Page 378 - ULYSSES

Ulysses

there, as a painter of old Italy set his face in a dark corner
of his canvas. He has revealed it in the sonnets where there
is Will in overplus. Like John o’Gaunt his name is dear to
him, as dear as the coat and crest he toadied for, on a bend

sable a spear or steeled argent, honorificabilitudinitatibus,
dearer than his glory of greatest shakescene in the country.
What’s in a name? That is what we ask ourselves in
childhood when we write the name that we are told is
ours. A star, a daystar, a firedrake, rose at his birth. It
shone by day in the heavens alone, brighter than Venus in
the night, and by night it shone over delta in Cassiopeia,
the recumbent constellation which is the signature of his
initial among the stars. His eyes watched it, lowlying on
the horizon, eastward of the bear, as he walked by the
slumberous summer fields at midnight returning from
Shottery and from her arms.
Both satisfied. I too.
Don’t tell them he was nine years old when it was
quenched.
And from her arms.
Wait to be wooed and won. Ay, meacock. Who will
woo you?
Read the skies. Autontimorumenos. Bous Stephanoumenos.
Where’s your configuration? Stephen, Stephen, cut the

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