Ulysses - Gabler Edition [1]
Here is Ulysses as James Joyce wrote and revised it.
This unabridged edition incorporates the internationally recognised system of line numbers for critical reference.
A NOTE ON THE TEXT
The present reprint of the critically edited reading text of Ulysses—first published as the so-called ‘Corrected Text’ in 1986—stands corrected, as it must, in two readings: ‘Buller’ at 5.560 and ‘Thrift’ at 10.1259. This is the net outcome of the massive onslaught on the critical editing of Ulysses in the New York Review of Books of 30 June 1988 and elsewhere. Beyond that, the scholarly debate (where it takes and accepts the Critical and Synoptic Edition of 1984 on its own terms) leads, or would lead, to very few changes indeed to the reading text. The procedures of establishing that text, which is the text as it appears realized in this reprint, are grounded and documented in the apparatus of the critical edition. A textual modification in the present reprint alone would be without such a foundation, and no editorial changes have therefore been made.
The alterations I felt inclined towards, but did not introduce, are the following:
at 1.562, for ‘We’re always tired’ read ‘I’m always tired’
(as by Joyce’s instruction in an unpublished letter cited in Antony Hammond’s review in The Library, 6th ser., 8 [1986], p. 387)
at 16.1804-1805, for the phrasing ‘was not quite the same as the usual handsome blackguard type they unquestionably had an insatiable hankering after’ read ‘was not quite the same as the usual blackguard type they unquestionably had an indubitable hankering after’
(an alternative editorial response to a complicated interrelationship of stages of the text’s development where John Kidd’s discussion in the New York Review of Books has suggested that the edition momentarily failed to observe its stated rules of procedure)
at 17.314-315, for ‘Mr Bloom’ read ‘Mrs Bloom’
(an emendation which, according to David Hayman’s conjecture in Sandulescu & Hart, Assessing the 1984 ‘Ulysses’ [1986], the context demands, though Joyce never made the change)
As a whole, this critically edited text of Ulysses stands, and remains standing, as the result of its considered premises and reasoned scholarly procedures.
Hans Walter Gabler
August 1993
I: The Telemachiad
Telemachus
Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed. A yellow dressinggown, ungirdled, was sustained gently behind him by the mild morning air. He held the bowl aloft and intoned:
—Introibo ad altare Dei.
Halted, he peered down the dark winding stairs and called up coarsely:
—Come up, Kinch! Come up, you fearful jesuit!
Solemnly he came forward and mounted the round gunrest. He faced about and blessed gravely thrice the tower, the surrounding land and the awaking mountains. Then, catching sight of Stephen Dedalus, he bent towards him and made rapid crosses in the air, gurgling in his throat and shaking his head. Stephen Dedalus, displeased and sleepy, leaned his arms on the top of the staircase and looked coldly at the shaking gurgling face that blessed him, equine in its length, and at the light untonsured hair, grained and hued like pale oak.
Buck Mulligan peeped an instant under the mirror and then covered the bowl smartly.
—Back to barracks! he said sternly.
He added in a preacher’s tone:
—For this, O dearly beloved, is the genuine christine: body and soul and blood and ouns. Slow music, please. Shut your eyes, gents. One moment. A little trouble about those white corpuscles. Silence, all.
He peered sideways up and gave a long slow whistle of call, then paused awhile in rapt attention, his even white teeth glistening here and there with gold points. Chrysostomos. Two strong shrill whistles answered through the calm.
—Thanks, old chap, he cried briskly. That will do nicely. Switch off the current, will you?
He skipped off the gunrest and looked gravely at his watcher, gathering about his legs the loose folds of his gown. The plump shadowed face and sullen oval jowl recalled a prelate, patron of arts in the middle ages. A pleasant smile broke quietly over his lips.