Bloomsday — Seattle 2026
For our 29th annual staged reading, the Wild Geese Players of Seattle will present Episode 16, “Eumaeus”, adapted from the 1922 edition of James Joyce’s Ulysses.
2:00pm on Sunday, June 14, 2026
Ballard Branch
of the Seattle Public Library,
5614 22nd Ave NW,
Seattle, WA 98107.
Bloomsday (Bloom’s day, named for Ulysses’ main character, Leopold Bloom) refers to the 24-hour period on June 16, 1904 in which Ulysses is set. Joyce’s ground-breaking novel follows the wanderings of Bloom, a Jewish everyman, and Stephen Dedalus, a young writer and Joyce’s alter ego, as they wander the streets of Dublin.
In Episode 16, it is about 1am on June 17. Mr Bloom and Stephen Dedalus make their way to a cabman’s shelter to get a cup of coffee. The shelter has a handful of motley inhabitants, including the keeper, one Skin-the-Goat Fitzharris, and D.B. Murphy, an old sailor and unreliable spinner of tales.
RSVP at the Facebook Event.
The meaning of Eumaeus
The structure of James Joyce’s Ulysses is loosely based on Homer’s Odyssey, in which the hero Odysseus wandered around the ancient Mediterranean for decades longing to get home to his wife, Penelope, and son, Telemachus. Joyce’s Odysseus/Ulysses is Leopold Bloom, a slightly pathetic jewish Everyman wandering around his native Dublin on June 16th 1904. He feels bad because his wife Molly is being unfaithful and their marriage has been sexless for many years, since their baby son Rudy died. Over the last couple of episodes, Bloom felt protective and fatherly towards Stephen Dedalus, the son of a friend.
In the Odyssey, Odysseus returns incognito to Ithaca, disguises himself as a beggar, and goes to the hut of Eumaeus, his swineherd, and hears tall tales about himself. Later, he reunites with Telemachus.
Bloom and Stephen are together in this episode, but not of one mind. Bloom hopes to make something of this chance meeting with Stephen, who shows great promise. Stephen, meanwhile, has his own abstruse concerns.
Commentary on Eumaeus
- Text of Chapter 16
- The Joyce Project: Eumaeus
- Ulysses Guide
- Kennesaw Guide
- Cliff Notes
- Sparknotes
- The Joyce Portal
- The Sheila Variations
- Joyce Images
- Paul Debraski
- Shmoop Summary and Analysis
- Groden Notes
- Joyce’s Moraculous Sindbook: Suzette Henke — “Eumaeus” and “Ithaca”: Nostos
- The Modern Word
- James Joyce’s Ulysses: Where It’s Always June 16, 1904 and Eumaeus II
- 1982 RTÉ Recording