Money, wealth, and bodies

In this next set of books/episodes, one thing I found striking was the roles played by money and wealth in the two texts.

In The Odyssey, the displays of wealth are frequent and incredibly opulent. They often center around worship, with decadent feasts and sacrifices at Nestor's and at Menelaus' homes. In one especially memorable sacrifice, Nestor "...sheathed the heifer's horns / so the goddess' eyes might dazzle, delighted with the gift." (121) The descriptions of their homes also illuminate the incredible wealth of the kings. Telemachus compares Menelaus' house to Zeus's, but Menelaus overhears and says "No man alive could rival Zeus, dear boys, / with his everlasting palace and possessions. / But among men, I must say, few if any / could rival me in riches." (127) The gifts characters give to one another are enormous. Wealth also becomes apparent in a different way in the physical bodies of Telemachus and Peisistratus, in these sections, are oiled up, gleaming, and compared to gods. But wealth doesn't always bring happiness, and Menelaus says "But while I roamed those lands, amassing a fortune, / a stranger killed my brother, blind to the danger, duped blind - / thanks to the cunning of his cursed, murderous queen! / So I rule all this wealth with no great joy." (127)

These episodes of Ulysses also feature imagery of money and wealth. Like in the first episode, the state of one's teeth is a marker of social class. Stephen's interactions with his students contrast his poor background with the wealth of his students. After Stephen gets paid, "Stephen's hand, free again, went back to the hollow shells. Symbols too of beauty and of power. A lump in my pocket. Symbols soiled by greed and misery." (30) Mr. Deasy misquotes Shakespeare about money, and Stephen corrects him: "But what does Shakespeare say? Put but money in thy purse.

-Iago, Stephen murmured." (30)
Then Mr. Deasy and Stephen have this exchange:
"-I will tell you, he said solemnly, what is his proudest boast. I paid my way."
...
"-I paid my way. I never borrowed a shilling in my life. Can you feel that? I owe nothing. Can you?" (30)
Stephen then proceeds to mentally list off all of the debts he has. He clearly doesn't have the privilege that Deasy is so cavalier about, of being free of debts of all kinds. The episode concludes with an image of Deasy that mentions coins: "On his wise shoulders through the checkerwork of leaves the sun flung spangles, dancing coins." (36)
In the next episode, walking on the beach, Stephen refers to the shells as "Wild sea money." (37) Ulysses Annotated tells me that "shells" is also slang for money. Stephen later refers to his teeth as shells, too.
Lastly, fat and oil sometimes connote wealth in these episodes. The milk in episode 1 was described with an incredible richness. In this episode, Stephen describes priests as "...fat with the fat of kidneys of wheat" (40), which also reminded me of the imagery of sacrifices in The Odyssey. I'm interested to see in future episodes how bodies are described, as compared to the glistening godliness of male bodies in The Odyssey (or the sensual, graceful bodies of women). So far I don't remember very many bodily descriptions in Ulysses, except for the graphic images of the dead dog and the dead man's body in the water. My prediction would be that bodies would be described as imperfect, ailing (Stephen's mother), dead (Stephen's wondering about  whether the midwife was carrying a dead baby in her bag), or otherwise distinctly un-godlike. We'll see!

"Rubbing down with oil"

When Telemachus arrives somewhere, he is first given food and wine, then bathed and rubbed down with oil by local women, and then dressed before sitting next to the leader of whoever he is visiting. It's easy to presume a sexual nature and I think indeed we're meant to assume as much. I noticed that most of the time they are just attended to by unnamed women:
"When women had washed them, rubbed them down with oil and drawn warm fleece and shirts around their shoulders..." book 4 (126, 56-57)

But in one case in book 3, they name the woman:
"During the ritual lovely Polycaste, youngest daughter
of Nestor, Neleus' son, had bathed Telemachus.
Rinsing him off now, rubbing him down with oil,
she drew a shirt and handsome cape around him.
Out of his bath he stepped, glistening like a god,
strode in and sat by the old commander Nestor." (122, 521-526)

Looking it up, I see that Polycaste will later become Telemachus' wife!

ALSO, it is easy to compare this to Stephen's completely opposite feelings towards bathing. He is said to despise bathing, and one of the Ulysses guides (Hart/Hayman) says that the reader is actually supposed to believe that Stephen hasn't bathed in 8 months. EIGHT MONTHS. I know that's there the understanding of cleanliness has changed drastically in the last century, but 8 months still is quite a long time.

Also, compare the above quotes to Stephen's stream-of-consciousness on bathing. He is thinking about someone who apparently died in a public bath, a place where men are bathed and treated very similar to the Homeric heroes as above. In his memory of discussing the story with a woman she remarks that all men do that. Stephen, unlike most men or the Homeric heroes, feels quite differently about bathing:

"Tous les messieurs" he recalls to the lady saying, i.e. all men do!
"No this Monsieur, I said. Most licentious custom. Bath a most private thing. I wouldn't let my brother, not even my own brother, most lascivious thing." Episode 3(p. 43, l. 17-20)

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