A Pisgah Sight of Palestine or the Parable of the Plums

“But though the Irish are eloquent, a revolution is not made of human breath and compromises.” - James Joyce, 1907, “Ireland, Island of Saints and Sages”

In the final sequence in Ulysses’ seventh episode, “Aeolus”, Stephen Dedalus and the men from the Evening Telegraph office, having exhausted themselves with lofty rhetoric, set out to wet their whistles at nearby Mooney’s Pub. As they step onto the street, Stephen announces to Professor MacHugh that he “has a vision.” The professor is intrigued, and Stephen shares a parable of his own making. It tells the story of two middle-aged Dublin “vestals” who climb to the top of Nelson’s Pillar to take in the views and snack on some plums. The title? “A Pisgah Sight of Palestine” or “The Parable of the Plums.” It befuddles MacHugh and editor Myles Crawford (and much later in “Ithaca”, Leopold Bloom), but it doesn’t have to befuddle us readers.

Let’s begin with a little history.

Nelson’s Pillar was once a prominent monument in the center of O’Connell St., Dublin’s main thoroughfare. The monument was erected in 1809 to commemorate the British Admiral Horatio Nelson’s famous victory at the Battle of Trafalgar. Stephen describes Nelson as a “one-handled adulterer,” as Nelson had both lost an arm in battle in 1797 and famously carried on an affair with Emma Hamilton.

Though Ireland was part of the United Kingdom when the pillar was built, such a prominent symbol of British sea power was not loved by all, especially after Ireland’s independence. There were debates in the mid-20th century about replacing the Nelson statue with an Irish hero (suggestions ranged from Wolfe Tone to John F. Kennedy to the Virgin Mary), but a decision was made for the Irish people in 1966 when, under cover of darkness, the pillar was blown up by a group of former IRA members (the official IRA denied involvement). Ireland greeted Nelson’s removal with their characteristic sense of humor. Legend has it that Eamon De Valera allegedly suggested that The Irish Press run the headline “British Admiral Leaves Dublin By Air”, while the song “Up Went Nelson” by Belfast group The Go Lucky Four topped the Irish charts for weeks. Nelson’s head was stolen by cash-strapped students hoping they could sell it on the black market. Nowadays, you can visit the Spire in the pillar’s place on O’Connell St., see Nelson’s head in the Pearse Street Library, and hear “Up Went Nelson” on YouTube.

In the Archdiocese

It’s in the shadow of this odd monument that Stephen attempts to “raise the wind” with his parable. Earlier in “Aeolus”, Crawford had demanded of Stephen, “I want you to write something for me…. Something with a bite in it…. Put us all into it, damn its soul.” In truth, Stephen is fulfilling his request, but the parable leaves the editor a bit cold. In fairness to ol’ Crawford, Stephen’s parable is really strange and hard to make sense of on a first read (or listen). Regardless, Crawford is fulfilling his role here as Aeolus, Lord of the Winds, rebuffing Stephen at the eleventh hour, just as Aeolus refuses to help Odysseus a second time in The Odyssey.

One of the alternate titles for Stephen’s parable leans into the Homeric parallel: “A Pisgah Sight of Palestine.” Mt. Pisgah is the mountain from which Moses glimpsed the Promised Land before dying, never entering it himself, similar to Odysseus catching a glimpse of his home in Ithaca before his foolish crew release Aeolus’ winds and blow their ship back to the wind god’s court. Several of our Ulysses characters experience their own personal Pisgahs in this passage, reaching the brink of their goals but not quite achieving them. Bloom returns with a counter offer from Alexander Keyes, but Crawford tells Bloom that Keyes can “kiss [his] royal Irish arse.” J.J. O’Molloy asks Crawford for a loan but receives nothing.

Stephen borrowed the title “A Pisgah Sight of Palestine” from a 1650 book of the same name, in which the author gives detailed geographical descriptions of biblical locations, including the vistas from Mt. Pisgah. We can see the correspondence of microcosm and macrocosm at play in this sequence. The expanse of Palestine maps onto Dublin, allowing the enormity of a mountain to shrink to the size of Nelson’s Pillar in Dublin. Perched atop Dublin’s Mt. Pisgah, Stephen’s vestals should be able to see their own Dublin-sized Promised Land, but instead, they are greeted by the rooftops of churches:

“They see the roofs and argue about where the different churches are: Rathmines’ blue dome, Adam and Eve’s, saint Laurence O’Toole’s…. It gives them a crick in their necks… and they are too tired to look up or down or to speak.”

