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“M’appari”
A Martello Tower is a kind of short defensive stone artillery tower that the English built across the United Kingdom and the British Empire during the 19th century. At the beginning of Ulysses, Stephen Dedalus, Buck Mulligan, and Haines are living in a disused Martello tower in Dublin’s Sandycove neighborhood.
Martello Tower Quotes in Ulysses
The Ulysses quotes below are all either spoken by Martello Tower or refer to Martello Tower. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Episode 1: Telemachus
Quotes
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 on 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 out coarsely:
—Come up, Kinch! Come up, you fearful jesuit!
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In a dream, silently, she had come to him, her wasted body within its loose graveclothes giving off an odour of wax and rosewood, her breath, bent over him with mute secret words, faint odour of wetted ashes.
Her glazing eyes, staring out of death, to shake and bend my soul. On me alone. The ghostcandle to light her agony. Ghostly light on the tortured face. Her hoarse loud breath rattling in horror, while all prayed on their knees. Her eyes on me to strike me down. Liliata rutilantium te confessorum turma circumdet: iubilantium te virginum chorus excipiat.
Ghoul! Chewer of corpses!
No, mother! Let me be and let me live.
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I will not sleep here tonight. Home also I cannot go.
A voice, sweettoned and sustained, called to him from the sea. Turning the curve he waved his hand. It called again. A sleek brown head, a seal’s, far out on the water, round.
Usurper.
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Get the entire Ulysses LitChart as a printable PDF.
Martello Tower Term Timeline in Ulysses
The timeline below shows where the term Martello Tower appears in Ulysses. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Episode 1: Telemachus
“Stately, plump Buck Mulligan” walks out onto the roof of a Martello Tower on the seashore near Dublin. He carries his razor and shaving mirror in the shape...
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...out, Stephen grabs his ashplant and key, then explains to Haines that he rents the Martello tower for twelve pounds. He calls it “the omphalos” (Greek for “navel”). Haines asks Stephen about...
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Episode 3: Proteus
Stephen approaches the shore and looks down towards the Martello tower , where he’s decided not to return at night. He feels exiled, like Hamlet. Next,...
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Episode 16: Eumaeus
...he asks how much Stephen lent Corley and where Stephen plans to sleep, since the Martello tower in Sandycove is too far. Bloom asks why Stephen moved out of his father Simon...
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