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Nelson’s Pillar
The “Circe” episode is set in “nighttown,” which is a code name for Dublin’s notorious Monto neighborhood. In the early 20th century, this extremely poor area was the largest red-light district in Europe. Monto’s prostitutes mostly catered to English soldiers like Privates Carr and Compton.
Nighttown Quotes in Ulysses
The Ulysses quotes below are all either spoken by Nighttown or refer to Nighttown. 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 3: Proteus
Quotes
After he woke me last night same dream or was it? Wait. Open hallway. Street of harlots. Remember. Haroun al Raschid. I am almosting it. That man led me, spoke. I was not afraid. The melon he had he held against my face. Smiled: creamfruit smell. That was the rule, said. In. Come. Red carpet spread. You will see who.
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Episode 15: Circe
Quotes
STEPHEN: Here’s another for you. (he frowns) The reason is because the fundamental and the dominant are separated by the greatest possible interval which …
THE CAP: Which? Finish. You can’t.
STEPHEN: (with an effort) Interval which. Is the greatest possible ellipse. Consistent with. The ultimate return. The octave. Which.
THE CAP: Which?
(Outside the gramophone begins to blare The Holy City.)
STEPHEN: (abruptly) What went forth to the ends of the world to traverse not itself, God, the sun, Shakespeare, a commercial traveller, having itself traversed in reality itself becomes that self. Wait a moment. Wait a second. Damn that fellow’s noise in the street. Self which it itself was ineluctably preconditioned to become. Ecco!
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BLOOM: (mumbles) Awaiting your further orders we remain, gentlemen,…
BELLO: (with a hard basilisk stare, in a baritone voice) Hound of dishonour!
BLOOM: (infatuated) Empress!
BELLO: (his heavy cheekchops sagging) Adorer of the adulterous rump!
BLOOM: (plaintively) Hugeness!
BELLO: Dungdevourer!
BLOOM: (with sinews semiflexed) Magmagnificence!
BELLO: Down! (he taps her on the shoulder with his fan) Incline feet forward! Slide left foot one pace back! You will fall. You are falling. On the hands down!
BLOOM: (her eyes upturned in the sign of admiration, closing, yaps) Truffles!
(With a piercing epileptic cry she sinks on all fours, grunting, snuffling, rooting at his feet: then lies, shamming dead, with eyes shut tight, trembling eyelids, bowed upon the ground in the attitude of most excellent master.)
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(Against the dark wall a figure appears slowly, a fairy boy of eleven, a changeling, kidnapped, dressed in an Eton suit with glass shoes and a little bronze helmet, holding a book in his hand. He reads from right to left inaudibly, smiling, kissing the page.)
BLOOM: (wonderstruck, calls inaudibly) Rudy!
RUDY: (gazes, unseeing, into Bloom’s eyes and goes on reading, kissing, smiling. He has a delicate mauve face. On his suit he has diamond and ruby buttons. In his free left hand he holds a slim ivory cane with a violet bowknot. A white lambkin peeps out of his waistcoat pocket.)
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Get the entire Ulysses LitChart as a printable PDF.
Nighttown Term Timeline in Ulysses
The timeline below shows where the term Nighttown appears in Ulysses. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Episode 15: Circe
...into a kind of continuous nightmare. The stage directions explain that the scene opens in “nighttown,” Dublin’s red light district. The tram’s “skeleton tracks” stretch past “stunted” people who cluster around,...
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Next, Mrs. Breen materializes and asks what Bloom is doing in nighttown. Bloom tries to greet her politely and chat about the weather, but Breen threatens to...
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Now alone, Bloom trudges ahead through nighttown. He sees a group of loiterers: two armless men are wrestling, and another man talks...
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...a carriage, then runs off in the direction that Stephen went. Bloom passes through the nighttown crowd like Haroun Al Raschid, carrying Stephen’s ashplant. He feels like dozens of the Dubliners...
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...be boys.” Bloom politely bids the policemen goodbye. Corny pretends that he’s not really visiting nighttown, only driving a friend over, and Bloom promises that he’s just on his way home....
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Episode 16: Eumaeus
...drunk, but Bloom is “in fact disgustingly sober.” Bloom lectures Stephen on the dangers of nighttown, drinking, and trusting the police. He points out that all but one of Stephen’s friends...
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