Page 843 - ULYSSES

Ulysses

(Gazelles are leaping, feeding on the mountains. Near are
lakes. Round their shores file shadows black of cedargroves.
Aroma rises, a strong hairgrowth of resin. It burns, the orient, a

sky of sapphire, cleft by the bronze flight of eagles. Under it lies
the womancity nude, white, still, cool, in luxury. A fountain
murmurs among damask roses. Mammoth roses murmur of scarlet
winegrapes. A wine of shame, lust, blood exudes, strangely
murmuring.)
ZOE: (Murmuring singsong with the music, her odalisk lips
lusciously smeared with salve of swinefat and rosewater) Schorach
ani wenowach, benoith Hierushaloim.
BLOOM: (Fascinated) I thought you were of good
stock by your accent.
ZOE: And you know what thought did?
(She bites his ear gently with little goldstopped teeth, sending
on him a cloying breath of stale garlic. The roses draw apart,
disclose a sepulchre of the gold of kings and their mouldering
bones.)
BLOOM: (Draws back, mechanically caressing her right bub
with a flat awkward hand) Are you a Dublin girl?
ZOE: (Catches a stray hair deftly and twists it to her coil)
No bloody fear. I’m English. Have you a swaggerroot?

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