The initial ovoidal insight occurs when HCE as Finnegan notes that the humptyhillhead of humself...is in quest of his tumptytumtoes on page 3, the very first page of Finnegans Wake. The fallen image of Humpty Dumpty as he lays dormont, (12) hatches a fatal fetal slip, or sleep of rebirth through ovasleep (397) for auld lang Ayternitay. (406) Certainly, HCE, as Humpty Dumpty, (a homelette?) (59) in his fallen state of being knocked out, out cold, passed out, or out like a light, suggests the incubation state of a fertilized egg. Even the tale of the fall is first retaled early in bed (3) where Alma Luvia, Pollabella (619) (ALP) who Hatches Cock's Eggs (71) is ove' sleeping by Haroun Childeric Eggeberth (HCE). (4) Ovidently, (166) ALP and the hen, as well as the river, engage in mutuomorphomutation (mutually morphing and mutating as well as a changing of sex.) (281) "Pollo" is Spanish for chicken, "polla" is Italian for soorce, [source] (600) and "Luvia" sifts out ALP's alluvial seasilt (628) qualities. The appellation of "Alma" brings in the archetypal "nourishing" (Latin) mother aspect which also ties in the nurturing, sustaining power of rivers which syncs with the morphing of ALP into the Liffie. Drink in more of ALP's liquid personality in the reference to the Sassqueehenna (594) which is both a sassy queen hen and another minnyhahing (600) river, the Susquehanna.
Ah, don't tell me you Donawhu. (76) You do know who! It's ALP, the hen again, and the river, too. Reaching across this river of lives (600) to the fall of that cosmic, mystical egg going for broke (see the ego?), do we not find that this ovasleep (397) and the nourished rebirth are but transformational forms of gestation/incubation? That Hung Chung Egglyfella (374) and ALP are also located by the sedge of the troutling stream. Hic cubat edilis. Apud libertinam parvulam? (7) Here the "troutling stream" carries the suggestion of spawning (ova waiting for fertilization) and the latter phrases are Latin for "Here lies the edible man. By the tiny freedwoman." Edible again suggests the egg as nourishment and as nourishing in a variety of forms. We are now just barely beginning to scratch the surface of Cheepalizzy's Hane Exposition (111) to expose the hen and crusader everintermutuomergent. (55) So to the hidmost coignings of the earth, (118) onward lead, kindly fowl, (112) with all your now illegible airy plumeflights (119) and preen for us more of your hystorical leavesdroppings. (564) Pray do talk straight turkey meet to mate (113) and tell the cock's trootabout him! (113)
History of HCE and ALP courses throughout the layers of watery and earthly litter in Finnegans Wake. Plucky Anna Livia, as archetypal nourishing mother hen, babbles and bubbles, clucks and mucks within and without the Liffey River's rubbish for the letter which continually resurfaces and relates the ova-chronology of the patrilinear plop (279) of HCE while his entire humpty daum earth (455) gestates until all eggburst, eggblend, eggburial and hatch-as-hatch can (614) while they flow in and out of metaphor till we feel are you still tropeful (466) within jambebatiste (117) (Giambatista) Vico's circle of life, the commodius vicus. (3) Simply because as Taciturn pretells, our wrongstoryshortener, he dumptied the wholeborrow of rubbages on to soil here (17) when the whole flock's at home (455) and that was how framm sin fromm Son, acity arose, finfin funfun, a sitting arrows. (94) And thanacestross mound have swollup them all. This ourth of years is not save brickdust and being humus the same roturns. (18) What a mnice old mness it all mnakes! A middenhide hoard of objects! (19) Owlets' eegs (O stoop to please!) (19) However, as such, we cannot overlook that the maker mates with made (O my!) (261) in the name of the former and the latter and of their holocaust. Allmen. (419) Highly charged with electrons, (615) this mating hatches little eggons, youlk and meek (613) who were yung and easily freudened, (115) and thus Haveth Childers Everywhere with Mudder (535) changed endocrine history. (136) Look out! It's a soufflosion of oogs (184) in defiance of the Uncontrollable Birth Preservativation (Game and Poultry). (184) Keep in mind that all rogues lead to rhyme. (96) If you missed my drift, check the root language (424) again and all the doubtful eggshells…alphybettyformed verbage…borrowed brogues…and once current puns. (183) My wud! (183) Now was that a missnomer (562) or just one of the twobirds? (562)
