What does “Me. And me now” mean in Ulysses?
“Me. And me now.” is Bloom's thought in Davy Byrne's in Episode 8 after he remembers kissing Molly on Howth Head years before. Four words set the happy young man against the lonely middle-aged one, sixteen years later, on the day his wife will be unfaithful.
Edited by Aidan O'Leary · Last updated 30 October 2026
Where it appears
Episode 8, Lestrygonians. Bloom, watching two flies stuck on the window pane of the pub.
Kissed, she kissed me. Me. And me now. Stuck, the flies buzzed.
What it means in plain English
The memory is the happiest in the book: Molly passing him seedcake from her mouth. Then the present returns: the flies stuck on the glass.
Joyce compresses a whole life's change into the gap between two short sentences.
Literary context
The same memory closes the book, told by Molly.
References
- Ulysses, Episode 8, “Lestrygonians”
- Don Gifford with Robert J. Seidman, Ulysses Annotated (revised edition, 1988)
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Questions readers ask
What are the flies doing?
Stuck to the window, buzzing: an image of Bloom's own stuckness.
Related terms
Howth Head
Howth Head is the headland north of Dublin Bay where Bloom proposed to Molly sixteen years before the novel, lying among the rhododendrons. Both of them remember it on 16 June 1904, and Molly's memory of it closes the book.
Davy Byrne's
Davy Byrne's is the pub on Duke Street where Bloom eats a gorgonzola cheese sandwich and drinks a glass of burgundy in Episode 8. He calls it a “moral pub”. It is still open, and is crowded with readers every Bloomsday.
The last line of Ulysses
The last words of Ulysses are "and yes I said yes I will Yes." They end Molly Bloom's long, unpunctuated monologue in the final episode, "Penelope", as she remembers the day Leopold Bloom proposed to her on Howth Head and she agreed to marry him.