The Waste Land

I. THE BURIAL OF THE DEAD APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding The first line of The Waste Land alludes to the General Prologue of Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, which opens with a "description of Spring characteristic of dream visions of secular love" (Harvard). Chaucer's poem begins, in modern English, as follows: When April with its sweet-smelling showers THas pierced the drought of March to the root, And bathed every vein (of the plants) in such liquid By which power the flower is created; When the West Wind also with its sweet breath In every wood and field has breathed life into The tender new leaves, and the young sun Has run half its course in Aries, And small fowls make melody, Those that sleep all the night with open eyes (So Nature incites them in their hearts), Then folk long to go on pilgrimages, And professional pilgrims to seek foreign shores, To distant shrines, known in various lands.... (General Prologue, 1-14) You might consider how Eliot's version compares to this source text. Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing Memory and desire, stirring Dull roots with spring rain. Winter kept us warm, covering Earth in forgetful snow, feeding A little life with dried tubers. Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade, And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten, And drank coffee, and talked for an hour. Bin gar keine Russin, stamm’ aus Litauen, echt deutsch. In this passage, the female speaker's statement, "I am not Russian at all; I come from Lithuania, really German," introduces the theme of fragmentation and displacement that permeates the poem. The speaker's identity is shaped by multiple cultural influences, resulting in a fragmented sense of self. She does not fully identify as Russian, Lithuanian, or German, but as a hybrid of all three. This complex identity further highlights the themes of displacement and cultural conflict throughout the work. And when we were children, staying at the archduke’s, My cousin’s, he took me out on a sled, And I was frightened. He said, Marie, Marie, hold on tight. And down he went. In the mountains, there you feel free. I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter. What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man, You cannot say, or guess, for you know only A heap of broken images, where the sun beats, And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief, And the dry stone no sound of water. Only There is shadow under this red rock, (Come in under the shadow of this red rock), And I will show you something different from either Your shadow at morning striding behind you Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you; I will show you fear in a handful of dust. Frisch weht der Wind Der-Heimat zu Mein Irisch Kind, Wo weilest du? These lines are quoted from Richard Wagner's Tristan und Isolde (1865), a German opera based on a 12th century chivalric tragic poem Tristan and Iseult. There are multiple different versions of the story, but at root, it is a Celtic legend about tragic love; the knight Tristan has been tasked with accompanying the Irish maiden Iseult to be married to his uncle, the King of Cornwall. On the way, Tristan and Iseult fall deeply in love, which causes many tempestuous problems. The story became very popular in the ninteenth and early twentieth centuries, especially among the Pre-Raphaelites, a group of artists and writers influenced by Romanticism who sought inspiration in Italian Renaissance art and medieval courtly themes. The image included here, by the Pre-Raphaelite painter John William Waterhouse, is Tristan and Isolde with the Potion (1916), via Wikimedia Commons. Tristan and Iseult are on the ship heading for Cornwall and Iseult's marriage; they are drinking a love potion. The lines are from the first act of Tristan und Isolde, and are sung by an anonymous sailor about his lover, left behind in Ireland. Translated, the lines read "Fresh blows the wind / homeward: / my Irish maid, / where do you linger?" A later line (42, below) from the same opera, "Empty and desolate is the sea," sandwiches Eliot's description of the first meeting between the "hyacinth girl" (36) and her lover, who remembers being struck by her and feeling "neither / Living nor dead" (39-40). ( “You gave me hyacinths first a year ago; “They called me the hyacinth girl." —Yet when we came back, late, from the Hyacinth garden, Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither Living nor dead, and I knew nothing, Looking into the heart of light, the silence. Oed’ und leer das Meer. Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyante, This noun comes from the word "clairvoyance", which in the French means clear-sighted. A clairvoyant is what we would now call a psychic, someone who can see things that are not physically there. Madame Sosostris is a fortune teller who has a reputation as "the wisest woman in Europe." The -e is added to the word clairvoyant to make it feminine in the French (OED). Had a bad cold, nevertheless Is known to be the wisest woman in Europe, With a wicked pack of cards A character in Eliot's poem visits a famous fortune teller, and the following lines describe the tarot cards she received at a reading. According to Elizabeth DeBold of the Folger Shakespeare Library, tarot originated in 14th-century Egypt, and traveled to Europe during the Renaissance.. Here, said she, Is your card, the drowned Phoenician Sailor, (Those are pearls that were his eyes. Look!) Here is Belladonna, the Lady of the Rocks, The lady of situations. Here is the man with three staves, and here the Wheel, And here is the one-eyed merchant, and this card, Which is blank, is something he carries on his back, Which I am forbidden to see. I do not find The Hanged Man. Fear death by water. Water is a prevalent motif throughout The Waste Land. Water is often associated with regeneration/rebirth, but here and elsewhere, it is associated with death. I see crowds of people, walking round in a ring. Thank you. If you see dear Mrs. Equitone, Tell her I bring the horoscope myself: One must be so careful these days. Unreal City, Under the brown fog of a winter dawn, A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many, I had not thought death had undone so many. Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled, And each man fixed his eyes before his feet. Flowed up the hill and down King William Street, To where Saint Mary Woolnoth Saint Mary Woolnoth is an Anglican church in London, first built in the 12th century, then rebuilt on several occasions. The photograph included here, from about 1900, originally from the Library of Congress, shows the church in its modern form, designed by Nicholas Hawksmoore and opened in 1727. This is likely very close to what Eliot would have seen. It is possible that the site had been a place of worship for 2000 years (Wikipedia). kept the hours With a dead sound on the final stroke of nine. There I saw one I knew, and stopped him, crying: “Stetson! “You who were with me in the ships at Mylae The Battle of Mylae, a naval battle won in 260BCE by Roman naval forces.! “That corpse you planted last year in your garden, “Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year? “Or has the sudden frost disturbed its bed? “O keep the Dog far hence, that’s friend to men, “Or with his nails he’ll dig it up again! “ You! hypocrite lecteur!—mon semblable,—mon frère! This is an allusion to the last line of Charles Baudelaire's introductory poem "Au Lecteur [To the Reader]" from his collection Fleurs du mal [Flowers of Evil (1857-1868). The line reads, "Hypocritical reader, --my twin, --my brother!" You can read Baudelaire's poems online. "

II. A GAME OF CHESS The Chair she sat in, like a burnished throne, Glowed on the marble, where the glass Held up by standards wrought with fruited vines From which a golden Cupidon peeped out The scene described by the speaker features banners adorned with fruit-bearing vines and a standard depicting a golden "Cupidon," an alternate name for the Roman god of love, Cupid. The use of Cupidon in this context evokes themes of desire, fertility, and the pursuit of romantic love. The image of Cupidon peeking out from behind the banner may also imply a sense of voyeurism or hidden desire, contributing to an undercurrent of sexual tension in the scene. This lush, sensual imagery is suggestive of the speaker's heightened sensibility, and highlights the poem's themes of passion and desire. The image included here, via Wikipedia, shows a Roman copy of an original Greek sculpture of Eros Stringing His Bow. (Another hid his eyes behind his wing) Doubled the flames of sevenbranched candelabra Reflecting light upon the table as The glitter of her jewels rose to meet it, From satin cases poured in rich profusion. In vials of ivory and coloured glass Unstoppered, lurked her strange synthetic perfumes, Unguent, powdered, or liquid—troubled, confused And drowned the sense in odours; stirred by the air That freshened from the window, these ascended In fattening the prolonged candle-flames, Flung their smoke into the laquearia, Stirring the pattern on the coffered ceiling. Huge sea-wood fed with copper Burned green and orange, framed by the coloured stone, In which sad light a carvèd dolphin swam. Above the antique mantel was displayed As though a window gave upon the sylvan scene The change of Philomel An allusion to the ancient Greek story of Philomela, which was recounted in Ovid's Metamorphoses 6.412-674. In the story, Tereus, King of Thrace, marries the Athenian Procne. Procne asks her husband to bring her sister, Philomela, to visit her in Thrace. Tereus rapes Philomela, and to keep her from telling her sister of the assault, he cuts out her tongue. Philomela communicates her story to Procne by weaving a tapestry showing the events. The two sisters avenge the abuse by killing Itys, Procne and Tereus' son, and baking him into a pie which Tereus eats. The women flee, pursued by Tereus; the gods transform the three into birds--Philomela becomes the sweet-singing nightingale. , by the barbarous king So rudely forced; yet there the nightingale Filled all the desert with inviolable voice And still she cried, and still the world pursues, “Jug Jug" to dirty ears. And other withered stumps of time Were told upon the walls; staring forms Leaned out, leaning, hushing the room enclosed. Footsteps shuffled on the stair. Under the firelight, under the brush, her hair Spread out in fiery points Glowed into words, then would be savagely still. “My nerves are bad to-night. Yes, bad. Stay with me. “Speak to me. Why do you never speak. Speak. “What are you thinking of? What thinking? What? “I never know what you are thinking. Think." I think we are in rats’ alley Where the dead men lost their bones. “What is that noise?" The wind under the door. “What is that noise now? What is the wind doing?" Nothing again nothing. “Do “You know nothing? Do you see nothing? Do you remember “Nothing?" I