Gemini.Finnegans.Wake.19

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It is the same told of all. Many. Miscegenations on miscegenations. Tieckle. They lived und laughed ant loved end left. Forsin. Thy thingdome is given to the Meades and Porsons. The meandertale, aloss and again, of our old Heidenburgh in the days when Head-in-Clouds walked the earth.

This paragraph is a beautiful and concise summary of the story we are about to read. It describes the tale as universal, cyclical, and deeply human.

A Story of Everyone

The paragraph begins by stating that this is not one person’s story, but a story about everyone: It is the same told of all. Many. Its core principle is endless mixing, or Miscegenations on miscegenations.

It then sums up the entire human life cycle in a single, simple, and poignant phrase:

They lived und laughed ant loved end left.

This is Joyce’s version of “I came, I saw, I conquered.” It’s a more gentle, domestic, and universal summary of life: living, laughing, loving, and finally, leaving (dying). The “ant” in the middle reminds us of our small, insect-like existence in the grand scheme of things.

The Fallen Kingdom

The story involves the fall of a king, but in a comically deflated way. Joyce parodies the biblical writing on the wall from the Book of Daniel:

Thy thingdome is given to the Meades and Porsons.

The great kingdom is reduced to a thingdome (a world of things). And it isn’t conquered by a rival empire like the Medes and the Persians, but is taken over by the Meades and Porsons—drinkers (mead) and pedantic scholars (parsons/Porson). The tragic fall of a kingdom is retold as a comic takeover by pub-goers and academics.

The Meandering Tale

Finally, the paragraph gives a perfect description of the book’s narrative itself. It is:

The meandertale, aloss and again, of our old Heidenburgh in the days when Head-in-Clouds walked the earth.

  • It’s a meandertale: A story that wanders and loops like a river.
  • It’s both tragic and repetitive: aloss and again (“alas” and “again”).
  • Its subject is our old Heidenburgh: A pun on HCE’s name and Dublin as an old “heathen fortress.”
  • It’s a myth set when a giant dreamer, Head-in-Clouds (HCE), “walked the earth.”

This is the “once upon a time” for Finnegans Wake, framing the epic as a sad, funny, rambling story about a fallen dreamer.

18/08/2025, P.18.24, to be continued.