British Beatitudes

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In Christian tradition the Beatitudes are eight sayings from the Sermon on the Mount that Jesus preaches in Matthew: "Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. / Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted. / Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth. / Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled. / Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy. / Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God. / Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God. / Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven" (5:3-10). The Greek plural adjective makarioi, rendered as "blessed" in the King James English, was translated beati in the Latin Vulgate, and Cicero's coinage beatitudo was broadly adopted by Christians as a name for these eight sayings. (Matthew 5:11 contains what might be counted as a ninth beatitude, but eight is the traditionally recognized number.)

Jesus says that people who are downtrodden and deprived will inherit the kingdom of heaven. The British say that people like them, defined by eight less humble principles, will inherit the earth. Beer requires no comment. Beef: The English are famous "beefeaters," and a large percentage of Ireland's cattle at this time ended up as roasts on English tables. ("Emigrants," says Mr. Power in Hades when he sees a herd being driven to the quays.) Business: The British empire was a supremely mercantile enterprise, deeply intertwined with venture capitalist firms like the East India Company and bankers like the Rothschilds. Bibles: From the beginning Protestants proclaimed the doctrine of sola scriptura and owned vernacular Bibles so as to receive the word of God directly. (Catholics trusted priests to translate the Latin for them, and few in Joyce's Ireland owned Bibles.) Bulldogs: from cartoons in the 18th century through propaganda posters in the Great War, "British bulldog spirit" was an enduring cliché. Battleships: as a small island nation with outsized economic might Great Britain aimed from 1707 onward to "rule the waves," and in the early 20th century it did so with massive steel "dreadnoughts." Buggery: the view that homosexuality was endemic in English boys' schools was widely shared and well deserved. Bishops: The Anglican church instituted by King Henry and Queen Elizabeth renounced allegiance to the Pope but retained the hierarchical authority of bishops.

These eight great cognates sound several times during the loud march to the pub. In one snippet, when the American song's "tramping" mingles with the pounding Beatitudes, corporeal pleasures appear to be dominating spiritual treasures: "Beerbeef trample the bibles." When the young men find themselves standing outside the door of the pub, anticlerical sentiment finds new B words: "Bishops' boosebox." Either Mulligan or Stephen may be supposed capable of inventing such mockeries of Christian faith, but Stephen seems the better choice for four reasons. He, not Mulligan, is Joyce's autobiographical persona. He is far more bitterly anti-British than Mulligan, who studied at both Trinity College and Oxford University. The parody of the Sermon on the Mount appears soon after he is invited to recite his parody of the Apostles' Creed. And when the conceit reappears in Circe, it comes from Stephen's mouth: "Blessed be the eight beatitudes." Eight of his ten cronies from the march in Oxen, Mulligan among them, promptly appear as personifications of the blessed entities, "in white surgical students' gowns, four abreast, goosestepping." They recite the holy names: "(Incoherently.) Beer beef battledog buybull businum barnum buggerum bishop."

Of the commentators I have consulted, only Gifford looks for models that might have inspired Joyce's alliterative octad. He argues that there is "a parody of line 138, canto 1 of Pope's The Rape of the Lock (1714), describing Belinda's dressing table: 'Puffs, Powders, Patches, Bibles, Billet-doux'," and also a reference to "'Beer and Bible', the nickname of a combination of High-Church Conservatives and English brewers who resisted Parliament's attempts to limit the sale of intoxicating beverages in and after 1873." Both claims seem plausible enough.