Bluebottle

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Whitmonday is the day after Whitsunday, which falls on the seventh Sunday after Easter. Gifford notes that it is a bank holiday in Ireland, which suggests that Bloom may have been enjoying himself at home at the end of a three-day weekend when the incident occurred. Many people would remember a bee stinging them three weeks earlier, but not many (unless they were severely allergic) would run to the nearby hospital to be treated by a doctor. Bloom's infantile alarm confirms what Molly thinks about him in Penelope: "if his nose bleeds youd think it was O tragic."

At the beginning of Oxen of the Sun Bloom is talking with Nurse Callan when a door opens, revealing the riotous young men in the common room. "And there came against the place as they stood a young learningknight yclept Dixon. And the traveller Leopold was couth to him sithen it had happed that they had had ado each with other in the house of misericord where this learningknight lay by cause the traveller Leopold came there to be healed for he was sore wounded in his breast by a spear wherewith a horrible and dreadful dragon was smitten him for which he did do make a salve of volatile salt and chrism as much as he might suffice. And he said now that he should go into that castle for to make merry with them that were there." The hilarious medieval parody transforms the bee into a terrifying dragon, and the detail of how Dixon treated his patient further emphasizes Bloom's overreaction. One can make such a "chrism" for oneself, at home, with baking soda and water.

At the end of Oxen the two men are apparently standing in different parts of the pub because someone is asking Dixon about Bloom's bee sting: "Got a pectoral trauma, eh, Dix? Pos fact. Got bet be a boomblebee whenever he wus settin sleepin in hes bit garten. Digs up near the Mater." Still another bit of literary hyperbole lurks slyly in Dixon's recollection that Bloom was sleeping in his garden. Hamlet Senior was doing the same thing when his brother snuck up and poured poison in his ear, producing a horrifyingly violent death. Everything in Joyce's narrative seems to conspire to affirm Molly's judgment that when some minor affliction befalls her husband it is "O tragic."

Bloom's reaction to "That bee or bluebottle" betrays a lack not only of physical courage but also of entomological curiosity. Bees sting, but bluebottles do not. Slightly larger than houseflies, they have much the same anatomy and behavior. Dixon has inferred from the details of Bloom's account that what actually stung him must have been a bumblebee.