O tell me all now about Anna Livia! I want to hear all about Anna Livia. Well, you know Anna Livia? Yes, of course, ^|1I we all^1| know Anna Livia. Tell me all. Tell me now. You'll die when you hear. Well, you see, when the old chap went and did what you know. Yes, I know, go on. ^|1Wash away and don't be dabbling.^1| Or whatever it was they try to make out he tried to do in the Phoenix park. He's an awful old rep. ^|1Look at the shirt of him. Look at the dirt of it.^1| What was it he did at all? It was put in the papers what he did. But time will tell. I know it will. O, the old old rep! What age is he at all at all? Or where was he born or how was he found? ^|1And ^|awas he were ^|bhe & she him & her^b|a| ever spliced?^1| Don't you know he's a bairn of the sea, Waterhouse the waterbaby? O, I know, so he was. H.C.E has blue in his ee. Sure, she's nearly as bad as ^|1he is him^1| herself. Who, Anna Livia? Ay, Anna Livia! Do you know she was calling girls to ^|1go into go in & tickle^1| him? She was? Go to God! O, tell me all I want to hear! Letting on she didn't care. Didn't you see her in her windeye pretending to play ^|1a tune or two^1| a fiddle she has without a bottom? Sure, she can't play the fiddle, bottom or not. Of course, she can't. It was all a blind. Well, I never heard the like of that. Tell me more. Tell me all.
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Well, old Humper was as glum as ^|1could be a grampus^1|, sitting moping ^|1all^1| on his benk ^|1hungerstriking^1| by himself, his hair combed over his eyes, dreeing his weird, ^|1with his dander up holding doomsday over himself,^1| and keeking on loft up at ^|1the face^1| the sternes and there w she was, Anna Livia, ^|1she couldn't snatch a wink of sleep,^1| running around like a girl of ten in a short summer skirt and painted cheeks. And an odd time she'd cook him up blooms of fisk and meddery eyes to plaise him ^|1and stay his stomach^1| and as quick as she'd run with them up on the tray the old chap'd cast them from him ^|1with a scowl^1|, if he didn't peg the tea in her face believe me she was safe enough. And then she'd try to whistle a tune The Heart Bowed Down or The Rakes of Mallow ^|1(What harm if she knew how to cock her mouth!)^1| and not a mag out of him no more than the wall. Is that a fact? That's a fact. And ^|1calling cheeping^1| to him down the feedchute ^|1with all kinds of fondling endings^1| the powder tumbling off her nose: ^|1Vuggybarney! Wickawucky! Wickerymandy!^1| Hello, ducky! Please don't die! Do you know what she started singing then ^|1with a voice on her^1| like a water gluck? You'll never guess. Tell me. Tell me. ^|1Phoebe dearest, tell, O tell me and^1| I loved you better than you knew. And letting on she was daft about the old songs from over the holm: High ^|1hellsker hellskirt^1| saw ladies hen smoke a lily ^|1hung^1| pigger. Go away! Is it Anna Livia. As God is my judge. And ^|1then she'd didn't she^1| go and trot down & stand in the door and
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every ^|1servant girl that went the road she'd country wench ^|a& farmerette^a| going the roads usedn't she^1| make her a sign to slip inside by the sallyport? You don't say the sallyport? I did. I do. Calling them one by one and legging a jig or two to show them how to shake their benders and ^|1how to show what's out of sight the dainty how to bring to mind the gladdest garments out of sight^1| and all the way of a maid with a man and making a kind of a cackling noise like ^|1two and a penny or^1| half a crown and holding up a silver shiner. Well of all the ones ever I heard! ^|1|aLordy, lordy,^a| Throwing all the girls ^|ain the world^a| at him!^1| To any ^|1girl lass^1| of no matter what sex of playful ways ^|1a half a crown 2 & a tanner a girl^1| a go to sit and have fun in Humpy's lap!

And what about the rhyme she made! O that! Tell me that! I'm dying down off my feet until I hear Anna Livia's rhyme. ^|1I can see that. I can see you are.^1| How does it go? Listen now. ^|1This is the rhyme Anna Livia made^1|

By earth and heaven but I badly want a brandnew backside, bedad and I do, and a plumper at that

For the putty affair I have is worn out, so it is, sitting yawning & waiting for my old Dane the dodderer, ^|1my life in death companion^1| my frugal key of the larder, my muchaltered camel's hump, my jointspoiler, my maymoon's honey, my fool to the last Decemberer, to wake up out of his winter's doze
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and shout me down like he used to.

Is there a lord of the manor ^|1or knight of the shire^1| going at all, I wonder, that'd tip me a pound or two in cash for washing & darning his worshipful socks for him now we're run out of horsemeat and milk?