About that original hen (110) who pokes her beak into the matter (66) of the litterish fragments (66) which she has pecked up and set into her sack of auld hensyne. (112) What she was scratching at the hour of klokking twelve looked for all this zogzag world like a goodishsized sheet of letter paper originating by transcript from Boston (Mass.) (111) and was marked by a stain, and that a teastain...signing the page away. (111) How charmingly exquisite! (13) The bird in the case was Belinda of the Dorans (111) also referred to as Biddy Doran (112) who was the hen in the doran's shantyqueer, (584) the bliddy duran, (14) and Breedabrooda (78) (that was her mudhen republican name) (393) who certainly knew that the letter in question 'tis as human a little story as paper could well carry. (115) How else but by the sagacity of a lookmelittle likemelong hen (111) could such an epistle of such soundsense and sensesound (121) have been unearthed? Furthermore, see what happens when your somatophage merman (HCE) takes his fancy to our virgitarian swan? (171) This vegetarian virgin swan is none other than one of the multiple transmutations of the mother hen ALP in the Wake. Joyce poaches a number of fowl exchanges including three of crows, (11) who are southenly (11) flapping, our pigeon's pair" (10) who are flying north, the nocturnal goosemother [who] would lay her new golden sheeg, (449) Noah's larks, good as noo, (47) parody's bird. . . picking here, pecking there," (11) the phoenix (a bird in Egyptian mythology who died by fire and rose from the ashes and let us not forget the often alluded to felix culpa), (265) those sick owls hawked back to Athens, (120) and that coerogenal hun (616) who is the original, erogenous hen of this very nightynovel, (54) the very same biddy who possesses the power to coerce and is wrothing foulplay over his [HCE's] five's court and his fine poultryyard. (589) Hang coersion everyhow! (378)
And what about that gnarlybird ygathering, a runalittle, doalittle, preealittle, pouralittle, wipealittle, kicksalittle, severalittle, eatalittle, whinealittle, kenalittle, helfalittle, pelfalittle gnarlybird? (10) And lest we forget, what's good for the gorse is a goad for the garden. (450) After all, said her untitled mamafesta, (104) It Was Me Egged Him on to the Stork Exchange. (106) But howforhim chirrupeth evereachbird! (98) Ever so faintly in this fowl banter, one might even imagine the twattering of bards in the twitterlitter. (37) Let's face it. Birdsnests is birdsnests. (450) At any rate, you'd best hang on 'cause hulm culms evurdyburdy. (378) To reach that all important cunniform (cuneiform, cunning, and orally stimulating) (198) letter within the littery, lettery debris of this nightynovel (54) of Finnegans Wake, Joyce has worked with and within layer upon layer of littery letters and droppings of biddies, (79) moving from the fall off the ladder to the later letter which lends leavening power not only to Anna Livia, as poachmistress, (412) but also to the Liffey, river of life, from which it periodically resurfaces. Wave bore it...Hen trieved it. (94) For those of us who have been wondering who in the hallhagal [hell, Valhalla, Hegel] wrote the durn thing (107) in the first place, we will find with a bit of scratching midst the litter that it was written by A Laughable Party to Hyde and Cheek, Edenberry. (66) Well, here's lettering you erronynously (617) that countlessness of livestories have netherfallen by this plage (sandy beach), flick as flowflakes, litters from aloft, like a waast wizzard all of whirlworlds. (17) To conclude purely negatively…that its page cannot ever have been a penproduct of a man or woman of that period or…that on any page that its author was always constitutionally incapable of misappropriating the spoken words of others (108) would be a split in the infinitive. (271) We must read this page as were it sentenced to be nuzzled over a full trillion times for ever and a night (120) and remember that it was totalled in toldtell and teldtold in tittletell tattle, (597) the yest and the ist, the wright side and the wronged side. (597) We must also take note that this pile of assorted rubbish, this Dirtdump, (615) is the very same wellknown kikkinmidden where the illassorted first couple [HCE's parents] first met with each other (503) in a place fairly exspoused to the four last winds (503) and that the ovasleeping (397) HCE was poached on in that eggtentical spot. (16) (Now that's what I call ous of their freiung pfann into myne foyer.) (538) This particular middenheap is also one and the same with the filthdump near the Serpentine in Phornix Park. (80) Keep in mind that as sure as herself [ALP] pits hen to paper and there's scribings scrawled on eggs, (615) we must vaunt no idle dubiosity as to its genuine authorship. (118) With all this drinking in of watery litter, are you beginning to feel balladproof (616) yet?