remember Those are pearls that were his eyes. Throughout The Waste Land, Eliot refers to Shakespeare's The Tempest . This is an allusion to I.ii.394-398, when Ariel sings about a drowned man undergoing "a sea-change / Into something rich and strange." The words suggest the fate of Ferdinand's father, whom he believes lost at sea. “Are you alive, or not? Is there nothing in your head?" But O O O O that Shakespeherian Rag— Though Eliot has made changes to the language, That Shakespearian Rag is a ragtime tune from 1912 (Parker, "Songs in T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land"). Ragtime was a projenitor of jazz, the rhythms of which influenced Eliot's style. It’s so elegant So intelligent “What shall I do now? What shall I do?" I shall rush out as I am, and walk the street “With my hair down, so. What shall we do tomorrow? “What shall we ever do?" The hot w[a]ter at ten. And if it rains, a closed car at four. And we shall play a game of chess, Pressing lidless eyes and waiting for a knock upon the door. When Lil’s husband got demobbed Colloquial British expression for "demobilized," specifically, released from military service. Lil's husband likely served in World War I (1914-1918)., I said— I didn’t mince my words, I said to her myself, HURRY UP PLEASE IT’S TIME The barkeep is informing the patrons of closing time. Now Albert’s coming back, make yourself a bit smart. He’ll want to know what you done with that money he gave you To get yourself some teeth. He did, I was there. You have them all out, Lil, and get a nice set, He said, I swear, I can’t bear to look at you. And no more can’t I, I said, and think of poor Albert, He’s been in the army four years, he wants a good time, And if you don’t give it him, there’s others will, I said. Oh is there, she said. Something o’ that, I said. Then I’ll know who to thank, she said, and give me a straight look. HURRY UP PLEASE IT’S TIME If you don’t like it you can get on with it, I said. Others can pick and choose if you can’t. But if Albert makes off, it won’t be for lack of telling. You ought to be ashamed, I said, to look so antique. (And her only thirty-one.) I can’t help it, she said, pulling a long face, It’s them pills The speaker is referring to medication that induces abortion. I took, to bring it off, she said. (She’s had five already, and nearly died of young George.) The chemist said it would be all right, but I’ve never been the same. You are a proper fool, I said. Well, if Albert won’t leave you alone, there it is, I said, What you get married for if you don’t want children? HURRY UP PLEASE IT’S TIME Well, that Sunday Albert was home, they had a hot gammon, And they asked me in to dinner, to get the beauty of it hot— HURRY UP PLEASE IT’S TIME HURRY UP PLEASE IT’S TIME Goonight Bill. Goonight Lou. Goonight May. Goonight. Ta ta. Goonight. Goonight. Good night, ladies, good night, sweet ladies, good night, good night.

III. THE FIRE SERMON THE river’s tent is broken: the last fingers of leaf Clutch and sink into the wet bank. The wind Crosses the brown land, unheard. The nymphs are departed. Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song. The river bears no empty bottles, sandwich papers, Silk handkerchiefs, cardboard boxes, cigarette ends Or other testimony of summer nights. The nymphs are departed. And their friends, the loitering heirs of city directors; Departed, have left no addresses. By the waters of Leman I sat down and wept . . . Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my song, An allusion to Edmund Spenser's poem "Prothalamion" (1596), which celebrates the marriage of two "nymphs." Nymphs are female water spirits of classical myth, but the word also suggests young women in general. A prothalamion is a type of poem that celebrates a coming marriage. Sweet Thames, run softly, for I speak not loud or long. But at my back in a cold blast I hear The rattle of the bones, and chuckle spread from ear to ear. A rat crept softly through the vegetation Dragging its slimy belly on the bank While I was fishing in the dull canal On a winter evening round behind the gashouse Musing upon the king my brother’s wreck And on the king my father’s death before him. White bodies naked on the low damp ground And bones cast in a little low dry garret, Rattled by the rat’s foot only, year to year. But at my back from time to time I hear The sound of horns and motors, which shall bring Sweeney to Mrs. Porter in the spring. O the moon shone bright on Mrs. Porter And on her daughter They wash their feet in soda water Et O ces voix d’enfants, chantant dans la coupole! In this line, the speaker directly alludes to the last line of the French poet Paul Verlaine’s sonnet "Parsifal": "And, O those children's voices singing in the dome!" The sonnet is a meditation on art and the power of music; it reflects the poet's response to hearing Richard Wagner's opera Parsifal , which is a major intertext to Eliot's poem. The use of this allusion adds an extra layer of meaning to the poem. The inclusion of French in the midst of an English poem could also suggest a sense of cultural dislocation or separation. Additionally, the image of children's voices singing in a dome may represent a symbol of purity and innocence that contrasts with the themes of corruption and decay present elsewhere in the poem. To learn more about Verlaine, see the Poetry Foundation. To learn more about Wagner's role in "The Waste Land," see this scholarly essay by Philip Waldron, "The Music of Poetry: Wagner in The