On the 16th June 1904

In Dublin, second city of the Empire,

A Jewish man, of uncertain means,

A  certain gaffer name of Leopold Bloom

Ate a hearty break fast composed mainly of fried offal 

Bloom was commenting acerbically to  himself,

In an interior monologue that would fill a thousand pages,

On the after taste of urine that clung to the fried kidneys on his plate.

His mind, meanwhile, was turning to his paramour, Molly.

And, in the daydream that accompanied the full stomach,

Leopold imagined Molly quietly saying:

Think you're escaping and run into yourself.

Longest way round is the shortest way home.

History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.

No. No. That wasn't Molly.

Molly was raucous, sexy, sure of herself.

This was more like Molly:

I was a Flower of the mountain

yes when I put the rose in my hair

like the Andalusian girls used

or shall I wear a red yes

 how he kissed me under the Moorish wall

I thought well as well him as another

I asked him with my eyes to ask again

yes and then he asked me would I

yes to say yes my mountain flower

first I put my arms around him

yes drew him down to me

so he could feel my breasts all perfume

yes and his heart was going like mad

and yes I said yes I will Yes.

 

James Joyce, Ulysses