Page 264

264Section 3 
The Poet 
STEPHEN AND DAEDALIJS 
 Most readers of A Portrait are doubtless aware that the protagonist's name
derives from the Christian St. Stephen and Ovid's Daedalus, but are unfamiliar
enough with the details of both Ovid and the New Testament to miss many of
the allusive parallels which Joyce has worked into his text. After all, St.
Stephen is not only cast out of his city and martyred; before that he was
a prophet and a preacher, seeking to revitalize the conscience of his race.
And Stephen Dedalus resembles not only the fabulous artificer and his son
Icarus but also that too-clever nephew of Daedalus who was pushed off a high
tower by his uncle and turned into a lapwing. In Ulysses Stephen's main resemblance
is clearly to this third, lapwinged member of the Daedalian trinity. 
 The version of the New Testament used here is not the Catholic Douai version
but the King James. Joyce demonstrated his familiarity with the "Protestant"
Bible by copying from it the entire Book of Revelations (MS at Cornell).
Stephen' 
 And the saying pleased the whole multitude: and they chose Stephen, a man
full of faith and of the Holy Ghost, and Philip, and Prochorus, and Nicanor,
and Timon, and Parmenas, and Nicolas a proselyte of Antioch; 
 Whom they set before the apostles: and when they had prayed, they laid their
hands on them. 
 And the word of God increased; and the number of the disciples multiplied
in Jerusalem greatly; and a great company of the priests were obedient to
the faith. 
 And Stephen, full of faith and power, did great wonders and miracles among
the people. 
 Then there arose certain of the synagogue, which is called the 
1. From the New Testament, Acts 6, v—8, iv.