rattlin buttins, nappy spattees and flasks of all nations, clavicures and scampulars, maps, keys and woodpiles of haypennies and moonled brooches with bloodstaned breeks in em, boaston nightgarters and masses of shoesets and nickelly nacks and foder allmicheal and a lugly parson of cates and howitzer muchears and midgers and maggets, ills and ells with loffs of toffs and pleures of bells and the last sigh that comes fro the hart (bucklied!) and the fairest sin the sunsaw (that’s cearc!). With Kiss. Kiss Criss. Cross Criss. Kiss Cross. Undo lives ‘end. Slain.

Phew, indeed! After the hot, noisy, bombastic tour of the museum, this paragraph is like stepping outside into the cool, quiet night air of the park. The story of the male battle is over, and now, on this Tuesday night, the focus shifts entirely.

What a warm time we were in there but how keling is here the airabouts!
The tone is immediately one of relief and transition. We have left the stuffy “museyroom” and are back in the real, cooling (keling) world.

We nowhere she lives but you mussna tell annaone… there’s that gnarlybird ygathering, a runalittle, doalittle…
We are introduced to a mysterious female figure. At first, she’s a secret, a gnarlybird gathering things in the gloom, described by a long list of small, persistent actions: prying, pouring, wiping, kicking, eating. She is a scavenger of tiny details.

She viver comes out when Thon’s on shower… Here, and it goes on to appear now, she comes, a peacefugle, a parody’s bird…
Her identity becomes clearer. She only comes out when the male thunder god (Thon - HCE) is quiet. Tonight is an armitides (armistice), a truce. She emerges as a peacefugle (peace-bird), a scavenger who is also a caretaker. This is Anna Livia Plurabelle (ALP), the river/wife, in her role as the cleaner-up of history. She is the minutia worker who deals with the debris left by men.

She’s burrowed the coacher’s headlight the better to pry… and all spoiled goods go into her nabsack:
Here we see her true function. With a borrowed light, she moves across the battlefield (the park, the world) and gathers all the spoiled goods—the leftovers of conflict and life—into her knapsack (nabsack). The following list is a magnificent inventory of history’s rubbish:

  • Military debris: curtrages and rattlin buttins (cartridges, buttons).
  • Personal effects: flasks of all nations, bloodstaned breeks (breeches).
  • Sacred and mundane: scampulars (scapulars), maps, keys, haypennies.
  • The beautiful and the decayed: moonled brooches, midgers and maggets.
  • The intangible: the last sigh that comes fro the hart... and the fairest sin the sunsaw.

She collects everything indiscriminately—from weapons to love tokens, from religious icons to maggots, from the final sigh of a soldier to a beautiful sin. She is the great recycler.

With Kiss. Kiss Criss. Cross Criss. Kiss Cross. Undo lives ‘end. Slain.
The paragraph ends with her cryptic, ritualistic signature. The pattern of kisses and crosses is like a final blessing or the signing-off on a life. Her purpose is stated plainly: to Undo lives 'end. She doesn’t bring the dead back to life, but she undoes the finality of their end by gathering their fragments to be repurposed. The final, stark word, Slain, reminds us of the brutal reality of the material she works with.

After the male-dominated story of the battle, this is the feminine response. The men make the mess; the woman quietly and tirelessly cleans it up, gathering the pieces so the cycle can begin again.

05/08/2025, P.11.28, to be continued.