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Details
JOYCE, James. Autograph manuscript signed (with initials, 'J.J') of a poem, 'The pig's in the barley', the penultimate line ('RUMBOLD'S IN WARSAW') written in capitals, 8 lines on a correspondence card. Provenance: Ezra Pound (1885-1972, original recipient)--Olga Rudge (1885-1996)--Quentin Keynes (autograph note by Keynes recording gift).
A BRIEF, SATIRICAL POEM OF REJOICING on the departure of Joyce's bête noir, Sir Horace Rumbold, from Switzerland, cataloguing the plight of 'Old Europe', and ending triumphantly:
'Jack Spratt's in his office,
Puffed, powdered and curled:
RUMBOLD'S IN WARSAW --
All's right with the world'.
Joyce's feud with the British Minister in Switzerland, Sir Horace Rumbold (or 'Sir Whorearse Rumphole', as he dubbed him) originated with a financial dispute relating to the English Players. 'Although the affair, from a financial point of view, ended successfully, it left Joyce with his horror of officialdom confirmed. He also chose to believe that his stiffnecked refusal to kowtow to authority had had an effect on the Foreign Office' (Ellmann, Joyce, p.458), and saw as a personal triumph the departures from their posts in Switzerland of the various officials concerned, culminating in the departure of Rumbold to take up a new posting as ambassador to Poland. The present poem, prompted by that event, was not the end of Joyce's retribution: 'H. Rumbold, Master Barber' features in Ulysses, where he offers his services as hangman to the sheriff of Dublin; and years later, Joyce took great pleasure in turning down an invitation to give a lecture to a student group in Oxford, noting that the author of the invitation had the surname Rumbold.
The poem is published in Ellman, Joyce, p.458.
A BRIEF, SATIRICAL POEM OF REJOICING on the departure of Joyce's bête noir, Sir Horace Rumbold, from Switzerland, cataloguing the plight of 'Old Europe', and ending triumphantly:
'Jack Spratt's in his office,
Puffed, powdered and curled:
RUMBOLD'S IN WARSAW --
All's right with the world'.
Joyce's feud with the British Minister in Switzerland, Sir Horace Rumbold (or 'Sir Whorearse Rumphole', as he dubbed him) originated with a financial dispute relating to the English Players. 'Although the affair, from a financial point of view, ended successfully, it left Joyce with his horror of officialdom confirmed. He also chose to believe that his stiffnecked refusal to kowtow to authority had had an effect on the Foreign Office' (Ellmann, Joyce, p.458), and saw as a personal triumph the departures from their posts in Switzerland of the various officials concerned, culminating in the departure of Rumbold to take up a new posting as ambassador to Poland. The present poem, prompted by that event, was not the end of Joyce's retribution: 'H. Rumbold, Master Barber' features in Ulysses, where he offers his services as hangman to the sheriff of Dublin; and years later, Joyce took great pleasure in turning down an invitation to give a lecture to a student group in Oxford, noting that the author of the invitation had the surname Rumbold.
The poem is published in Ellman, Joyce, p.458.
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