While numbers play less of a role in Circe than in some parts of the book, there is nonetheless quite a bit to draw on, especially in the episode’s second half.

Throughout Circe, it is in statements about money that numbers are most frequently used. This is not much different from most of the previous chapters. Where it gets interesting is in the second half of Circe, when Bloom takes over Stephen’s finances. Previously, amounts of money were mostly mentioned in passing, and swept up in the lurid mayhem of Blooms hallucinations: the ten shilling maidenhead, Bloom spending “one and eightpence too much” on the pigs feet, and so on. When he assumes control over Stephen’s wallet, however, there is a definite change. As Bloom slowly rebuilds his senses of identity and masculinity, his ability to manage money allow him to once again assume the roles of Bloom the businessman and Bloom the father. Consider how around line 4290, Bloom confidently dismisses Bella’s claim that Stephen inflicted ten shillings worth of damage.

We also get an indication of both Blooms and Stephen’s ages, on lines 3711 to 3721. Bloom says that 22 years ago, at the age of 16, he fell and cut his hand. Stephen then muses on the fact that 16 years ago, Bloom would have been 22, his own age at present. Apparently, then, Bloom is 38 and Stephen is 22, their births separated by 16 years. I haven’t been able to find much significance to these numbers, but I’m sure they were chosen deliberately. It gets more interesting when one notes that several pages before, Stephen mentions how sixteen years ago (when Bloom was 22), he broke his glasses. Several pages before that, Bloom mentions that he has “sixteen years of black slave labor behind me” (3474-5). (I suspect that Bloom may be referring to his conversion to Catholicism and/or marriage to Molly in 1888, sixteen years ago.) Going back further, on line 3180, Bloom says “ten and six, the act of low scoundrels,” which makes little sense in its immediate context until one begins to see the significance of the number 16.

Finally, “32 feet per second per second” makes two appearances in Circe (That I counted). As the “law of falling bodies,” it takes on extra resonance in this context of lust, guilt, and decay, surrounded by what one might call “fallen bodies.” The number 32 is also, of course, 16 times two.