Despite gazing upon what is meant to be their Promised Land, the vestals just seem tired and sore, bickering about trivia rather than being filled with religious enlightenment. In the book Ulysses and the Irish God, Frederick Lang wrote that what should be the Irish Promised Land is already dominated by the Catholic Church; every corner of Ulysses’ Dublin feels like an ecclesiastical space. Such domination means the vestals’ Promised Land is one they can never freely possess. Lang sees the virgins’ snack of plums as their Communion, the plums standing in for the host and the plum juice the wine.

The view from Nelson’s Pillar looking south, c. 1950. (Image source)

Writing in James Joyce Quarterly, J.G. Keogh sees “The Parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins” from Matthew 25: 1- 13 as the inspiration for “The Parable of the Plums.” In the parable, 10 virgins await the arrival of a bridegroom in the night. Five have wisely prepared lamp oil for the long vigil, but the other five brought no oil. Stephen’s vestals are prepared for rain with their umbrellas (“Wise virgins,” remarks MacHugh.) When the bridegroom arrives (symbolic of Judgement Day), the wise virgins are ready and received into a feast, while the foolish are shut out. Stephen’s vestals, in their wisdom, are underwhelmed by the sights they see at the top of the pillar - symbols of their two masters, as Stephen called them in “Telemachus”, one English and one Italian, Nelson and the Vatican.

O, rocks! Tell us in plain words.

As mentioned earlier, “The Parable of the Plums” is Stephen taking Crawford’s advice to write something and “put us all into it.” Since Stephen chose to write a parable, they are all in it allegorically. For instance, we can see the actions of Stephen and the other Dubliners in the women’s attention to their money. The Dublin vestals end up spending more than half their meager savings on a trip up Nelson’s Pillar. Stephen is about to do the same on a trip to Mooney’s. In the book The Economy of Ulysses, Mark Osteen writes that Stephen is caught up in the same culture of gambling as the men around him. Stephen pays little attention to the Ascot Gold Cup, but he is willing to gamble with his art, risking shame if the parable doesn’t hit, but generating spiritual and intellectual assets if it does. He has watched other men roll the dice and share their favorite rhetoric, and now Stephen wants a turn. One of the headlines splashed over this section reads “ITHACANS VOW PEN IS CHAMP.” Stephen, an Ithacan through metempsychosis, will use his “pen” to become the “champ” of this dual of words. Only the ever sensible Bloom is concerned about the group of grown vultures taking advantage of young Stephen’s temporary largesse. Bloom thinks:

“Wonder is that young Dedalus the moving spirit. Has a good pair of boots on him today. Last time I saw him he had his heels on view. Been walking in muck somewhere. Careless chap.”

Up to this point in the novel, Stephen’s greatest artistic contribution has been his vampire poem, which we know he cribbed from Douglas Hyde. Though he has gone through great pains (internally) to get the right rhyme scheme and rhythm, he hasn’t shared his vampire poem with anyone. Bashful Stephen lacks confidence, so taking the risk of sharing his parable is a great leap forward for the young artist. The parable is only the opening act, though; he is gathering his confidence to present his Shakespeare theory that afternoon.

Stephen may be cash-poor, but he is wealthy in words and imagination. Like Francesca da Rimini in The Inferno, he must first still the winds whirling in the newsroom before he can deliver his parable. Rather than highflying rhetoric and ten dollar vocabulary like that of Dawson, Bushe and Taylor, Stephen chooses instead to speak plainly. Stephen’s parable doesn’t rely on tickling the English language to impress his audience. His is the humble language of the people. M.J.C. Hodgart James Joyce’s Ulysses: Critical Essays wrote that “Stephen speaks with Christlike simplicity,” opting for the sermo humilis (ordinary speech) of the Gospels. Hodgart went on to say that the Fathers of the Church preferred this more direct and plain speech to the high style of pagan rhetoricians as it is “the only proper style for the spreading of God’s word.”

Though Stephen rejects the rhetoric of the newsroom, MacHugh notices the inspiration for the parable’s allusive title:

“—I see, he said again with new pleasure. Moses and the promised land. We gave him that idea, he added to J. J. O’Molloy.”

Other details in the parable are taken from Stephen’s personal experience, as well. The two vestals are called Anne Kearns and Florence MacCabe, the second a name pulled from Stephen’s inner monologue about the two supposed midwives back in “Proteus”:

“Number one swung lourdily her midwife’s bag, the other’s gamp poked in the beach. From the liberties, out for the day. Mrs Florence MacCabe, relict of the late Patk MacCabe, deeply lamented, of Bride Street.”