Only for my featherbed is as snug as it smells it's out I'd lep and off with me to the mouth of the Tolka or to the Bull of Clontarf to feel the gay air of my sweet Dublin bay & the race of the seawind up my hole!

O go on! Tell me more! Tell me every tiny bit! I want to hear every single thing. Well, now comes the childer's part. How many childer has she at all? I can't rightly tell you that God only knows. They say she had 111. She can't remember half ^|1their names the names she put on them^1|. A hundred and how. They did well to christen her Plurabelle. O ^|1my laws^1|! What a flock! She must have been a gadabout in her day, so she must ^|1more than most^1|. So she was, you bet. Tell me, tell me how did she come through all her fellows^|1, the daredevil^1|? Who was the first that ever burst? ^|1Someone it was, whoever you are. ^|aTinker, tailor, soldier, sailor, Paul Pry or polishman.^a|1| That's ^|1a the^1| thing I always want to know. ^|1Well, she can't put her hand on him for the moment^1| She says herself
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she hardly knew who he was or what he did or when he crossed her. She was just a young thin pale slip of a thing then ^|1sauntering^1| and he was a heavy lurching ^|1lieabroad^1| Curraghman ^|1making hay for the sun to shine^1| as strong as the oaks there used to grow that time in killing Kildare that first fell across her. You're wrong there. You're all wrong. It was ages long before that in the county Wicklow, the garden of Erin, before she ever dreamt she'd end in the barleyfields and pennylands of Humphreystown and lie with a landleaper, well on the wane. Was it, was it? Are you sure? Where in Wicklow? Tell me where, the very first time! I will if you listen. You know the ^|1glen hazel dell^1| of Luggelaw? Well once there once dwelt a ^|1local^1| hermit ^|1named Michael Ireland Newireland Ereleinster Orkney^1| and one day in warm June so young and shy & so limber she looked^|1, the kind ^|aof curves^a| you simply can't stop feeling,^1| he plunged both of his blessed ^|1anointed^1| hands up to his wrists in ^|1her flowing the streams of her^1| hair that was rich red like the brown bog. And he couldn't help it, thirst was too hot for him, ^|1he had to forget the monk in the man^1| he cooled his lips in smiling mood kiss after kiss on Anna Livia's freckled cheek. O, wasn't he the bold priest! And wasn't she the naughty Livvy! Naughtynaughty is
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her name. Two lads in their breeches went through her before that, Barefoot Byrne and Billy Wade, ^|1Lugnaquilla's noble pair,^1| before she had a hint of a hair there to hide and ere that again she was licked by a hound while doing her pee, sweet and simple, on the side of ^|1a hill the hill of ^|aold^a| Kippure^1| in ^|1birdsong and^1| shearing time but first of all, worst of all, she ^|1ran out by sideslipped out^1| a gap ^|1in the devil's glen^1| when her nurse was ^|1asleep sound asleep in a sloot^1| and fell before she found her stride and lay & wriggled under a ^|1fallow^1| cow.

Tell me the ^|1name of the cow sound of the shorthorn's name^1| and tell me why ^|1the something^1| was she freckled ^|1|aas well^a|1| and tell me too how long was her hair ^|1or was it only a wig she wore^1|? ^|1Are you in this game or are you not?^1| O go on, go on, go on! I mean about what you know. I know well what you mean. I'm going on. Where did I stop. Don't stop. ^|1Go on, go on! Continuation! You're not there yet. Go on, go on!^1|

Well after it was put in the ^|1papers Beggar's Journal^1| everywhere ever you went and every bung you ever dropped into or wherever you scoured the countryside you found his picture upside down or the cornerboys burning his guy, ^|1& Pat the Man raising a laugh reeling ^|a& rolling^a| around ^|athe local^a| with ^|athe old chap's oddfellow's^a| triple tiara ^|abusby^{a| |a}rolling rotundarinking^a| round his ^|ahead scalp^a|1| so she ^|1made said to herself she'd make^1| a plan ^|1to make a shine^1|, the mischiefmaker, the like of it now you never heard. What plan? Tell me quickly! What the
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mischief did she do? Well, she borrowed a bag, a mailbag from one of her sons, Shaun the Post, & then she went & made herself up. O, God of gigglers, I can't tell how! It's too ^|1screaming^1| funny ^|1rabbit it all^1|! O but you must, you must really! ^|1By the holy well of Mulhuddart I swear^1| I'd give my chance of going to heaven to hear it all, every word. Here, sit down, ^|1& do as you're told^1| go easy, ^|1be keep^1| quiet. Tell me slow. Take your time now. Breathe deep. That's the way. ^|1Hurry up & go slow you go. Give us the holy ashes here till I finish the canon's ^|acom_unread underpants^a|.^1| Slow now. Slower still.

