We stopped at "...
Mrs's MacMannigan's Yard." (523.18)
There are some interesting phrases, sentences, snippets of sentences on the pages we read.
Example:
- cabbage or paperming comfirts (520.36)
- staggerjuice or deadhorse (521.12)
- Playing bull before shebears or the hindlegs off a clotheshorse (522.15)
- orangepeelers or greengoaters (522.16)
- tonedeafs in our noses to boot (522.28)
- pigeonstealer (522.36)
- groomed by S. Samson and son, bred by dilalahs (523.16)
Of all the above, I was (and am) intrigued by the sentence, 'playing bull before shebears or the hindlegs off a clotheshorse'. I wonder, what do these apparently two parts of the sentence mean and how are they related?
In a way, I think, this sentence summarises the quintessence of Finnegans Wake. One can interpret it on multiple levels as can be read below:
1.
Roland McHugh gives the meaning as "Bulls and Bears: speculators on rises and falls, respectively, on Stock Exchange. He also equates 'shebears' to 'Sheba'.
2. Our co-reader,
Anna, summarises it as follows:
It could refer to stockbrokers. They are good at persuading people by talking them into buying bonds. That is to say:
"playing bull and bear": 'playing' in the sense of 'gambling' on the stockmarket. 'Bull' market is when the stockmarkets are going up, and 'bear' market when stocks are going down.
"the hindlegs off a clotheshorse": there is an expression in English "to talk the hindlegs off a donkey". That is to say people who persuade you into something by talking incessantly. The 'donkey' has been changed into 'clotheshorse' which fits in with the 'she' of 'shebear'. in the sense that she has nice clothes and hangs them on a clotheshorse, sometimes also called a 'garment donkey'... There is also, of course, the sexual interpretation. The male 'bull' impregnates her and then she bears (a child). She has put her garments on the clotheshorse and been talked into it.
3. According to Kitcher et al (Joyce's Kaleidoscope: An Invitation to Finnegans Wake), the sentence refers to the story of the incident in the park and the tale of Buckely and the General.
(Shaun/Yawn who is being interrogated by the four old men in this whole chapter is given the option to choose between these two alternatives.)
4. I found a nice story about bulls and bears. Read The Bull and the Bear here.
Admittedly, Finnegans Wake is teeming with sexual hints, - sometimes explicit, often hidden - and the incidence in the park is one of the main pillars of the book. Still, I personally prefer to interpret the sentence intriguing me based on the story of the bull and the bear!
In any case, here is a photograph of the bull and the bear in front of the New Stock Market in Frankfurt. You are all invited to make your interpretations of '
playing bull before shebears'!
