Gemini.Finnegans.Wake.50
She’ll be coming (for they’re sure to choose her) in her white of gold with a tourch of ivy to rekindle the flame on Felix Day. But Essie Shanahan has let down her skirts. You remember Essie in our Luna’s Convent? They called her Holly Merry her lips were so ruddyberry and Pia de Purebelle when the redminers riots was on about her. Were I a clerk designate to the Williamswoodsmenufactors I’d poster those pouters on every jamb in the town. She’d making her rep at Lanner’s twicenightly. With the tabarine tamtammers of the whirligigmagees. Beats that cachucha flat. ‘Twould dilate your heart to go.
This paragraph introduces the vibrant, beautiful, and alluring daughter figure, Issy. It presents her in two contrasting ways: first as a mythic, ceremonial figure of renewal, and second as a real-world, sexually captivating music-hall dancer.
## The Chosen One 🔥
The paragraph opens with a prophecy about a young woman who will be chosen to perform a sacred rite.
- She will come on “Felix Day”—a “Happy Day” celebrating the Felix Culpa, or Fortunate Fall—to “rekindle the flame” of life for the community. She is a priestly figure, like a Vestal Virgin, dressed in “white of gold” and carrying a pagan “tourch of ivy.” She represents the next generation and the promise of renewal.
## From Convent Girl to Starlet 🌟
This mythic figure is then immediately brought down to earth and identified as a local girl, Essie Shanahan (a version of Issy), who has recently “let down her skirts,” a phrase that means she has grown into a woman and also carries a sexually suggestive undertone.
- The speaker recalls her school days at “Luna’s Convent” (a convent of the moon), where her dual nature was already apparent in her nicknames: the pious “Holly Merry” and the beautiful “Pia de Purebelle.” Even then, she was so desirable that political riots (“the redminers riots”) were said to be “about her.”
## The Music Hall Sensation 💃
In the present, Essy is a popular entertainer, a star dancer making her reputation (“making her rep”) at a music hall called “Lanner’s,” performing twice a night.
- Her act is described with energetic, onomatopoeic language: the sound of tambourines (“tabarine tamtammers”) and the wild spinning of the dancers (“the whirligigmagees”).
- Her dancing is said to be even more exciting and sensual than the famous Spanish cachucha, a provocative dance popular in the 19th century.
## An Object of Desire 😍
The speaker’s admiration is personal and intense. He wishes he could “poster those pouters” (plaster images of her pouting lips) all over town, turning her into a public pin-up. The final line, “‘Twould dilate your heart to go,” captures the thrilling effect she has on her audience, suggesting both the emotional swelling of the heart with excitement and the physical response of arousal. She is the embodiment of vibrant, captivating new life.
18/09/2025, P27.22 , to be continued.