First she let her hair fall and down it flowed to her ^|1heels feet^1| and then mothernaked she with bogwater & mudsoap from her crown to her sole. Then she greased the groove of her keel with butterscotch & ^|1with leafmould^1| multiplied brown ^|1moles islands^1| all over her little mary &. Then she wove a garland for her hair. She pleated it, she plaited it. Of meadowgrass and riverflags, of bulrushes & waterweeds, of leaves of weeping willow. Then she made her bracelets & her anklets & her armlets & an amulet for necklet of cobbles and pebbles and rich gems & rare ones, of rhinestones & ^|1watermarbles watershellmarbles^1|. That done she sent her boudoir maid
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to Humphrey with a request that she might leave him for a moment & said she wouldn't be any length away. Then with her mealiebag slung over her shoulder, Anna Livia, oysterface, out at last she came.

Describe her! ^|1Hurry up, why can't you^1| I must hear that! What had she on^|1, the little old oddity^1|? What did she carry? Here she is. What has she got? A loin of jubilee ^|1mountain^1| mutton?

^|1No mutton at all.^1| I tell you now but you must sit still. Will you hold your peace & listen to well to what I am going to say now. ^|1It might have blank 10 or 20 to 1^1| The door of the ugly igloo opened & out stepped a fairy woman ^|1the dearest little mother ever you saw, nodding around her all smiles,^1| the height of your knee. Go away! No more. The height of your knee. She wore a ploughboy's nailstudded ^|1boots clogs^|a, a pair of ploughfields in themselves^a|1|: a sugarloaf hat with a sunrise peak & a band of gorse and a golden pin to pierce it: ^|1olwglasses owlglassy bicycles^1| shaded her eyes: ^|1and a fishnet veil she had to keep the sun from spoiling her wrinkles:^1| potatorings buckled the loose ends of her ears: her nude cuba stockings were salmonspotspeckled: ^|1she wore a shimmy of hazegrey: stout stays laced her length:^1| her bloodorange knickers showed natural nigger ^|1bockers boggers^1| fancy fastened ^|1free to undo^1|: her blackstripe tan joseph was teddybearlined
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with a ^|1soft^1| border of swansdown: a brace of gaspers stuck in her hayrope garters: her civvy coat was ^|1zoned bounderied round^1| by a twobar belting tunnel belt: she had a clothespeg tight astride of her nose and something ^|1or other quaint that she held^1| in her mouth & the tail of her ^|1snuffbrown ^|asnuffcoloured snuffdrab^a| shuiler's^1| skirt trailed ^|150 40 Irish miles^1| behind her on the road.

O hellsbells, what I'm sorry I missed ^|1her^1|. ^|1She must have looked a funny poor dear. Everyone who saw her said the ^|adear sweet^a| little lady seemed a bit queer. Funny poor dear she must have looked.^1| Dickens a funnier ever you saw. ^|1There was a gang of surfaceman ^|aboomslanging & plugchewing^|b, lying & leasing,^b|a| on Lazy Wall & as soon as they ^|aseen these seen who was in it^a| says one to the other: Between you & me & the wall ^|awe're on beneath us^a| as round as a hoop Alp has doped.^1| But what was the game in her mixed bag? I want to get it while it's fresh. ^|1Shake it up do, do! & I promise I'll make it worth yr while & I don't mean maybe. Tell me all Tell me true^1| Well, she pattered around like Santa Claus with a Xmas box apiece for each & every one of her ^|1children childer^1| & they all around ^|1|ayouths & maidens, ^|bstinkers & heels heelers, all her natural sons and daughters, 1001,^b|a| chipping her^1| raising a ^|1jeer or^1| cheer every time she'd dip in her ^|1bag sack ^|a& out with her maundy money^a|1|. A tinker's tan & a bucket ^|1to boil his billy^1| for Gipsy Lee: a cartridge of cockaleekie soup for Tommy the Soldier: for Pender's nephew acid drops ^|1curiously strong^1|: a cough & a rattle & rosy cheeks for poor little Petite O'Hara: a jigsaw puzzle ^|1of needles & pins & blankets & skins^1| between them for Isabel & Llewelyn Marriage: ^|1a brass badge a brazen nose & castiron mittens^1| for Babbs ^|1Baby Beggar Babsy Beg^1|, ^|1a waterleg waterlegs^1| & gumboots ^|1each^1| for
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Big Bully Hayes ^|1& Hurricane Hartigan^1|: ^|1a the^1| flag of the saints & stripes for Kevineen O'Dea: a puffpuff for Pudge Craig: a ^|1marching nightmarching^1| hare for Toucher Doyle: a child's bladder balloon for Mary Selina Stakelum ^|1& a putty spade to ^|xLarry the Puckaun^x|1|: ^|1a hippo's head for Promoter Dunne: for Dora ^|aHope Hopeandwater a coolingdouche &^a| a warmingpan: to ^|xNancy Shannon^x| a lucky Tuam brooch: ^|aoakwood beads for Holy Biddy:^a| a prodigal heart in fatted halves in for ^|xBuck Jones^x|, the ^|aClonliffe boy boy of Clonliffe^a|: for ^|xKitty Coleraine^x| of Buttermilk Lane a penny wise for her foolish pitcher: & a slate pencil for ^|xElsie Oram^x| to scratch her toby, doing her sums: & a big drum for Billy Dunboyne: for ^|xWally Meagher^x| a couple of pairs of Blarney breeks: & salt lag & waterlag for for ^|xBoy McCormick^x|: a cross & a pile for Lucky Joe:^{1| |1}My colonial! That was a bagful!^1| But what did she give to Una Ward & Peggy Quilty & Teasy Kieran & Ena Lappin & Philomena O'Farrell & Moira MacCabe & Nancy Shan? She gave them all ^|1moonflowers, a bloodstone a moonflower & a bloodstone & a pint & a half of prunejuice^1|. To Izzy ^|1O'Gorman life beyond her her youngest the vision of life beyond her years^1|. To Shem her ^|1son eldest ^|athe vista of^a|1| life before his time.

