Cockburn
Cockburn
In Brief
Perhaps ignorantly, or more likely in a spirit of sarcastic
mockery, the Citizen mispronounces one of the English names he
reads from the pages of the Irish Independent:
"Cockburn, at the Moat house, Chepstow." People in England
pronounce this name "Coburn" (and sometimes spell it so), but
the Citizen clearly pronounces it as it is spelled in the
newspaper, because Joe Hynes jumps in with a remark about
gonorrhea: "— I know that fellow, says Joe, from bitter
experience."
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The Citizen's mispronuncation may be one more instance of him
speaking confidently about things he does not understand: his
capacity for ignorant blather should never be underestimated.
But he may be deploying the ridiculous English name
deliberately. Later in the chapter he puns on another sexually
transmitted disease when Bloom tries to point out that the
island next door has a highly achieved civilization: "— Their
syphilisation, you mean, says the citizen. To hell with
them! The curse of a goodfornothing God light sideways on the
bloody thicklugged sons of whores' gets! No music and
no art and no literature worthy of the name. Any civilisation
they have they stole from us." He is still riding the same
horse a little later when J. J. O'Molloy refers to King
Edward VII as "the peacemaker:" "— Tell that to a
fool, says the citizen. There's a bloody sight more pox
than pax about that boyo." This comment sets his
companions to joking about Albert Edward's omnivorous sexual
exploits.
Something about English names seems calculated to mock the prudish reserve with
which some English people regard their bodies. In Penelope
Molly thinks of "those awful names with bottom in them
Mrs Ramsbottom or some other kind of a bottom." There
are also English people named Reamsbottom, Shufflebottom,
Longbottom, Bottomore, Bottomles, Bottoman, and Bottomers. The
English countryside is dotted with similarly suggestive place
names: Velvet Bottom, Scratchy Bottom, Slap Bottom, Galloping
Bottom, Flash Bottom, Burnt Bottom, Broadbottom, Slackbottom,
Hole Bottom, Happy Bottom, Paradise Bottom, Whambottom Lane,
and the like.
Cocks appear in many British family names like Handcock,
Glasscock, Cockshott, Wilcocks, Stonecock, and Bullcock, as
well as places like Cockermouth, Cockshot, Cockshoot Close,
Cockshot Wood, the Cockup Lake District, Cockplay, and
Cocking. Add in the many variations on Balls, Butts, Tit,
Titty, Piddle, Furry, Bush, Clit, Prick, Lick, Fanny, Dicks,
and Nut, and—even after allowing for the fact that many of
these words have acquired new meanings over the course of
centuries—the entire English countryside seems to be staging a
maniacal return of the repressed. Monty Python could not make
it up better.
But the notion of using "cock burn" to mock the hated English
would probably never occur to the Citizen if he did not live
in a city housing the largest red-light district north of
Morocco. Joe Hynes evidently spends some of his earnings in
the Monto, as did Joyce and many respectable middle-class men
of his day—enough of them to make STDs a feature of casual
conversation. This is perhaps not a form of Irish cultural
superiority to which the Citizen should be calling attention.
