In Homer’s epic, Odysseus meets with the faithful and hospitable swineherd Eumaeus after Odysseus has returned to Ithaca; shortly thereafter, Odysseus joins with Telemachus and slaughters Penelope’s suitors. In Joyce’s novel, a coffeehouse which is said to be run by Skin-the-Goat (James) Fitzharris provides a symbolic place for Bloom and Stephen to chat before the two men return to Bloom’s house in the next chapter. (Fitzharris, one should recall, drove the decoy car after the Phoenix Park Murders, discussed prominently in “Aeolus.”) The Homeric parallel also reinforces two other themes in the episode: first, the motif of disguises and the imagery of the wanderer’s return; no one knows whether the returned sailor “W. B. Murphy” really bears that name, or whether, like Bloom and Odysseus, he actually is going to return to a wife whom he has not seen for several years. And who knows whether Parnell, like Bloom, will ever “return”—that is, were there really only stones buried in Parnell’s casket? And, more important to this narrative, will Bloom be able to return in any meaningful way to Molly?
After the excesses of Nighttown, Bloom and Stephen, at about
1:00 a.m., walk to Fitzharris’s cabman’s shelter to imbibe a nonalcoholic beverage. On the way, Stephen meets the dissipated Corley (a sponger from “Two Gallants!’ in Dubliners); he lends the fellow some money and tells him that there will be a job available at Deasy’s school (this is Stephen’s own position; he will be leaving the school).
Once inside the shelter, Bloom and Stephen discuss many subjects: Murphy’s wanderings, the sensuality of Gibraltar women, nationalism, and religion, to name a few. Bloom also reads a copy of the Telegraph; it contains the mistakes caused, in part, by the misunderstandings in “Hades.” After considering and weighing the consequences of bringing Stephen home, and with misgivings (Bloom is afraid that Molly will complain), Bloom does decide finally to bring Stephen home with him (“It’s not far. Lean on me.”). Thus, the two start out towards 7 Eccles Street.
Bloom’s motives for helping Stephen are mostly altruistic. In “Hades,” when Bloom saw Stephen, Stephen was alone—that is, he was without his “fidus Achates”—the “cad,” Mulligan. In “Eumaeus,” the recurrence of this same phrase indicates that Bloom is indeed filling an immediate need of Stephen’s. Joyce makes it clear that Bloom is helping Stephen by warning him to avoid the robust but superficial Buck Mulligan. Mulligan “contributes the humorous element,” it is true, but Bloom feels that Mulligan cannot be trusted. Bloom observed more than Stephen could when the medical students were drinking in “The Oxen of the Sun” chapter. Bloom believes that Mulligan may have put something into Stephen’s drink. Clearly, Bloom feels compassion for Stephen; he thinks that Stephen is a bright young man, recently returned from Paris—a young man who may not “have it all together yet.” In Stephen’s eyes, Bloom sees the eyes of Stephen’s sisters and father. He thinks that it is a pity that “a young fellow blessed with an allowance of brains . . . should waste his valuable time with profligate women. . . .” And, after all, Bloom brought home a dog with a lame paw (there is a parallel here with Stephen’s injured hand); thus, why not do it again—even though Molly might become irate?
Bloom acts basically because of his innate charity (making him once again a 20th-century Christ figure), but his motives are mixed. A careful reading of “Eumaeus” dispels the trite notion that Bloom is either a simple plaster saint or a merely farcical protagonist. His assessment of Stephen’s personality, for example, as well as his assessment of Stephen’s talents, is shrewd, and often in “Eumaeus,” Bloom imagines how Stephen can be used to his (Bloom’s) advantage. As a writer, Stephen could help Bloom advertise the new opera company which he is conceiving in his imagination by “providing puffs in the local papers,” since Stephen is undoubtedly a “fellow with a bit of bounce. . . .” In onesense, we should realize that Bloom is willing to take Stephen home, to spend a few pennies on him because of possible benefits that may come from Bloom’s cultivating “the acquaintance of someone of no uncommon calibre who could provide food for reflection . . . .” In other words, the mercantilistic, advertising sideof Bloom will sacrifice some “food and lodging” to acquire from Stephen some “food for thought.” Then, too, Bloom might find in the meeting with Stephen enough material to publish in Titbits, in the manner of the vaunted Philip Beaufoy: “My Experiences, let us say, in a Cabman’s Shelter.” Or perhaps since Stephen has his father’s voice, Bloom might profit from Stephen’s fine tenor renditions. Finally, Bloom offers one of the best summaries of Stephen’s character ever penned: “His initial impression was that he was a bit standoffish or not over effusive but it grew on him someway.” This “impression” of Stephen is exactly what many readers of Ulysses have throughout the novel.
Sadly, though, there are too many differences between Stephen and Bloom in order for them to be truly compatible and complementary, and “Eumaeus” contains the seeds of the dissolution of their temporary friendship, which will end after June 17. The gap between these two men is ultimately too great, and at the end of the novel, we are left with only Molly’s thoughts as Stephen (now usurping the role of the Chaplinesque “little tramp”) wanders off to an unknown destiny. Even as Bloom and Stephen enter the shelter, Joyce makes it clear that misunderstanding is the key to this episode. Bloom praises the Italian spoken by a group of people standing around an ice cream cart, and Stephen deflates his adorational “a beautiful language” by explaining: “They were haggling over money.” Bloom again points out the dangers of prostitution (the spread of venereal disease), and Stephen asserts that the Irish people have sold much more than their bodies—he means, of course, their souls. Also, Bloom’s point that Shakespeare’s plays may have been written by Bacon is pathetic, following, as it does, Stephen’s highly abstruse discussion of Shakespeare in “Scylla and Charybdis.” Again, Bloom’s insistence that in his new, proposed socialistic state everyone must work falls wide of the mark, and he hurriedly explains that Stephen would be acceptable too, since writing poetry could be defined as “labor,” of a sort. Bloom’s assurance that both the “brain and the brawn” belong to Ireland elicits merely Stephen’s enigmatic retort: “Ireland must be important because it belongs to me.”
