The chamber pot that
the Blooms keep under their bed for nighttime emergencies is
described as "orangekeyed"—a cryptic adjective. Hugh Kenner
makes a persuasive stab at explicating it, inferring that this
domestic appliance is decorated with an orange border in the
kind of continuous labyrinthine pattern often called a
meander, Greek fret, or Greek key. He adds that the compounded
epithet has a distinctly Homeric flavor, connecting the
Blooms' bodily needs to ancient Greek times.
Kenner writes, "'Orangekeyed' is formed the way Homer formed
many epithets, of which the most celebrated is rhododaktylos,
'rosyfingered,' by joining an attribute of colour or
brightness with a name: in this case the colour, orange, with
the name of the pattern around the rim of the pot. This is the
'key meander' or 'key pattern'; the citation for the latter
term in the Oxford English Dictionary (s.v. 'key')
is dated 1876, in the first decade of Homeric archaeology.
Thus as Ulysses in the fresh of the morning sat upon a
'jakes,' a word Sir John Harington's 1596 paean united with
'Ajax' [Bloom visits a "jakes" at the end of Calypso],
so Penelope in the dead of the night will squat on a piece of
ware ornamented with the pattern which characterised much
Greek pottery of the Geometric Period, the ninth to seventh
centuries BC: pottery of the lifetime (if he lived) of Homer"
(Ulysses, 144).
In addition to "rosy-fingered," color-based epithets in
Homer's poems include "wine-dark,"
"bronzed-armored," "grey-eyed" or "shining-eyed,"
"white-armed," "red-haired," "flaming-haired," and
"silver-footed."
In Circe, Bloom shocks the newly animated Nymph with thoughts of the
things that she has looked down on in his bedroom: him kissing
her photo, snoring, flatulence, dirty words, "Soiled personal
linen," and brass quoits jingling from sexual activity. Among
these corporeal indecencies he mentions "That antiquated
commode" that broke when Molly was sitting on it, "And that
absurd orangekeyed utensil which has only
one handle."
Ithaca notes that the pot was purchased as part of a
set: "Orangekeyed ware, bought of Henry
Price, basket, fancy goods, chinaware and ironmongery
manufacturer, 21, 22, 23 Moore
street, disposed irregularly on the washstand and floor
and consisting of basin, soapdish and brushtray (on the
washstand, together), pitcher and night article (on
the floor, separate)."
In Penelope Molly uses the chamberpot when she
realizes that her period has started: "I want to get up a
minute if Im let wait O Jesus wait yes that thing has come on
me yes now wouldnt that afflict you . . . O patience
above its pouring out of me like the sea . . . I dont want to
ruin the clean sheets the clean linen I wore brought it on too
damn it damn it . . . wheres the chamber gone easy
Ive a holy horror of its breaking under me after that old
commode . . . Ill have to perfume it in the morning . . . O how the waters come down at
Lahore."
