Aquaface

• L aqua: water

• The rainbow on the water is symbolic of God's promise to Noah (Genesis 9:12 - 9:17): "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?

• the face of HCE, red from over-indulgence in alcohol (who is also "water-born" on Page 198)

• edifice?

• The clause "rory end ... aquaface" is the seventh of seven clauses in this paragraph, and thus corresponds to "Howth Castle and environs" in the first paragraph (both signify HCE) → the 7th of 7 elements in a second circuit of HCE's bedroom

• to me the two paragraphs are rather symmetrical, than parallel: "aquaface" corresponds (ringsomely) with "riverrun", and "Howth Castle and Environs" with "Sir Tristram";

(aquaface also reminds me of Issy looking into the mirror, and so "doubling her number": to sosie sethers ["Pussy is never alone", p. 561], as "Tristram" may be HCE doubled into his twin sons Shem-Shaun > Stem/Tree-Stone > Tristram;)

so "aquaface" to me is the (circular) ending of "first prelude": the first two paragraphs containing "all space in a nutshell" (the next four paragraphs explicating the four Vicean cycles; the "narrative" properly starting with "What then agentlike", or maybe even as late as the beginning of chapter two.)