Annotations to James Joyce's Ulysses/Scylla and Charybdis/197

Annotations
Sufflaminandus sum   (Latin) I should be checked. According to the Roman rhetorician Seneca the Elder, the Emperor Augustus once said Haterius noster sufflaminandus est (Our Haterius ought to be checked) in reference to the senator and orator Quintus Haterius. Haterius spoke so rapidly that he employed someone to warn him to slow down. Augustus joked that his puffs of air needed a brake: Augustus conflated the verb sufflo (to inflate) with the noun sufflamen (a bar used on wagons as a brake).

In a Shakespearean context, there is also a reference to Ben Jonson's remark about Shakespeare: ... he flowed with that facility, that sometime it was necessary he should be stopped: Sufflaminandus erat, as Augustus said of Haterius. Clearly, Jonson misunderstood Augustus's pun. He took Augustus to mean, Haterius should be fitted with a gag [on account of the volubility of his rhetoric], whereas the correct meaning is, Haterius should be fitted with a brake [on account of the rapidity of his rhetoric]. But Jonson was probably Stephen's (and Joyce's) source.

See also 177.19, which quotes from the same passage in Jonson's Timber.

'Amplius. In societate humana hoc est maxime necessarium ut sit amicitia inter multos'   (Latin) Morover, in human society it is of the utmost necessity that there be friendship among many people. This is a quotation from St Thomas Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles, Book 3, Chapter 125, That Matrimony Should Not Take Place Between Close Relatives, Paragraph 6.

Ora pro nobis   (Latin) Pray for us. The phrase occurs commonly in Catholic prayers and rituals, especially the Litany of the Saints.

'Pogue mahone! Acushla machree!'   (Hiberno-English) ''Kiss my arse! My Sweetheart! The first expression is an Anglicisation of the Irish Póg mo thóin''. The second expression is a term of endearment from the Irish A chuisle mo chroí (O pulse of my heart). See also 179.07, which quotes from John Philpott Curran's song Cushla-ma-Chree.

Requiescat   (Latin) May she rest. Stephen curtails the common prayer for the repose of the dead: Requiescat in pace (May she rest in peace).

See also 100.24, where the prayer occurs in Paddy dignam's burial rite.