5 Lotus-Eaters

While making his way to Westland Row Post Office Bloom is tormented by the knowledge that Molly will welcome Boylan into her bed later that day. At the post office he surreptitiously collects a love letter from one ‘Martha Clifford’ addressed to his pseudonym, ‘Henry Flower’. He meets an acquaintance, and while they chat, Bloom attempts to ogle a woman wearing stockings, but is prevented by a passing tram. Next, he reads the letter from Martha Clifford and tears up the envelope in an alley. He wanders into a Catholic church during a service and muses on theology. The priest has the letters I.N.R.I. or I.H.S. on his back; Molly had told Bloom that they meant I have sinned or I have suffered, and Iron nails ran in. He buys a bar of lemon soap from a chemist. He then meets another acquaintance, Bantam Lyons, who mistakenly takes him to be offering a racing tip for the horse Throwaway. Finally, Bloom heads towards the baths.

Important Moments

Ulysses and his crew became drug-induced sloths after consuing lotuses. The flower caused them to lose inertia, forget, and want to remain where they stood. Ulysses had to drag his men back to the ship.

9:40 am

Bloom notices a boy smoking and initially condemns it

• “Tell him if he smokes he won’t grow” 5.8
• But Bloom rethinks, instead says “O let him! His life isn’t such a bed of roses.” 5.9 Bed of roses

Bloom rolls up his Newspaper “lengthwise in a baton and tapped it at each sauntering step against his trouserleg. Careless air: just drop in to see.” 5.49

• The Ulyssean sword of a modern Odysseus, a advertising agent

He runs into an acquaintance, M’Coy

• But does not want to talk with him: “Get rid of him quickly. Take me out of my way. Hate company when you.” 5.82
• As they talk, Bloom ogles at a woman across the street:
• “She stood still, waiting, while the man, husband, brother, like her, searched his pockets for change.” 5.105
• M’Coy talks about Paddy Dignam, the funeral, how he pities him
• As M’Coy drones on, Blooms continues to ogle the woman
• But as Blooms tries to catch the woman’s exposed leg: “Watch! Watch! Silk flash rich strocking white. Watch!” 5.130 Watch!
  • A streetcar interrupts the view
  • “Lost it. Curse your noisy pugnose. Feels locked out of it.” 5.132

His theory about Hamlet

• After seeing a advert for a play on Leah, he thinks about Hamlet
• Theorizes that hamlet was actually a woman, which is “Why Ophelia committed suicide” 5.196 Why Ophelia committed suicide
• • Men used to play both men and women in plays
  • But in Leah, a female played a male, a reversal of history

He reads Martha’s Letter

• Then removes the flower that’s attached, smells it, and places it in his “heart pocket.”
• He mutters to himself, “Angry tulips with you darling manflower punish your cactus if you don’t please poor forgetmenot how I long violet to dear roses when we soon anemone meet all naughty nightstalk wife Martha’s perfume.” 5.264 Angry tulips
  • Lot’s to unpack here TODO

He removes the pin from the rose and throws it away

• “No roses without the thorns” 5.278 No roses without the thorns
• This Relationship with Martha is also Cheating but only emotionally, he does not wish meet Martha (although Martha does)
  • Perhaps he finds pleasure in the correspondance itself, then
• He wishes to have a relationahisp with strings attached, pleasure without discomfort, a rose without thorns.

He tears up the letters in an underpass

• “Tore it swiftly in shreds and scattered them towards the road. The shreds fluttered away, sand in the dank air: a white flutter, then all sank.” 5.300 Tore it swiftly in shreds
  • Much like flower petals
  • What does a white flower represent

He attends mass in church

• He is not Christian and finds the ceremony odd but thoughtful
• Considers the church as community
• The holy communion is strange to him, when he sees how attendees are supposed to literally eat the body of the Christ: “Shut your eyes and open your mouth. What? Corpus: body. Corpse. Goode idea the Latin… Rum idea: eating bits of a corpse.” 5.350 Corpus corpse
• And with the wine: “Wine. makes it more aristocratic than for example if he drank what they are used to Guinness’s porter…” 5.388 Wine more aristocratic

He runs into another acquaintance, Bantam Lyon

• Tries to give him his newspaper which has be rolled and unrolled so much
• Miscommunication in saying “throw it away,” which Lyon takes literally
  • A real horse race that day where a horse names “throwitaway” won with 20:1 odds

Finally, he goes to a bathhouse

• Sinking into the water, he looks at his body: “This is my body. He foresaw his pale body recline in it at full, naked, in a womb or warmth, oiled yb scented melting soap, softly laved. he saw his trunk and limbs riprippled over and sustained, buoyed lightly upward, lemonyellow: his navel, bud of flesh: and saw the dark tangled curls of his bush floating, floating hair of the stream around the limp father of thousands, a languid floating flower.” 5.566 Languid floating flower

Thoughts

• an insightful thought

Quotes

• Quote example

Locations

Terms

Themes

Alcohol and Drugs

• The alcohol and drugs in this episode, like the lotuses, cause relaxation and sloth
• The boy smoking which initially angers Bloom
• “Cigar has a cooling effect. Narcotic” 5.272 Cigar has a cooling effect
• “prefer an ounce of opium”
• “Drugs age you after mental excitement. Lethargy then. Why? Reaction. A lifetime in a night.” 5.474 A lifetime in a night

forgetting the keys: “O, and I forgot that latchkey, too.” 5.468 I forgot the latchkey too

Poor Dignam? pity for the dead? TODO

Important Objects

• Flowers
  • Flowers bloom
  • Bloom’s secret name, “Henry flower”
  • “Bed of roses”
  • The letter that Bloom rips up looks like petals in the air
  • A flower is attached to Martha’s letter
  • Descries his penis as a “languid floating flower” 5.566 Languid floating flower

Rolled-up Newspaper

• The Ulyssean sword of Odysseys