The two main sources of musical allusions in this chapter, both reflecting Bloom's dire situation, are, first, the opera Martha, by the German composer von Flotow, and, second, the street ballad, mentioned previously, "The Croppy Boy," written during the second half of the 19th century to celebrate the Irish rebellion against the British in 1798. Martha concerns the deep love of Lionel for the heroine of the opera, who, unknown to him, is really the titled Lady Harriet Durham, maid of honor to Queen Anne of England. Lionel loses his mind because of the grief which he suffers when he must part from "Martha" (Lady Harriet), but his sanity is restored at the end of the opera, and he marries his beloved "Martha." Martha, operatically, is always associated with its most melodic song; it contains the Irish folk song "'Tis the Last Rose of Summer." In Ulysses, Martha, of course, suggests Martha Clifford, for Miss Clifford is also a woman in disguise; Lionel, in another parallel, suggests Leopold Bloom, who "loses" Molly at just past 4:00 p.m., but he, in contrast, may not live happily ever again with her. Ironically, when Bloom hears Simon Dedalus singing, he realizes that his true love is Molly, not Martha, and the pathos is increased by Molly's incipient forsaking of him.
Of even greater importance in Ulysses as a means of defining Bloom's plight (and Stephen's) is the song "The Croppy Boy," a song which relates how a farm boy was executed by the British. The young Irish lad, on his way to fight the English, stops to have his confession heard by "Father Green." He walks through a lonely hall to find him, and after telling the "priest" that his father and "loving brothers all" have fallen in combat, he says: "I alone am left of my name and race." Then, as one of the childish sins which he confesses, he says that he "passed the churchyard one day in haste,/ And forgot to pray for . . . [his] mother's rest." The priest, it turns out, is a "yeoman captain" in disguise; as a result, the lad is forthwith hanged. (Note the disguise parallel and that, earlier, Joyce emphasized Stephen's agony because of his refusing to pray at the bedside of his dying mother.)
