[Vico in FW]

[this is a difficult topic because Vico's way of thinking is very strange, and Joyce's use of it strangely serious]


[fweet-140]

003.02 "by a commodius vicus of recirculation"
255.27 "the producer (Mr John Baptister Vickar)"
417.05 "promptly tossed himself in the vico" (snow??)
551.34 "Vicus Veneris"
596.29 "astronomically fabulafigured; as Jambudvispa Vipra foresaw of him"

the 'Muddest Thick' vignette says of Vico and Bruno (Latin translation approximate): "They saw that the entire world flows smoothly, like a river; and that the same things which have been screwed away from the bank will once again be within the bed of the river; and that each thing recognizes itself through its opposite; and that every river has two banks which embrace the same stream."


New Science [wiki] [toc] [timeline] [1st ed?] [etext] [fweet-2???]
frustratingly, almost no Vico quotes or even vocabulary make it into FW

auspices [fweet-16]
Vico mentions auspices (bird-divination) in Roman history

071.13 "Opendoor Ospices"
094.26 "suspices of Lally"
100.18 "En caecos harauspices!" (Latin: behold the blind entrail-readers)
117.03 "the birding cry"
117.25 "rum smelt his end for him" ? Rome spelt
189.33 "by the auspices of that raven cloud" (Elijah was fed by ravens (I Kings 17:6) and predicted rain from a little cloud (I Kings 18:44))
324.36 "Birdflights confirm abbroaching nubtials."
332.14 "gaauspices (incorporated)"
380.33 "the auspicious waterproof monarch"
384.03 "mistlethrushes and the auspices"
387.11 "all the horsepowers"
392.27 "under all the auspices"
397.29 "for further auspices" (VI.B.1.096h: 'auspices heroes gentiles dark Livius middle')
477.16 "The present hospices is a good time."
514.19 "a plighter's palming" palmreading?
555.18 "under all the auspices"


providence [fweet-25]

012.01 "in the byways of high improvidence"
018.21 "Forsin." (Norwegian forsyn: providence)
055.34 "because of Dyas in his machina" (Latin Deus ex machina: providential interposition)
062.07 "to devine previdence"
069.28 "tempting gracious providence"
075.23 "providential benevolence's"
107.31 "providential warring"
117.28 "their natural selections"
131.16 "he made the welkins ring with Up Micawber!; god at the top of the staircase" ??
190.22 "after a divine's prodigence"
222.01 "Accidental music providentially arranged"
253.33 "god of all machineries" (Latin deus ex machina: providential interposition)
325.01 "R.I.D. Devine's Previdence."
337.05 "providencer's divine cow"
362.31 "providentiality"
404.22 "his jacket of providence wellprovided woolies"
514.31 "purely providential."
590.12 "paid my promishles!" (Russian promysl: providence)
599.13 "providential divining"
613.31 "provided that."


Twelve Tables [fweet-7]

167.18 "Topsman to your Tarpeia!" (Vico: New Science 1021: 'Under the Law of the Twelve Tables false witnesses were cast from the Tarpeian rock')

167.23 "Twelve tabular times till now have I edicted it." (Law of the Twelve Tables: ancient Roman law (by tradition, 451-450 BC) whose decay is described by Vico to be an indigenous Roman product and not a Greek importation)

167.33 "Ubi lingua nuncupassit, ibi fas!" (Law of the Twelve Tables VI.1a: 'Si quis nexum faciet manucipiumque, uti lingua nuncupassit ita ius esto' Latin 'If anyone shall make bond or conveyance, as he has declared with his tongue, so shall it be binding'; called by Vico the great font of all ancient Roman Law)

167.34 "Adversus hostem semper sac!" (Law of the Twelve Tables III.7 : 'Adversus hostem aeterna auctoritas esto': 'let there be eternal authority over the enemy')

