VIII.A.2.

The manuscript is a pocket-sized exercise notebook with blue paper covers and a white paper label with scalloped edges pasted on the front cover recto. It consists of 18 leaves (36 pages) of ruled paper, with blue printed horizontal and vertical lines; the sheets are stapled twice in the center and folded in half vertically to form the notebook. The pages are watermarked with an image of a fish. Only pp. [1r]–[2r] pages are inscribed in Joyce’s and an unidentified hand in black ink; the remaining 34 pages are blank. The notebook is similar to Buffalo MSS VIII.A.1 and A.4, both of which Joyce used in Zurich from 1915 to 1918.

The manuscript measures 21.6 x 17.4 cm.

The pages are not numbered.

All of the contents are in modern Greek and, according to Spielberg (162), p. [1r] contains the principal parts of 11 verbs, conjugation of "to see"; p. [1v] contains a 4-line stanza concerning a pun on a Greek name, the beginning of the Greek Orthodox liturgy and a Greek-English vocabulary, which is continued on p. [2r]. See Owen, pp. 96–104.

The contents do not provide clear evidence of the date of its compilation but Joyce probably used this notebook in 1916–1917, probably after MS VIII.A.4.

There is a stationer’s mark "25" (possibly the price) in the lower right corner of the label on the front cover recto in lead pencil.

This manuscript has been reproduced in black and white photo-facsimile on JJA 3.336–339.

There are black ink stains on p. [1r] and the inside front cover.