Waste Land.". You can read Verlaine's poem in the original French and in English translation here. Twit twit twit Jug jug jug jug jug jug So rudely forc’d. Tereu Unreal City Under the brown fog of a winter noon Mr. Eugenides, the Smyrna merchant Unshaven, with a pocket full of currants C.i.f. London: documents at sight, Asked me in demotic French To luncheon at the Cannon Street Hotel Followed by a weekend at the Metropole. At the violet hour, when the eyes and back Turn upward from the desk, when the human engine waits Like a taxi throbbing waiting, I Tiresias In Greek mythology, Tiresias is a blind prophet who also lived as both a man and a woman. He was instrumental in the action of Sophocles' Oedipus plays, and he also appeared in Homer's Odyssey., though blind, throbbing between two lives, Old man with wrinkled female breasts, can see At the violet hour, the evening hour that strives Homeward, and brings the sailor home from sea, The typist home at teatime, clears her breakfast, lights Her stove, and lays out food in tins. Out of the window perilously spread Her drying combinations touched by the sun’s last rays, On the divan are piled (at night her bed) Stockings, slippers, camisoles, and stays. I Tiresias, old man with wrinkled dugs Perceived the scene, and foretold the rest— I too awaited the expected guest. He, the young man carbuncular, arrives, Used here as an adjective, "carbuncular" comes from the word "carbuncle," which is an lesion on the skin that is irritated and filled with pus, and overall is unpleasant to look at (OED n3). A small house agent’s clerk, with one bold stare, One of the low on whom assurance sits As a silk hat on a Bradford millionaire. The time is now propitious, as he guesses, The meal is ended, she is bored and tired, Endeavours to engage her in caresses Which still are unreproved, if undesired. Flushed and decided, he assaults at once; Exploring hands encounter no defence; His vanity requires no response, And makes a welcome of indifference. (And I Tiresias have foresuffered all Enacted on this same divan or bed; I who have sat by Thebes below the wall And walked among the lowest of the dead.) Bestows one final patronising kiss, And gropes his way, finding the stairs unlit . . . She turns and looks a moment in the glass, Hardly aware of her departed lover; Her brain allows one half-formed thought to pass: “Well now that’s done: and I’m glad it’s over." When lovely woman stoops to folly and Paces about her room again, alone, She smooths her hair with automatic hand, And puts a record on the gramophone. “This music crept by me upon the waters" And along the Strand, up Queen Victoria Street. O City city, I can sometimes hear Beside a public bar in Lower Thames Street, The pleasant whining of a mandoline And a clatter and a chatter from within Where fishmen lounge at noon: where the walls Of Magnus Martyr hold Inexplicable splendour of Ionian white and gold. The river sweats Oil and tar The barges drift With the turning tide Red sails Wide To leeward, swing on the heavy spar. The barges wash Drifting logs Down Greenwich reach Past the Isle of Dogs. Weialala leia Wallala leialala Elizabeth and Leicester Beating oars The stern was formed A gilded shell Red and gold The brisk swell Rippled both shores Southwest wind Carried down stream The peal of bells White towers Weialala leia Wallala leialala “Trams and dusty trees. Highbury bore me. Richmond and Kew Undid me. By Richmond I raised my knees Supine on the floor of a narrow canoe." “My feet are at Moorgate, and my heart Dating back to the Medieval period, Moorgate was the last of the old gates to be built in the Roman defense wall that surrounded the fort of Londinium, now London. The original Roman walls were built 100-400 CE, but Moorgate was originally a secondary gate that was expanded in 1415. It led to the marshy Moorfields area in the north of London. It was demolished in 1762. To learn more about the London Wall, see Wikipedia. The image here, also via Wikipedia, shows an 18th-century engraving depicting Moorgate before it was demolished. Under my feet. After the event He wept. He promised ‘a new start’. I made no comment. What should I resent?" “On Margate Sands. I can connect Nothing with nothing. The broken fingernails of dirty hands. My people humble people who expect Nothing." la la To Carthage then I came This is a reference to the ancient city of Carthage, which was located in what is now Tunisia. Carthage was a major center of trade and civilization in the ancient Mediterranean world, but it was destroyed by the Romans in the Punic Wars in the 2nd century BCE. The use of Carthage in the poem may suggest themes of destruction, decay, and the decline of civilization. The city of Carthage has been interpreted as a symbol of the failure and fall of human civilizations, which can serve as a warning for modern society. The image included in this annotation, via Wikimedia Commons, shows a representation of the ancient city from the Carthage National Museum in Tunisia. Burning burning burning burning O Lord Thou pluckest me out O Lord Thou pluckest burning

IV. DEATH BY WATER PHLEBAS the Phoenician, a fortnight dead, Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep sea swell And the profit and loss. A current under sea Picked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell He passed the stages of his age and youth Entering the whirlpool. Gentile or Jew O you who turn the wheel and look to windward, Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you.