168.13 "Sacer esto?" (Law of the Twelve Tables VIII.21: 'Patronus si clienti fraudem fecerit, sacer esto': 'If the patron abuses the client, let him be accursed' originally a penalty of human sacrifice, 'sacer' came to mean a man disgraced, outlawed and deprived of goods; quoted by Horace)

389.03 "round their twelve tables"

513.35 "under a twelvepodestalled table?"


three ages [NS]
Wikipedia: 'Relying on a complex etymology, Vico argues in the Scienza Nuova that civilization develops in a recurring cycle (ricorso) of three ages: the divine, the heroic, and the human. Each age exhibits distinct political and social features and can be characterized by master tropes or figures of language. The giganti of the divine age rely on metaphor to compare, and thus comprehend, human and natural phenomena. In the heroic age, metonymy and synecdoche support the development of feudal or monarchic institutions embodied by idealized figures. The final age is characterized by popular democracy and reflection via irony; in this epoch, the rise of rationality leads to barbarie della reflessione or barbarism of reflection, and civilization descends[??] once more into the poetic era. Taken together, the recurring cycle of three ages – common to every nation – constitutes for Vico a storia ideale eterna or ideal eternal history.'

four-stage cycle [fweet-49]

134.16 "moves in vicous cicles"
186.02 "cyclewheeling history"
405.31 "his threepartite pranzipal meals plus a collation"
614.27 "Our wholemole millwheeling vicociclometer, a tetradomational gazebocroticon"


thunder scared giants into caves [NS]

262.12 "At furscht kracht of thunder"


age of gods
900 years [NS]

language imitated stuttering [NS?]

016.17 "I became a stun a stummer."

036.16 "by ancientest signlore his gesture meaning: Ǝ!)" (according to Vico, divine language started out in the form of gestures)


age of heroes
200 years [NS]
Vico assigned heraldry to be the language of the heroic age [NS?] [fweet-27]

005.06 "His crest of huroldry"

pious and pure wars [NS]
'pia e pura bella': Vico's phrase for the religious wars of his heroic age [fweet-10]

014.09 "by the ogre Puropeus Pious. Bloody wars"
027.16 "Pia de Purebelle"
178.17 "O pura e pia bella!"
243.07 "from the pialabellars"
280.28 "Pious and pure fair one"
389.03 "per pioja at pulga"
486.20-32 "Pious, a pious person... Bellax, acting like a bellax."
518.33 "O bella! O pia! O pura! Amem."
610.21 "Ad Piabelle et Purabelle?"


recurrence (ricorso/ricorsi) [NS] [fweet-31]

029.09 "he cursed and recursed"
049.35 "of course by recourse"
089.11 "It was corso in cursu on coarser again."
143.12 "the course of his tory will had been having recourses"
194.26 "before a racecourseful"
230.24 "recourse of course to poetry"
309.07 "the scheme is like your rumba round me garden"
322.36 "the first course, recoursing"
382.14 "all's set for restart after the silence"
452.23 "by the cycles and unappalled by the recoursers we feel"

481.02 "Courser, Recourser, Changechild................?"
VI.B.1.029c: "Ʌ zigzag v spiral corsi ricorsi Vico,"
cf  Metchnikoff: La Civilisation et les Grands Fleuves Historiques: 'There is only one law, that of progress... Above all the laws to which the ancients and the moderns have attempted to subjugate humanity's movements, above all the cycles, all the alternatives, all the ebbing and flowing, all the lines, whether straight or broken, in spiral or in zigzag, all the rhythms, itus reditusque, as Pascal said, corsi e ricorsi, as Vico said, there is but this single law of progress that, so to speak, remains afloat') (Italian corsi e ricorsi: flow and return)

483.01 "occasionally recausing altereffects"
609.14 "ricocoursing"


Teems of times and happy returns, the seim anew, ordovico or viricordo
[fweet-7]


Joyce twice pairs Vico (1668-1744) with Giordano Bruno (1548-1600)

117.11 "From quiqui quinet to michemiche chelet and a jambebatiste to a brulobrulo!" (Edgar Quinet and Jules Michelet helped to popularise Vico)

