Ulysses Essay 25 (43:25; 44:1)

Chapter 3 (Proteus) Note 11

“The red Egyptians…Unfallen Adam rode and not rutted”

Stephen Dedalus makes out the two figures who are accompanying the playful and twice-urinating dog, and identifies the couple as cockle-picking gypsies (“the red Egyptians”). The dog scares the rather timid Stephen who is fearful not only of dogs but also of deep water, in contrast to the accomplished swimmer Mulligan, who just a few days previously had saved a drowning man not far from where Stephen is standing.

The idea that the gypsies stemmed from Egypt (from which is derived the word “gypsy”) goes back many centuries, although linguistic and genetic studies have proved that in reality they originated from north-east India from where they transmigrated to Europe in early medieval times. In Hebrew too, the ostensible Egyptian origin of the group is perpetuated in the appellation “Tso’anim” for “gypsies”.  The Hebrew term derives from the name Zoan, an Egyptian city in the northeastern Nile delta which is quite frequently referred to in the Tanach, and is sometimes used to denote Egypt in general (as opposed to the usual Hebrew term for Egypt “Mitzraim”). Zoan’s importance in ancient times is clearly indicated by an unusual parenthetical reference to it in the Book of Numbers in the description of the route taken by the spies who were sent by Moses to report on the strategic and agricultural conditions existing in Canaan: “They went up through the Negev and came to Hebron where Ahiman, Sheshai and Talmai, the descendants of Anak, lived. (Now Hebron was built seven years before Zoan in Egypt)” (Numbers 13:22). In another biblical reference to Zoan (the then administrative capital of Egypt), the prophet Isaiah, advises Israel’s King Hezekiah to avoid making an alliance with Egypt, and mocks the Egyptian political establishment:  “The high officials of Zoan are fools; the wise counsellors of Pharaoh give stupid advice. How can you say to Pharaoh, ‘I am the son of wise men; the scion of ancient kings?’” (Isaiah 19:11). Ezekiel too, prophesying in exile in Babylonia during the sixth century B.C.E. and foreseeing the destruction of the nations that have harassed Israel over the ages, refers to Zoan as a principal city of Egypt: “I will lay waste to Pathros, set fire to Zoan, and execute judgments in No” (Ezekiel 30:14). (“Pathros” refers to southern Egypt while “No” is the ancient name for Thebes-Luxor, the capital of the south). Zoan’s more modern appellation is Tanis – the Greek name of the city used by the Septuagint to correspond to the Hebrew “Tsoan”. Fulfilling Ezekiel’s catastrophic prophecy, this once magnificent capital city is now an archeological ruin from which the Great Sphinx of Tanis (displayed in the Louvre) was excavated in 1939. So it is only in the contemporary Hebrew term for “gypsies” (“Tso’anim”) that Zoan really lives on.

But why does Stephen emphasize that the ostensibly gypsy couple are “red” Egyptians? Apparently, red hair is common among gypsies, so is it possible that his description embraces a sexual subtext. Previously (see Note 12) Mulligan had stated that “redheaded women buck like goats” emphasizing the association between red hair and sexual abandon. Actually gypsies are known to be have a conservative attitude to sex, but Stephen’s further ruminations about the couple do have a distinctly prurient nature. He imagines them as a pimp and a whore on their way to nefarious sexual activity, a thought which immediately evokes in him contemplation of the Original Sin and of a traditional Catholic religious belief that “unfallen Adam rode but not rutted”, i.e., that while Adam and Eve did have intercourse before the Fall, their sexual coupling was pure and untarnished by erotic lust. This would be in direct contradiction to the Kabbalistic legend (see Note 16) that prior to Eve’s creation, Adam had a first wife, the longhaired and voluptuous dominatrix Lilith, who, lustful in the extreme, refused the missionary position, preferring to ruttishly ride her sexual partner.