Belchum

• Belgian → Waterloo is in Belgium. Dutch and Belgian troops fought alongside the English at the Battle of Waterloo. English propaganda downplayed the role of Dutch and Belgian troops in Napoleon's defeat (a fact probably known to Joyce, who lived in Paris in the 1920s and 1930s)

• bel homme: (French) handsome chap; good-looking man

• belching → a symptom of drunkenness

• chum

• S: the siglum Joyce used in his manuscripts for the old bartender or man-servant in HCE's tavern; S seems to represent the primeval, indigenous inhabitants of Ireland (or any country) who were displaced, driven out or subjugated by later invaders; his siglum appears on Joyce's diagram for the Battle of Waterloo; like HCE, he is frequently drunk, hence his belching; he may also be identified with the Serpent, the original inhabitant of the Garden of Eden before Adam and Eve
  • A First-Draft Version of Finnegans Wake
  • Third Census of Finnegans Wake
  • Third Census of Finnegans Wake
  • The Sigla of Finnegans Wake