“Seesoo, hrss, rsseeiss, ooos”

From the “Proteus” episode:

James Joyce, Ulysses (1922).

“Better get this job over quick”: it takes a bit of inference to understand that Stephen Dedalus is urinating. He wonders whether it’s safe to set down his walking stick, decides that it is, and the scene dissolves into a play of sound as his urine mixes with the water of Cock Lake. For contrast: when Leopold Bloom goes out to the jakes in “Calypso,” it’s entirely clear what’s happening: “Hope it’s not too big bring on piles again. No, just right. So. Ah!”

Cock Lake, believe it or not, is real, “a tidal pool off Sandymount” (Don Gifford, Ulysses Annotated ).

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