Can we as merely one fledge (fledgling), one brood, (378) mere chickchilds, (244) really have even the poultriest notions (112) as to the whole sense of the lot, the interpretation of any phrase in the whole, the meaning of every word of a phrase so far deciphered out of it (118) or are we just observing the abnihilisation of the etym? (353) Unquestionably, nothing comes from nothing, but from the "etym" (atom, Adam, etymology) hatch multiple meanings. Remember H. C. Eggeberth? He came to us erigenating from next to nothing (4) although he addle liddle phifie Annie ugged the little craythur. (4) It's acomedy of letters (425) with allergrossest transfuiasm. (425) But shouldn't any decent Lettrechaun (419) be capable of deciphering this blarnyest blather? (419) All intentions are, however, binomeans to be comprendered (285) even though it is told in sounds in utter that, in signs so adds to, in universal, in polygluttural (117) lingo grasped between kicksheets, however basically English. (116) We most certainly would agree with ALP that every letter is hard but yours sure is the hardest crux ever. (623) The letter of the Wake on one hand appears to transmute into the farced epistol to the hibruws (228) which also contains letters more or less scrambled within letters and yet this metamorphic letter also seems to perform the task of the synecdoche, acting as a part standing for the whole of Finnegans Wake. When a part so ptee does duty for the holos we soon grow to use of an allforabit. (18) These words of silent power (345) are certainly nat language at any sinse of the world (83) but I would be remiss in not remarxing in languidoily (83) that they most certainly reverberate throughout these illortemporate letters. (82) So we must learn from that ancient tongue to be middle old modern to the minute (270) and like a whale's egg farced with pemmican, as were it sentenced to be nuzzled over a full trillion times for ever and a night till his noddle sink or swim but that ideal reader suffering from an ideal insomnia (120) while we are sensationseeking an idea. (121) This letter also bears resemblance to esiop's foible (422) without calling unnecessary attention to errors, omissions, repetitions and misalignments. (120) Is it not quoint a quincidence?! (299)
Knowing the fluid relationship between ALP who tells us I am leafy speafing (619) and the river, we can round the bend with was liffe worth leaving? (230) as the Liffey turns into leaves of printed matter by means of Gutenmorg with his cromagnon charter (20) whose movibles are scrawling in motion, marching, all of them ago, in pitpat and zingzang for every busy eerie whig's [HCE] a bit of a torytale to tell. (20) After deciduous trees die, and not too long after they "leave," (Obnoximost posthumust!) (422) they go through what could be considered an incubation period in winter and experience a rebirth in the spring. Besides, in part, are not trees what papyr is meed of, made of, hides and hints and misses in prints (20) transmitted by the ancient legacy of the past, type by tope, letter from litter, word at ward, with sendence of sundance (614) and do we not in these woodwordings (280) meet with the acquaintance of Mister Typus, Mistress Tope and all the little typtopies (20) despite knowing that the outlex (169) HCE's backlife will not stand being written about in black and white? (169) Now listen to the mother hen of the babbling brood. "I wrote me hopes and buried the page ... and left it to lie. When the waves give up yours the soil may for me." (624) And finally, to ALP, so loonely (627) in her loneness, (627) "My leaves have all drifted from me. All. But one clings still." (628) So, from swerve of shore to bend of bay (3) and venissoon after (3) we return to where devlinsfirst loved livvy. (3) What a meanderthalltale (19) is ALP's untitled mamafesta! (104) What a remembrandts (614) by the waters of babalong! (103)
Having now gotten our feet wet wading through the dew-drenched "middenheap," we cannot roost on our laurels lay readers and gentilemen, (573) but instead must jused sit it all write down (229) and continue rummaging through the rubbish to exhume from eggshill (415) all further meanings which are waiting to be plucked from the wealth of lettery litter in the wasteland of the Wake. If you decide to fly the coop now, you never made a more freudful mistake. (411) From A..........! ?.........O!" (Alpha to Omega) (94), will not the world be writing its own runes (songs, ruins, poems) for ever? (19) The logos of somewome (woman, womb) (298) will never cease to amaze us. Come! Step out of your shell! (621) Let loose your transfuciasm! (425) For in this land of the livvey and plenty of preprosperousness (308) the silent cock shall crow at last (473) and there'll be iggs for the brekkers come to mournhim, sunny side up with care. (12) No HeCitEncy (421) please, because there's a little lady waiting (102) for the at all times long past conquering cock of the morgans (584) and her name is A.L.P. And you'll agree. She must be she. (102) Never forget that the pleasures of love lasts but a fleeting but the pledges of life outlusts a lieftime (444) and the deciphering of this letter will remember itself from every sides, with all gestures, in each our word. (614) O foenix culprit! (23) Take. Bussoftlee, mememoreme. (628)
1That ALP is also Kate (as well as Isabel) note the A L I K E, (165) i.e., Anna Livia Isabel Kate Earwicker.
(All references are to the 1939 Penguin edition of "Finnegans Wake" by James Joyce.)