Annotations to James Joyce's Ulysses/Proteus/049

Annotations
nebeneinander   (German) side by side. See 037.13.

tripudium   (Latin) In ancient Rome, the tripudium was a solemn ceremonial dance. The word denotes a triple stroke, in which the Earth is stamped three times with the foot. Joyce does not italicize the word, treating it as an English borrowing.

Tiens, quel petit pied!   (French) My, what a small foot!

diebus ac noctibus iniurias patiens ingemiscit.   (Latin) days and nights it [Creation] sighs patiently over injustices. A quotation from the Commentary on the Epistle of Blessed Paul to the Romans, long attributed to Saint Ambrose but now ascribed to a contemporary of his styled Ambrosiaster. The comment is to Romans 8:22, For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now,

Paul's συστεναζει (sustenazei) means both sighs together and groans together. Saint Jerome's Latin translation ingemiscit also carries both meanings, sighs and groans. When read in context, however, Paul's point is that all of creation has been groaning, as though in the pangs of childbirth, right up to the present time.

Thornton suggests that Joyce probably came across the comment "in some choir manual or sodality manual." Marsh's Library, however, has a copy of the complete works of St Ambrose (Basle, 1506), which includes the commentary on Romans.