Lowly Wails and Yawn-ing

'Lowly, longly a wail went forth. Pure Yawn lay low. On the mead of the hillock lay.'

                                                  (P: 474 L: 1-2)

     Regarding the fact that Yawn is really just another name for Shaun the Post, who’s brother,  Shem is the greater one in the family, (they are ALWAYS depicted as feuding brothers all throughout the histories, not unlike the famed ‘brother dynamic’ Joseph Campbell talks about and many writers use as plots… Universality of Words, I guess) Yawn is now alone, but all I can think about is a river (Damn River!) and a barrel floating down it in a day break kind of morning, and then something comes to completion- ‘On the mead of the hillock lay’ it seems the peaceful ride is over and more ‘night’ things have to happen, maybe Yawn will get some peace (he won’t though, he is never destined for it).

     I want to point out the first six words ‘Lowly, longly a wail went forth.’ Now only the first two words ‘Lowly, longly’ I just love the sort of rhythm that those two words can pack together . Then we look at ‘a wail went forth’ sounding like ale ent orth disrupts the more natural sounding rhythms’ flow you could say, with the first two words going –ly -ly then  -ale –ent –orth combine these together and you have this sensation of bobbing up and down a river bend, or at least I do, which adds to the scene more. (And people think Joyce didn’t have an ear for rhythm Ha!)