V. WHAT THE THUNDER SAID AFTER the torchlight red on sweaty faces After the frosty silence in the gardens After the agony in stony places The shouting and the crying Prison and palace and reverberation Of thunder of spring over distant mountains He who was living is now dead We who were living are now dying With a little patience Here is no water but only rock Rock and no water and the sandy road The road winding above among the mountains Which are mountains of rock without water If there were water we should stop and drink Amongst the rock one cannot stop or think Sweat is dry and feet are in the sand If there were only water amongst the rock Dead mountain mouth of carious teeth that cannot spit Here one can neither stand nor lie nor sit There is not even silence in the mountains But dry sterile thunder without rain There is not even solitude in the mountains But red sullen faces sneer and snarl From doors of mudcracked houses If there were water And no rock If there were rock And also water And water A spring A pool among the rock If there were the sound of water only Not the cicada And dry grass singing But sound of water over a rock Where the hermit-thrush sings in the pine trees Drip drop drip drop drop drop drop But there is no water Who is the third who walks always beside you? When I count, there are only you and I together But when I look ahead up the white road There is always another one walking beside you Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded I do not know whether a man or a woman —But who is that on the other side of you? What is that sound high in the air Murmur of maternal lamentation Who are those hooded hordes swarming Over endless plains, stumbling in cracked earth Ringed by the flat horizon only What is the city over the mountains Cracks and reforms and bursts in the violet air Falling towers Jerusalem Athens Alexandria Vienna London Unreal A woman drew her long black hair out tight And fiddled whisper music on those strings And bats with baby faces in the violet light Whistled, and beat their wings And crawled head downward down a blackened wall And upside down in air were towers Tolling reminiscent bells, that kept the hours And voices singing out of empty cisterns and exhausted wells. In this decayed hole among the mountains In the faint moonlight, the grass is singing Over the tumbled graves, about the chapel There is the empty chapel, only the wind’s home. It has no windows, and the door swings, Dry bones can harm no one. Only a cock stood on the rooftree Co co rico co co rico In a flash of lightning. Then a damp gust Bringing rain Ganga was sunken, and the limp leaves Waited for rain, while the black clouds Gathered far distant, over Himavant. The jungle crouched, humped in silence. Then spoke the thunder DA Datta: what have we given? My friend, blood shaking my heart The awful daring of a moment’s surrender Which an age of prudence can never retract By this, and this only, we have existed Which is not to be found in our obituaries Or in memories draped by the beneficent spider Or under seals broken by the lean solicitor In our empty rooms DA Dayadhvam: I have heard the key Turn in the door once and turn once only We think of the key, each in his prison Thinking of the key, each confirms a prison Only at nightfall, aetherial rumours Revive for a moment a broken Coriolanus DA Damyata: The boat responded Gaily, to the hand expert with sail and oar The sea was calm, your heart would have responded Gaily, when invited, beating obedient To controlling hands I sat upon the shore Fishing, with the arid plain behind me Shall I at least set my lands in order? London Bridge is falling down falling down falling down Poi s’ascose nel foco che gli affina Quando fiam ceu chelidon — O swallow swallow Le Prince d’Aquitaine à la tour abolie These fragments I have shored against my ruins Why then Ile fit you. Hieronymo’s mad againe. Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata. Shantih shantih shantih