287.24 "Jordani et Jambaptistae"


U24 mentions Vico road in Dalkey, which seems farfetched except that its intersection with Sorrento road is twice cited in FW:

246.24 "Educande of Sorrento, they newknow knowwell their Vico's road."
497.13 "from Vico, Mespil Rock and Sorrento"
[map]

so, also:
084.19 "Vicar Lane"
260.14 "Old Vico Roundpoint"
291.18 "Vicarage Road?"
452.21 "The Vico road goes round and round to meet where terms begin."


four-stage cycle motif

"Book I is the Age of Gods, symptomized [?!?] by birth and commencing with a roll of thunder. Book II is the Age of Heroes and of marriage, book III that of People, of democratic institutions and of burial. Book IV, the ricorso" [McH] widely-quoted crock

here are fweet's purported examples of 4-stage cycle, in two groups, each sorted from shortest to longest, first credibly viconian ones, then farfetched ones

a-list:

065.34 "clap, trap and soddenment" [thunderclap, marriage trap?, burying under sod ]
132.17 "harrier, marrier, terrier, tav" [thunder?, marriage, burial, ricorso?]
414.31 "harry me, marry me, bury me, bind me" [thunder scares, 'bind'???]
614.32 "eggburst, eggblend, eggburial and hatch-as-hatch can"
117.05 "a good clap, a fore marriage, a bad wake, tell hell's well"
362.30 "thunderburst, ravishment, dissolution and providentiality"
514.19 "a shuler's shakeup or a plighter's palming or a winker's wake"
062.07 "reberthing in remarriment out of dead seekness to devine previdence"
058.08 "For his muertification and uxpiration and dumnation and annuhulation."
330.28 "He goat a berth. And she cot a manege. And wohl's gorse mundom ganna wedst."
117.03 "The lightning look, the birding cry, awe from the grave, everflowing on the times."
599.12 "sullemn fulminance, sollemn nuptialism, sallemn sepulture and providential divining"
117.27 "their weatherings and their marryings and their buryings and their natural selections"
080.16 "by four hands of forethought the first babe of reconcilement is laid in its last cradle of hume sweet hume."
324.36 "Birdflights confirm abbroaching nubtials. Burial of Lifetenant-Groevener Hatchett, R.I.D. Devine's Previdence."
577.18 "that he may dishcover her, that she may uncouple him, that one may come and crumple them, that they may soon recoup themselves"
282.20 "his element curdinal numen and his enement curdinal marryng and his epulent curdinal weisswassh and his eminent curdinal Kay O'Kay"
138.33 "if a mandrake shricked to convultures at last surviving his birth the weibduck will wail bitternly over the rotter's resurrection"
131.14 "speared the rod and spoiled the lightning; married with cakes and repunked with pleasure; till he was buried howhappy was he and he made the welkins ring with Up Micawber!"
613.28 "The folgor of the frightfools is olympically optimominous; there is bound to be a lovleg day for mirrages in the open; Murnane and Aveling are undertoken to berry that ortchert: provided that."
367.27 "Where the lighning leaps from the numbulous; where coold by cawld breide lieth langwid; the bounds whereinbourne our solied bodies all attomed attaim arrest: appoint, that's all. But see what follows."
143.12 "the course of his tory will had been having recourses, the reverberration of knotcracking awes, the reconjungation of nodebinding ayes, the redissolusingness of mindmouldered ease and the thereby hang of the Hoel of it"
610.23 "So that when we shall have acquired unification we shall pass on to diversity and when we shall have passed on to diversity we shall have acquired the instinct of combat and when we shall have acquired the instinct of combat we shall pass back to the spirit of appeasement?"


b-list cites are much less defensibly vichian:

