The language of "The Oxen of the Sun" does indeed present many difficulties for the reader — most notably in the opening pages. The first entry means simply: "Let us turn towards the sun [metaphorical] and go to Holles Street [the location of Horne's hospital]." The second entry is an invocation to the sun god (the Homeric parallel), here seen as Dr. Horne, asking that Mrs. Purefoy's baby be delivered. The third passage is the anticipated cry of a midwife as she announces the birth of a male child. The next three (lengthy) paragraphs are written in a pre-English, Latinized style, in which Joyce simply inserted praise for the Celtic nation because of its tradition of providing medical care and comfort for mothers, despite the general poverty of the country.
One should keep the simple action of this chapter at the back of the consciousness and should concentrate, instead, on Joyce's brilliant use of the various forms of English. The Old English tone of the language lends scope to Leopold Bloom's errand of mercy, situating him somewhere between the Wandering Jew and Beowulf: for example, consider how Joyce inserts this description of his protagonist: "Stark ruth [pity] of man his errand that him lone led till that house." Likewise, the somber thought of death in the midst of life is evoked through the old medieval morality play Everyman: "Look to that last end that is thy death . . . ." Later, language imitative of John Bunyan allows Joyce to define precisely the roles of Bloom ("Calmer") and Stephen ("Boasthard's"). In true Bunyan manner, the prophylactic becomes a character in its own right — that is, the "shield which was named Killchild." In the century following Bunyan's time, Charles Lamb's essays often revolved around memories of childhood; here, Joyce uses them as the model for Bloom's reminiscences about his own fruitless past. And still later, historically, Dickensian sentimentality, with its sugared picture of a contented mother and child, underlines the contrast between this superficial version of life and the agonizing pain that Mina Purefoy has just suffered. The 19th-century Gothic novel accounts for Mulligan's dramatic and chilling evocation of Haines and his black panther; and the modern slang of the closing pages of this chapter both captures the drunken antics of the principals and, on a cosmic level, predicts the breakdown of Western culture and its language.