In another callback to “Proteus ”, Stephen also says they are lifelong residents of Fumbally’s Lane. This time, he is recalling his musings about the two cocklepickers on the strand and memories of sex workers in Fumbally’s Lane:

“When night hides her body’s flaws calling under her brown shawl from an archway where dogs have mired. Her fancyman is treating two Royal Dublins in O’Loughlin’s of Blackpitts…. A shefiend’s whiteness under her rancid rags. Fumbally’s lane that night: the tanyard smells.”

Stephen thinks of this encounter directly as he’s regaling MacHugh with the parable. MacHugh is clearly unfamiliar with such a disreputable neighborhood, and Stephen has to explain the reference. Stephen then thinks to himself:

“Damp night reeking of hungry dough. Against the wall. Face glistering tallow under her fustian shawl. Frantic hearts. Akasic records. Quicker, darlint!”

The Bitterness of Antisthenes

Stephen’s creativity is reactionary, though. His parable is delivered in response to the high-flying rhetoric he heard bandied about in the newsroom. Though he found “his blood wooed by grace of language and gesture” in the moment, he soon shakes off their spell.

Stephen is suspicious of the beautiful words getting inside his head and directing him towards political ideologies he feels are empty. MacHugh is correct when he notes that they gave Stephen the idea of Moses and the Promised Land: Stephen’s parable is a direct reaction and rebuttal to Taylor’s speech in particular. In the book Reading Joyce’s Ulysses, Daniel Schwarz describes Stephen’s parable as a “bathetic debunking” of the connection between the Irish and the Jews as laid out in John F. Taylor’s speech. Consider O’Molloy and Lenehan’s responses to MacHugh’s rendition of Taylor’s speech:

“J. J. O’Molloy said not without regret:
—And yet he died without having entered the land of promise.
—A—sudden—at—the—moment—though—from—lingering—illness—often—previously—expectorated—demise, Lenehan added. And with a great future behind him.”

O’Molloy references Taylor’s Pisgah moment (never quite entering the Promised Land), and Lenehan puns on “expectorates,” possibly an inspiration for the Dublin vestals’ expectoration of plum seeds at the end of parable. Stephen’s disillusionment runs parallel to Bloom’s in “Calypso”, in which Bloom is wooed momentarily by the prospectus pamphlet for Agendath Netaim, only to suddenly recontextualize the project of Zionism as”

“No, not like that. A barren land, bare waste. Vulcanic lake, the dead sea: no fish, weedless, sunk deep in the earth. No wind could lift those waves, grey metal, poisonous foggy waters. Brimstone they called it raining down: the cities of the plain: Sodom, Gomorrah, Edom. All dead names. A dead sea in a dead land, grey and old. Old now. It bore the oldest, the first race.”

Like Stephen, Bloom also leans on the image of an older woman’s body to represent this hopeless desiccation:

“A bent hag crossed from Cassidy’s, clutching a naggin bottle by the neck. The oldest people…. Dead: an old woman’s: the grey sunken cunt of the world.”

Taylor’s vision, like the Zionist dream of Agendath Netaim, is hopelessly romantic and likely to lead true believers astray rather than deliver them to a land of milk and honey. Whereas Taylor hoped to inflate the nationalist sympathies in their audiences, Stephen intends to deflate. Recall that the lungs are the correspondent organ of “Aeolus.” There can be no inhalation without exhalation, at least not in a healthy body. If Moses or Nelson or the concept of the Irish nation are being raised to the top of a pillar, Stephen “Non Serviam” Dedalus’ duty is to pull them back down. This ebb and flow brings something approaching balance to the rhetoric in the episode. Of course, another correspondent symbol of “Aeolus” is the editor, so perhaps Stephen is simply editing some of the fat out of the discourse he’s heard this morning. The only way to escape the crushing nightmare of history is through the destruction of its ossified heroes. While Stephen opts for verbal iconoclasm, Bloom seeks out statues of ancient goddesses to see if they have buttholes like us mere mortals.

MacHugh recognizes the bitterness of Stephen’s words, comparing him to Antisthenes the cynic:

“—You remind me of Antisthenes, the professor said, a disciple of Gorgias, the sophist. It is said of him that none could tell if he were bitterer against others or against himself. He was the son of a noble and a bondwoman. And he wrote a book in which he took away the palm of beauty from Argive Helen and handed it to poor Penelope.”

