Annotated Finnegans Wake (with Wakepedia): FW 1.2a --not yet, Tristan invades--

1.2: overview
1.2a: Sir Tristram, violer d'amores, fr'over the short sea, had passencore rearrived...
1.2b: nor had topsawyer's rocks by the stream Oconee exaggerated themselse...
1.2c: nor avoice from afire bellowsed mishe mishe to tauftauf thuartpeatrick...
1.2d: Rot a peck of pa's malt had Jhem or Shen brewed by arclight...

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the sequence of drafts shows many early insertions repeatedly missed in the faircopies or typescripts but quickly reinserted, so we'll omit those:

Sir Tristram had not encore arrived from North Armorica, →
Sir Tristram, viola d'amores, had passencore rearrived on a merry isthmus from North Armorica to wielderfight his peninsular war, →
Sir Tristram had passencore rearrived on the scraggy isthmus from North Armorica to wielderfight his penisolate war; →
Sir Tristram, violer d'amores, fr'over the short sea, had passencore rearrived on this side the scraggy isthmus from North Armorica to wielderfight his penisolate war; →
Sir Tristram, violer d'amores, fr'over the short sea, had passencore rearrived from North Armorica on this side the scraggy isthmus of Europe Minor to wielderfight his penisolate war:
[cite]

Joyce almost-uniquely annotated this paragraph in a letter to Harriet Weaver

Sir Tristram,
[fweb]

Tristan and Isolde, aka Tristram and Iseult, are fw's primary incarnations of the theme of romantic love, based on Wagner's operatic version plus Bedier's antiquarian version, crossed with Joyce & Nora, and Poldy & Molly [1923 1st-draft reconstruction]

the 'sigla' for Tristan and Isolde were at first "⊤" and "⊥" (mirror reflections), but Tristan was later reconceived as a combination of the two brother-sigla (Ʌ plus [, or /[ )

"Sir Amory Tristram 1st earl of Howth changed his name to Saint Lawrence, b[orn] in Brittany (North Armorica)
Tristan et Iseult, passim
viola in all moods and senses" (JAJ to HSW)

violer d'amores,
[fweb]

Isolde was engaged to Tristan's uncle, King Mark, when a potion caused them to fall in love

Healy says dahMOARays (the Italian pronunciation), i say dahMOARS

viola d'amore

the viola d'amore has "a particularly sweet and warm sound" [4min intro vid]

"viola in all moods and senses" JAJ to HSW
so, violator/rapist too

fr'over the short sea,
[fweb]

from over
to 'frover' is to comfort

'short sea' = a sea in which the waves are short, broken, and irregular, so as to produce a tumbling or jerking motion

so the choppy sea is comforted, as by Jesus (Mark, Luke)
cf T&I5 1923: "The sea, of a lovely tint embellished by the best charms of nature, with its wellmannered wavelets (the dirty horrid rude ones from the Belfast and Lagan Lough neighbourhood being very properly locked up in cubbyhole)"

crossing the Irish Sea is a comparatively short trip, less than 100 miles

Isolde was Irish, Tristan and Mark English (or Armorican?)

had passencore rearrived from North Armorica
[fweb] [fweb]

'pas encore' = not yet (French) literally 'not again'?
passenger?
Armorica was the part of France closest to Ireland

"passencore = pas encore and ricorsi storici of Vico" JAJ to HSW
"ricorsi storici" = recurring cycles of history

RE-arrival fits Wagner's and Bedier's fictional Tristans but not Howth's historical Tristram

invasions are often preceded by scouting visits, or motivated by conflicts that arose there earlier

on this side the scraggy isthmus of Europe Minor
[fweb]

'scraggy' can mean either thin or jagged
in Ulysses, Sargent and Virag are described as having scraggy necks

'isthmus' requires two large landmasses connected by a thin one (so, eg, Asia Minor is not an isthmus)

the geography here is very blurred: Europe itself is sort of a scraggy isthmus, but why 'Minor'? why "on this side"?

one archetype here is the exile returning, another is the outsider invading (at some level these may be identical)

"Isthmus of Sutton a neck of land between Howth head and the plain
passencore = pas encore and ricorsi storici of Vico
rearrived = idem
wielderfight = wiederfechten = refight" JAJ to HSW

to wielderfight his penisolate war:
[fweb] [fweb]

wieder = again (German) pron. VEEdare (so maybe: VEELderfight?)
wield weapon

Healy says peeNIGHsolet, i say penISSolet

Peninsular War (c1810, Wellington vs Napoleon in Spain)
this historical reference seems farfetched, for the sake of the penis-pun, but Wellesley/Wellington is a major motif

pen, Isolde

"wielderfight = wiederfechten = refight; Arthur Wellesley (of Dublin) fought in the Peninsular war; Tristan et Iseult, passim" JAJ to HSW

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