Sneaking his phillippy

• speaking his philippic → a philippic is a discourse full of invective, after the three Philippics of the Athenian orator Demosthenes against Philip of Macedon

• sneaking his filly

• taking his filly

• taking his fill: having a drink

• Philippi: town in Macedonia → the Battle of Philippi, 42 BC
  • A Finnegans Wake Gazetteer

• Philip → the Greek name means horse-loving
  • Third Census of Finnegans Wake

• Philip of Macedon: the father of Alexander the Great
  • Third Census of Finnegans Wake

• This is me Belchum sneaking his phillippy out of his most Awful... → Joyce's first-draft of this passage read: "This is the Belchiam taking a phillipy out of his bottle of Tiltsiter." It is possible that Joyce's final version, corrupted in transmission when one line was inadvertently omitted, should read: "This is me Belchum sneaking his phillippy out of his most toocisive bottle of Tiltsiter. This is the libel on the battle. Awful..."
  • A First-Draft Version of Finnegans Wake
  • toocisive bottle: decisive battle
  • Tiltsiter: Tilsiter, a Swiss-Prussian cheese, though S's Tilsiter is obviously an alcoholic drink like Pilsener lager
  • libel on the battle: label on the bottle (it's a bottle of Guinness, after all!)
• fill-lip