This may be a fair comparison. Later in “Circe” Stephen references Antisthenes, the cynic, as “the dog sage.” As MacHugh ought to know, “cynic” derives from the Greek kynikos, meaning “doglike,” and according to Daniel Schwarz, “categorized philosophers who turned their backs on traditional customs and values.” This seems to fit with Stephen’s “non serviam” ethos. Antisthenes did indeed feel that the palm of beauty should have gone to Penelope rather than Helen, contrary to the usual story. He felt that Penelope’s virtue was the source of her beauty, in contrast to the less virtuous Helen. Stephen’s path forward in Ulysses is through its Odysseus, and by extension, its Penelope. As Stephen accidentally points out, Ulysses’ Penelope is more of a Penelope Rich (a famous adulterer) than Antisthenes’ virtuous ideal, but considering that our correspondent Telemachus and Odysseus meet in a brothel, that’s no problem at all. Another source of Penelope’s beauty is her humanity, as opposed to Helen, who was the daughter of gods. Choosing the human (warts and all) over the divine fits with Stephen’s rejection of the established power in Ireland, secular and sacred alike. Bitter though his parable may be (it culminates in women literally spitting on Dublin), Stephen believes that his cynicism illuminates the only path to escape the snares of his homeland.

G.P.I.

But cynicism, even justifiable cynicism, can lead to paralysis and inaction. Like the becalmed tramcars at the base of the pillar, Stephen is getting nowhere fast. His parable amuses MacHugh, but leaves the others stumped or uninterested. Stephen is willing to shoot his shot with the older men who admire his smarts, but he has woven Ireland’s cultural stagnation into his parable.

The nightmare of history that so troubles Stephen is immortalized up and down O’Connell St. in bronze and marble statues. Stephen has already wrangled with the stonehearted Moses of Bushe and Taylor’s speeches and is now confronted with a similarly static image of Nelson. The movers and shakers of history are now frozen and inactive, perches for seagulls rather than leaders of men. Once the Dublin vestals make it to the top of Nelson’s Pillar, they crane their necks towards the graven image of Nelson, ultimately too tired to speak:

“—It gives them a crick in their necks, Stephen said, and they are too tired to look up or down or to speak.”

The women are a manifestation of the sean bhean bhocht (poor old woman), a representation of Ireland. We’ve already met this archetype once in the milkwoman from “Telemachus.” Though she enjoys life when she can, but in the shadow of British imperial might, she is unable to communicate freely or even look upon the conqueror. In fact, the Dublin vestals are frightened the pillar might fall as they climb its height. Though the sights from the summit of power are stifling, ironically, the thought of losing that oppression can also be terrifying. If you make it to the top of Mt. Pisgah and find no Moses, there is nothing left to do but enjoy the simple pleasure of sweet, delicious plums until he arrives.

If you’re familiar with modern O’Connell St., you’ll know the Irish Moses, Charles Stewart Parnell, has his own monument a few blocks to the north of the spot where Nelson’s Pillar once stood. The foundation stone for the Parnell monument had been set in place in 1899, but the full monument was not fully unveiled until 1911. In 1904, there would have been an empty plinth awaiting Parnell just up the street from Nelson. Joyce in particular saw this as a symbol of the paralysis that gripped the city. The completion of the Parnell monument was delayed in part due to controversy around his affair with Kitty O’Shea. However, Nelson had famously carried on an affair with Emma Hamilton, and Dublin was happy enough to erect a giant monument to him nonetheless. The thing that ruined Parnell is swept aside easily enough when it comes to Nelson. The Irish cannot know their land of milk and honey without a Moses to lead them. Nelson can lead them nowhere, nor can the bishops inside the churches whose roofs the vestals look down upon.

Stephen the Sophomore (wise fool) recognizes the stagnation around him, but despite using his creativity to rise above the waves for a moment, he quickly sinks back into the general paralysis of the insane that grips Dublin. He wastes his creative output on the likes of Crawford and MacHugh, and then squanders his salary on drinks at Mooney’s. Bloom’s assessment of him as a “careless chap” is pretty accurate. His parable strikes his audience as a strange, youthful satire, capped off with “a sudden loud young laugh” at his own joke (just like his riddle), but lacking in the power to make them feel good the way Taylor’s pretty words did. Any real political action is swallowed in the morass of paralysis.

Pen Is Champ

We can glean one more detail about the mindset of the Dublin vestals given their attraction to the plums at the base of Nelson’s pillar as plums often have a sexual connotation in Ulysses. Recall the implications of Plumtree’s Potted Meat and Bloom’s frustration in “Nausicaa” that “[Boylan] gets the plums and I the plumstones.” What is Nelson’s Pillar other than a massive plumtree, reaching to the sky - a giant, fertile phallic symbol right in the heart of Dublin?

