How does the Lotus Eaters episode end?
“The limp father of thousands, a languid floating flower” are the last words of Episode 5. Bloom imagines himself in the bath he is about to take, his body floating, his penis drifting in the water like a flower. It is a dreamy, comic, sad image of a man at rest and unfulfilled.
Edited by Aidan O'Leary · Last updated 30 October 2026
Where it appears
Episode 5, Lotus Eaters. Bloom, on his way to the Turkish baths, imagining himself in the water.
the limp father of thousands, a languid floating flower.
What it means in plain English
Bloom has spent the morning in a drifting, drugged mood: the lotus eaters of Homer forgot home. He looks forward to the warm water.
“Father of thousands” is potential; “limp” is reality. Bloom has no living son.
Literary context
In Homer, sailors who eat the lotus lose all wish to go home.
References
- Ulysses, Episode 5, “Lotus Eaters”
- Don Gifford with Robert J. Seidman, Ulysses Annotated (revised edition, 1988)
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Questions readers ask
Does Bloom actually take the bath?
Yes, off-page, before the funeral.
Related terms
Martha Clifford and Henry Flower
Martha Clifford is a woman Bloom writes to in secret under the false name Henry Flower. He collects her letter at the post office in Episode 5. Their flirtation is all on paper; they have never met. The letter includes a pressed flower and a famous mistake.
Rudy Bloom
Rudy Bloom is Leopold and Molly's son, who died at eleven days old, eleven years before the novel. Bloom thinks of him throughout 16 June, and his ghost appears at the end of Circe as an eleven-year-old boy reading a book.
Sweny's pharmacy and the lemon soap
Bloom calls at Sweny's chemist on Lincoln Place in Episode 5 to order a face lotion for Molly, and buys a bar of lemon soap. He carries it in his pocket all day. In Circe the soap rises like a sun and sings. Sweny's is still open, run by volunteers.