^|1Give me Throw us^1| the soap & tell me the rest. I could listen to more & more again. ^|1That's what I call a tale of a tub^1| This is the life for me.

Well you know or don't you know but every story has an end look, look it's growing the dusk is growing. ^|1What time is it? It must be late. It's ages now since I ^|alast or anyone^a| last saw Waterhouse's clock. They took it asunder I heard them say. When will they reassemble it?^1| Wring out the clothes. Wring in the dusk. Will we spread them here? ^|1Yes, we will.^1| Spread on your side and I'll spread mine on mine. Where are all her childer now? Some here, more ^|1gone no more^1|, more again gone to the stranger. I've heard tell that same brooch of the Shannons was married into a family beyond the ocean. And all the Dunnes takes eights in hats. But all that's left now to the last of the Meaghers I'm told it's a kneebuckle & two buttons in the front. Do you
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tell me that now? I do, in troth. Is that the Dunboyne ^|1on his^1| statue behind you there riding his high horse? That! Throw the cobwebs from your eyes, woman, & spread your linen proper. What is at all but a blackberry growth ^|1or ^|1a the^1| grey mare ass them four old ^|afellows codgers^a| own. Do you mean Tarpey & Lyons & Gregory? I do the four codgers themselves and old Johnny MacDougal along with them.^1| My sight is getting thick now with shadows about me. I'll go home slowly my way. So will I too by mine.

^|1But^1| She was the queer old ^|1one skeowska^1| anyhow, Anna Livia ^|1twinkletoes^1|. And sure he was the queer old hunks buntz too ^|1|aFurry Humphrey dear dirty Dumpling^a|, father of ^|aeach &^a| all us of us.^1| Hadn't he the seven wives. He had paps too, ^|1big & soft large soft ones^1|. The Lord save us and bless us! and The ^|1O Ho^1| Lord. Twins of his chest. ^|1The ^|aO Ho^a|1| Lord save us! And what all men have. ^|1His tittering^1| Daughters of him. ^|1Amen. Bawk.^1|

^|1I can't Can't^1| hear with the waters of. ^|1The Them^1| chittering waters of. Flittering bats and mice all bawking bawk talk. Are you not gone ^|1home ahome^1|? ^|1Is that Mrs Malone? ^|aThat Mrs Malone? What wrong Malone?^a|1| Can't hear the bawk of bats, all the liffeying waters of. Old talk save us! ^|1My feet won't move.^1| I feel as old as yonder elm. A tale told of Shaun ^|1and or^1| Shem? ^|1All^1| Livia's daughtersons. Dark hawks hear us. Night night. My ^|1old^1| head falls, I feel as heavy as ^|1yonder^1| stone. Tell me of John
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or Shaun? Who were Shem ^|1or and^1| Shaun the living sons ^|1& or^1| daughters of? Night now! Tell me, ^|1tell me,^1| elm. Nighty night! Tell me a tale of stone. Beside the rivering waters of, hither & thither waters of. Night!