Aquaface

• on the waterface → on the aquaface
  • A first-draft version of Finnegans wake

• aqua: (Latin) water

• Genesis 9:12-17 → the rainbow on the water is symbolic of God's promise to Noah: "And God said, This [is] the token of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that [is] with you, for perpetual generations: I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth. And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud. And I will remember my covenant, which [is] between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh. And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that [is] upon the earth. And God said unto Noah, This [is] the token of the covenant, which I have established between me and all flesh that [is] upon the earth."

• Genesis 1.2: "And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters"

• Aquarius: one of the twelve signs of the zodiac?

• face → the face of HCE, red from over-indulgence in alcohol → HCE is also water-born (FW 198.08 Wasserbourne)

• edifice ?

• reflection: what you see in the still water might be your own aquaface.

Commentary

The clause "rory end ... aquaface" is the seventh of seven clauses in this paragraph, and so might correspond to "Howth Castle and environs" in the first paragraph (both signify HCE), being the 7th of 7 elements in a second circuit of HCE's bedroom. It's possible, however, that the the two paragraphs are symmetrical rather than parallel: "aquaface" would then correspond (ringsomely) with "riverrun", and "Howth Castle and Environs" with "Sir Tristram". Note, however, how the first and last elements in both of these paragraphs contain allusions to water: riverrun and back to (i.e. Bach, the German for "stream") in the first paragraph; short sea and aquaface in the second!

Aquaface also reminds one of Issy looking into her mirror, and so "doubling her number" to sosie sesthers (FW 561.35 Pussy is never alone), as "Tristram" is HCE (File:HCE.PNG) doubled into his twin sons Shem and Shaun: Stem/Tree-Stone → Tristan, or File:Shem.png + File:Shaun.png = File:Shem-Shaun.PNG

So aquaface may be the (circular) ending of the "first prelude": the first two paragraphs containing "all space and time in a nutshell" (the next four paragraphs explicating the four Viconian cycles; the "narrative" properly starting with "What then agentlike", or maybe even as late as the beginning of chapter two). Like Genesis and Ulysses, FW has more than one beginning!