116.36 "wears and tears and ages" ???
590.30 "Tiers, tiers and tiers. Rounds." ???
079.25 "Arbour, bucketroom, caravan, ditch" ???
556.21 "win me, woo me, wed me, ah weary me" ???
088.08 "living, loving, breathing and sleeping" ???
079.25 "Coach, carriage, wheelbarrow, dungcart" ???
479.34 "Couch, cortege, ringbarrow, dungcairn." [sickbed, funeral, grave, dungheap???]
018.20 "They lived und laughed ant loved end left." ???
321.03 "he is eating, he is spun, is milked, he dives" ???
500.07 "We'll gore them and gash them and gun them and gloat on them."
095.35 "living and lying and rating and riding round Nunsbelly Square"
186.01 "slowly unfolded all marryvoising moodmoulded cyclewheeling history"
067.04 "meet there night, mid their nackt, me there naket, made their nought"
154.18 "Ask my index, mund my achilles, swell my obolum, woshup my nase serene"
257.25 "in deesperation of deispiration at the diasporation of his diesparation"
079.25 "Arbour, bucketroom, caravan, ditch? Coach, carriage, wheelbarrow, dungcart?"
374.22 "First you were Nomad, next you were Namar, now you're Numah and it's soon you'll be Nomon."
503.36 "For we are fed of its forest, clad in its wood, burqued by its bark and our lecture is its leave."
278.F09 "To be slipped on, to be slept by, to be conned to, to be kept up. And when you're done push the chain."
112.09 "What bird has done yesterday man may do next year, be it fly, be it moult, be it hatch, be it agreement in the nest"
117.24 "Pieter's in Nieuw Amsteldam and Paoli's where the poules go and rum smelt his end for him and he dined off sooth american" ??
267.01 "lead us seek, lote us see, light us find, let us missnot Maidadate, Mimosa Multimimetica, the maymeaminning of maimoomeining!"
112.19 "Man will become dirigible, Ague will be rejuvenated, woman with her ridiculous white burden will reach by one step sublime incubation, the manewanting human lioness with her dishorned discipular manram will lie down together publicly flank upon fleece."
309.02 "the fright of his light in tribalbalbutience hides aback in the doom of the balk of the deaf but that the height of his life from a bride's eye stammpunct is when a man that means a mountain barring his distance wades a lymph that plays the lazy winning she likes yet that pride that bogs the party begs the glory of a wake while the scheme is like your rumba round me garden"

055.25 "the clad pursue the bare, the bare the green, the green the frore, the frore the cladagain, as their convoy wheeled encirculingly abound the gigantig's lifetree, our fireleaved loverlucky blomsterbohm, phoenix in our woodlessness" (clad, bare, green, frore = autumn (clouded), summer (unclouded), spring (lush), winter (frozen))
Keating: Forus Feasa ar Eirinn: (unknown translation begins) 'Ireland has been thrice clad and thrice bare' [alt trans] [alt] [alt] [alt] [alt] [alt]


FDV13-14: "And four things, saith Mamalu, sall ne'er fail in Dyfflinarsky. A swellhead on an alderman. A shoe on a poor old woman. An auburn maid to be deserted. A pen no weightier than a polepost. And so. And all. The Annals tell how 1132 AC Men wondern as Wallfisch. Bloaty wares. 566 A.C. On Bell of this year a crone that hadde a wickered kish for to hale turves from the bog lookit under the blay of her kish & found herself full of swalle shoon and. Bluchy works on Hurdlesford. [Silent] 566 A.D. At that time it came to pass that many fair maidens grieved to their minions were ravished of them by an ogre Europeus Pius and. 1132 A.D. Two sons at one time were born to a goodman & his wife. There were name Primas & Caddy. Primo was a gentleman & came of decent people. Caddy was to Winehouse & wrote a piece of fun. Blooty worse in Ballyaughacleeagh."

412.23-414.02 "erstwhile elder friend, Miss Enders... The just defunct Mrs Sanders... with her shester Mrs Shunders... poor late Mrs... P.L.M. Mevrouw von Andersen... my illwishers' Miss Anders!"