There is some debate among scholars about exactly which sex act the Dublin vestals and Nelson are symbolically performing with the plums, but considering they put the plums in their mouths and spit out the seeds, I tend to interpret it as oral sex. The vestals are dazzled as they pleasure Nelson, though it doesn’t seem like he reciprocates. Nelson, the onehandled adulterer and non-reciprocating-oral-receiver. Poor Emma. The women, a metaphor for poor, oppressed Ireland, participate willingly in their own exploitation at the hand of this Englishman. The Promised Land - all those church roofs - offers them no way out.

The symbolic seeds of this giant plumtree, provided that they don’t bounce off the head of some unfortunate passerby, will fall impotently on the footpath below, never ripening into new life. We see here another symbol of paralysis - a stagnant infertility that has gripped colonized Ireland. Stephen has based his Vestals on a pair he believed to be midwives, women who bring life screaming into the world. In this scene however, Flo and Anne are thwarting the seeds of life. Similarly, in Sandymount, they were the bearers of a “misbirth” destined for a sea grave. Stephen also locates their residence in Fumbally’s Lane, where Irish sex workers service British soldiers. While Flo and Anne have remained pure and virginal, they are surrounded by the exploitation of Irish women at the hands of their colonizers.

There’s an air of Stephen’s own bitterness and misogyny to this allegorical blow job. First of all, there’s the judgment of the person using their mouth during oral sex as submissive and degraded. There’s also Stephen’s anger at the perceived sexual betrayal of women specifically, which connects to the sex scandal that brought down Parnell. Stephen will also be “betrayed” in “Circe” by his favorite sex worker Georgina who has married Mr. Lambe from London. Though it’s not sexual, there’s also Stephen’s frustration at the milkwoman who has the gall to pay more attention to Haines and Mulligan than to him, the brilliant Artist. Stephen has internalized the belief that these various women favor English men over the Irish, ignoring that in a society where women have few rights, they must make mercenary choices when it comes to their livelihoods, whether that is a sex worker angling for wealthier clients over starving artists or a milk woman patiently hoping the man with the money will actually pay her for the milk today. Stephen is too immature and self-centered to see this as anything but betrayal against himself.

In this symbolism, then, we really get to the crux of the parable. Stephen’s not wrong about the imperial stranglehold on Irish culture, but his frustration is incredibly personal. He is lashing out in various self-destructive ways - dramatically refusing to return home to face Mulligan again, wasting his money on a bunch of boozy newsmen, and blaming everyone but himself for his hard situation. Mark Osteen describes Stephen’s parable as “parabolic,” a curve that returns to the sender like a boomerang. His satire is bitter for the sake of bitterness. The one person in this whole episode that concerns themself with Stephen’s wellbeing is fatherly Bloom, who frets over his shoes for once and carelessness with money. Of course, it will be Bloom who rescues Stephen from the British soldiers in “Circe”.

If anyone would be bitter at a woman’s betrayal, it ought to be Leopold Bloom. His home life is anything but blissful, but despite Molly’s overt infidelity, Bloom lacks Stephen’s bitterness. He is sad and regretful about his lack of “complete” sex with his wife, but loves her despite everything. As Schwarz points out, in a way Stephen’s parable might be a solution to Bloom’s predicament. A functioning “plumtree” could restore that domestic bliss that Bloom so aches for. Schwarz goes on to say that the parable is Stephen’s mind completing a thought begun in Bloom’s mind, hinting at their eventual hypostasis.

I’d like to close with one more look at the headline “PEN IS CHAMP.” “Pen” can be Penelope, of course, and by extension Molly. This can also be a hint to Stephen - the pen is mightier than the sword, young man! Success comes through art and creation; work out your struggles on the page! If we’re a little more creative as readers, we might also combine these words to reveal a secondary meaning. Stephen is being undone by his sexual frustrations, which distract him from the artistic work that will allow him to grown beyond his current circumstances. Bloom is suffering under the slow-grinding misery of an unhappy marriage, unable to break free of the well worn pattern of unspoken alienation. Both Stephen and Bloom need to get their sex lives in working order to become whole. As Senan Moloney wrote in his book Helen of Joyce:

“...the pen is indeed mightier than the sword…. Let the spoils fall to whoever is penis champ.”

A Pisgah Sight of Palestine or the Parable of the Plums

In the Archdiocese

O, rocks! Tell us in plain words.

The Bitterness of Antisthenes

G.P.I.

Pen Is Champ

Further Reading:

Ulysses & The Odyssey - The Lestrygonians

The Language of the Outlaw: John F. Taylor's Speech in "Aeolus"