The bruce, the coriolano and the ignacio

• Earlier in the paragraph, "within himself, he swure". A three-part oath is being sworn in his mind. From A Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake: "He would take ship and ride into exile—like Coriolanus, the exiled Roman. He would hide in silence—like the Bruce in his cave protected by the spider. He would save himself by cunning—like a Jesuit of Ignatius Loyola." (emphasis added)

• Cf. Stephen Dedalus in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Chapter 5: "I will tell you what I will do and what I will not do. I will not serve that in which I no longer believe, whether it call itself my home, my fatherland, or my church: and I will try to express myself in some mode of life or art as freely as I can and as wholly as I can, using for my defence the only arms I allow myself to use—silence, exile and cunning." (emphasis added)
  • Cf. p.13, "Hush! Caution! Echoland!"