Simon Dedalus Timeline and Summary

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Episode 6: Hades

• Dedalus rides to Dignam's funeral in a carriage with Mr. Power, Marty Cunningham, and Leopold Bloom.
• When Bloom points out Stephen in the street, Dedalus complains of the company his son keeps. He says that one day he will write a letter to Buck Mulligan's Aunt telling her what a scoundrel her son is.
• When they pass a Jewish man on the way, Simon calls out to him mockingly and they all laugh.
• Later, when they discuss suicide, Simon says it is an act of cowardice (not realizing that Bloom's father committed suicide).
• Bloom tells a story about a father paying a florin to a boatman that saved his son from drowning, and Simon jokes that it was eightpence too much. Everyone laughs.
• At Dignam's funeral, Simon shows himself to be on good terms with most everyone.
• Afterward, as they are going out to Dignam's grave site, Simon thinks of his wife May and breaks down crying. He says that the lord can come and take him whenever he wants to.

Episode 7: Aeolus

• Bloom finds Simon Dedalus and Ned Lambert in the back office at the Freeman's Journal. Lambert is doing impressions of an over-blown speech by Dan Dawson, and Dedalus is getting a big kick out of it.
• After a few minutes, Dedalus suggests that they go to get a drink and they head out.

Episode 10: The Wandering Rocks

• Simon runs into his daughter, Dilly. He looks a bit drunk. He tries to act fatherly and tells her stands up straight, but she says everyone is looking at him.
• She asks him for money and he says he doesn't have any.
• He thinks that his daughters have turned into "an insolent pack of little bitches" (10.395).
• He gives her two shillings that he said he borrowed from Jack Power, but denies that he has anything beyond that.
• Dilly does not believe him, but he wonders off all the same.
• Later, we see him discussing debts with father Cowley. He kids Ben Dollard about his poor dress, and Dollard does not take it well.

Episode 11: Sirens

• Shortly after 4pm, Simon Dedalus enters the Concert Room at the Ormond Hotel. He welcomes Miss Douce back because she has been on vacation. He flirts with her shamelessly, and she scolds him and calls him simple. He orders a whisky and she prepares it for him.
• Lenehan passes on greetings from Stephen Dedalus to his father. He tells him about the scene at Mooney's where Stephen and them all went drinking after the "Aeolus" episode.
• Simon comments to the barmaid that the piano has been moved. Miss Douce tells him that the tuner was in today, a blind twenty year old. Simon listens passively and then wanders away.
• Dedalus tries out the piano.
• Dollard takes a break from listening to Cowley's complaints about Reuben J. Dodd to ask Simon Dedalus for a ditty on the piano.
• Around the piano, Dedalus, Cowley, and Dollard recall a time when Dollard had forgotten formal clothes for a concert. At the time, Bloom and Molly were quite poor, living on Holles Street, and were also running a secondhand clothing shop. Cowley had the idea to run down and outfit Dollard there, and they gave him a pair of trousers that was too tight, but free of charge.
• Dedalus makes a dirty joke about Molly.
• Dedalus says Dollard would burst the soprano's ear with his voice, and Cowley makes a bawdy joke of it.
• Cowley and Dollard urge Dedalus to get on the piano. He reluctantly agrees and tries out a few chords.
• The men encourage Simon, and he falls to their flattery. He begins singing Lionel's air "M'appari" in Martha. Bloom makes a sign to the deaf waiter Pat to open the door to the street.
• Bloom admires Dedalus's singing, and thinks how tenors always get the girls. He thinks that if Dedalus sung different songs he could have been quite successful. He thinks, "Wore out his wife: now sings" (11.399).
• Dedalus finishes to great applause and congratulations.
• Goulding begins remembering another time he heard Dedalus sing at Ned Lambert's. He goes on about how fine it was. Dollard and Cowley chat with Simon.
• Dedalus is improvising on the piano, and Bloom thinks about how music relates to mood. He wishes they had silent pianos for when young girls are learning to play.
• Dedalus is telling Dollard that music is the only language, and Pat brings Bloom his pen and ink.
• Throughout the rest of the episode, he hangs out at the piano while Cowley and then Dollard sing.
• Dedalus finds a tuning fork in the piano, and Lydia thinks that the tuner forgot it there. Dedalus hears Bloom was inside, and they briefly discuss what a nice voice his wife has.

Episode 15: Circe

• During one of Stephen's feverish dreams in Bella Cohen's brothel, Simon Dedalus appears briefly. While dancing with the prostitutes, Stephen imagines his father coming down to him. His father has wings and is flying clumsily. Simon tells Stephen that he is offending his mother's memory. Stephen ignores him until his mother actually (or her image) appears.

Episode 16: Eumaeus

• Bloom tries to understand why Stephen left his father's house. Stephen says it was to seek misfortune, and then remember a scene of his three impoverished sisters at home trying to cook up enough food.
• Bloom tells Stephen that Simon is very proud of him.
• Later, he recounts hearing Simon singing Martha in the bar at the Ormond Hotel. When Stephen sings, Bloom thinks that he has a good voice, like his father.

Episode 18: Penelope

• Very briefly, Molly thinks of what a nice voice Simon has, which gets her to thinking about Stephen.