TN1 Therewith [4 <there> 4] was released 48.05 a poisoning [4 volumeTN2 of 4] cloud indeed ! Yet all they who heard or redelivered are now as much no more as [4 <were> be 4] they not yet now or had they then [4 <not ever> notever 4] been. [4 <Perhaps> Canbe 4] in some future we shall presently [4 <hear> here 4] 48.1048.15 the zitherer of the past [4 <and> with 4] his merrymen [4 all, zimzim zimzim 4] . Of the [4 persons persins 4] [4 <in> sin 4] the story (which is [4 {all} 4] from [4 <tub> tubb 4] to [4 <bottom> buttom all 4] falsetissues [4 , 4] antilibellous and nonactionable [4 , 4] [4 <&> and 4] this applies [4 <in> to its 4] whole volume ) [4 .TN3 Of 4] Osti , 48.20quite a musical genius in a small way [4 {,} 4] and the owner of an exceedingly niced ear , no one end is known .
Textual Notes
1 Though the "The data" passage (FW: 57.16-61.28 [JJA: 45.138]) is written first, Joyce must have decided almost at once to precede it with the "cloud of witnesses" passage (FW: 48-50.32 [JJA 45: 137]), to which he then adds the "well-authenticated fact" passage (FW: 50.35-56.19 [JJA 45: 140, 142-3]) as a long overlay addition to level 1. At level 2 Joyce brings "Under rather a cloud . . . " to the margin, as he usually did when copying (or having typed) a new unit of the book (as do also the typescript at levels 3 and 5 and the fair copy at level 4). At this point, then, I think he intended chapter 3 to begin where in fact it does.
2 In level 3 overlay, "volume" is the last word of overlay "(which is . . . volume" (FW: 48.17-19), but that word "volume" immediately follows and is alone on a line with the overlay "poisoning" which is inserted within "a cloud" (FW: 48.05). Clearly, "a poisoning cloud" is what Joyce had in mind, and "volume" had nothing to do with it. On level 4, however, Joyce is misled by the contiguity of those two actually separate overlays into copying both words (and adding "of" for the grammar) at FW: 48.05, but he copies "volume" again in its proper place as well.
3 At level 4 Joyce, most unusually, turns a grammatical sentence to a fragment ("Of the persins sin the story (. . .) .", with nothing after the parentheses. Since it is where he copies "volume" for the second time from level 3 overlay (see note above), I think he was simply nodding, rather than intending some special effect. The grammar is corrected in stages, the case of "Of" being lowered on level 5 and the period disappearing on level 6, probably in effort to improve things at 5+* , though the correction makes the "saga" read as Hosty's rather than Earwicker's.