Hop!
- hops: an ingredient used in the brewing of Guinness
Commentary
The flea in HCE's bed is our first introduction to the character Joyce represented in his notes and early drafts with the siglum S, a bloodsucking parasite on HCE. His principal role in the novel is the tavern's manservant or barman, "Old Jo".
He is old and corrupt, and in one note for FW, Joyce calls him a beggar (cf. the references to begging in the paragraph before his appearance as the flea: thigging thugs and Flippety!). He is also identified with the serpent in the Garden of Eden (HCE and ALP being Adam and Eve); he seems to represent the indigenous inhabitants of Ireland and Dublin, who were conquered and enslaved by the foreign invaders. He is usually bestial: he is called an "ape" in one note; he is also called Saunderson after the bear of that name in Shakespearean London.
