What does “Non serviam” mean in Ulysses?
“Non serviam” is Latin for “I will not serve”, the words traditionally given to Lucifer when he rebelled against God. Stephen shouts it at his mother's ghost in Circe, refusing again to kneel and pray. It is his defiance in its purest form.
Edited by Aidan O'Leary · Last updated 30 October 2026
Where it appears
Episode 15, Circe. Stephen, in Bella Cohen's brothel, as his mother's ghost begs him to repent.
The intellectual imagination! With me all or not at all. Non serviam!
What it means in plain English
His mother warns him of the fire of hell and prays for him. Stephen calls her a corpse-chewer and cries “Non serviam!” Moments later he raises his ashplant and smashes the lamp.
In Joyce's earlier novel, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Stephen tells his friend Cranly the same thing: “I will not serve.”
Literary context
The phrase goes back to Jeremiah 2:20 and became attached to Satan's fall in Christian preaching.
References
- Ulysses, Episode 15, “Circe”
- Jeremiah 2:20 (Vulgate)
- James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916)
- Don Gifford with Robert J. Seidman, Ulysses Annotated (revised edition, 1988)
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Questions readers ask
Who says “Non serviam” in the Bible tradition?
Lucifer, in the Christian tradition of his rebellion against God.
Related terms
Nothung
Nothung is the magic sword in Wagner's opera cycle The Ring of the Nibelung. Stephen cries “Nothung!” in Circe as he raises his ashplant, like a sword, and smashes the brothel's chandelier to drive away his mother's ghost.
Agenbite of inwit
"Agenbite of inwit" is Middle English for "remorse of conscience" (literally the "again-bite" of the "inner wit"). It comes from the title of a 14th-century religious book. In Ulysses, Stephen Dedalus repeats it to himself because he feels guilty for refusing to pray at his dying mother's bedside.
“The word known to all men”
“The word known to all men” is a phrase Stephen asks about in Episodes 3, 9 and 15. In Circe he begs his dead mother's ghost to tell it to him. In the corrected text, Episode 9 answers it: the word is love.
Stephen Dedalus
The young writer who opens the novel — brilliant, grieving, and adrift. Joyce's Telemachus, the searching son.