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[ Aetat. 36 ] J O Y C E 437Shakespeare is presentThere are two ghosts in the play.Fear that Lucia may be frightened.Interpretation: I am perhaps behind this dream.- The 'new discovery' isrelated to my theory of the ghost in Hamlet and the public sensation isrelated to a possible publication of that theory or of my own play.* Thefigure of Shakespeare present in Elizabethan dress is a suggestion of fame,his certainly (it is the tercentenary of his death) mine not so certainly. Thefear for Lucia (herself in little) is fear that either subsequent honours orthe future development of my mind or art or its extravagant excursionsinto forbidden territory may bring unrest into her life.2) Lying alone on a hillA herd of silver cowsA cow speaks, making loveA mountain torrentEileen appearsThe cow has died of its loveInterpretation: That silver seems to her a fine metal (and not a cheaperform of gold) shows a freedom from conventional ideas, a freedom morestrongly shown by the fact that she feels no repulsion at being made loveto by a female beast. The cow is warm-bodied, soft-skinned and shiningfor she expects elements of preciousness (Prezioso?) in her women. Thesuggestion of the Italian word vacca with its connotations of easy morals isin the neighbourhood and possibly, but much more remote, the old poeticname of Ireland 'Silk of the Kine.' Here there is no fear either of goringor of pregnancy. An experience more in life and therefore not to be avoided.Eileen appears as a messenger of those secret tidings which only womenbear to women and the silver mountain torrent, a precious and wild element,accompanies the secrecy of her messages with the music of romance.That it has died of love is an old story. Her lovers are all postingto death, death of the flesh, death of youth, death of distance, of banishmentor of a despair lit only by her memory.3) Prezioso weepingI have passed him in the streetMy book 'Dubliners' in his handInterpretation: The motive of Tutto e sciolto [from Bellini's La Sonnambula]played back to the front. The point with which he tried to woundhas been turned against him—by her: the motive from which I liberatedmyself in art he is unable to liberate himself from in life. Again a sufferingand aging wooer. His complaint that I pass him (it is to be read the otherway round) is a secret disappointment that for her so far it is impossible tounite the friendship of two men through the gift of herself differently to* The two ghosts, according to Joyce's theory, would be those of the dead king, a characterplayed by Shakespeare himself, and of Prince Hamlet, who is a ghostly representationof Shakespeare's son Hamnet. For a fuller explanation, see Richard Ellmann, TheConsciousness of Joyce (1977), pp. 52-9, 70-71.