Endnotes
Prufrock and Other Observations
DEDICATION
1 (p. 5)
Jean Verdenal, 1889-1915
mort aux Dardanelles: Verdenal was a friend of Eliot’s from Paris, and the first person he knew who was killed in World War I (‘died at Dardanelles’).
2 (p. 5) Or puoi quantitante ... come cosa salda: The quotation is from Dante’s
Purgatorio, 21.132-135: ‘Now you can understand the quantity of love that warms me toward you, so that I forget our vanity, and treat the shades as the solid thing.’
‘THE LOVE SONG OF J. ALFRED PRUFROCK’
1 (p. 9) S’io credessi ... ti rispondo: The quotation is from Dante’s
Inferno, 27.61-66. Dante asks one of the damned souls for its name, and the reply is: ‘If I thought my answer were for one who might return to the world, this flame would remain without further movement. But as none ever return alive from this depth, if what I hear is true, I may answer you without fear of infamy.’ The soul is, of course, mistaken that none return from Hell: Dante himself will do so.
2 (p. 9)
In the room the women come and go / Talking of Michelangelo: The reference is to the great Italian Renaissance sculptor and painter (1475-1564); implicitly, the speaker suggests that the women have no business talking of him or are unlikely to say anything profound.
3 (p. 10)
And indeed there will be time: Eliot’s repetition of ‘time’ in this passage echoes both Andrew Marvell’s poem ‘To His Coy Mistress’ (‘Had we but world enough, and time ...’) and the Bible (Ecclesiastes 3:1-8: ‘To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die ...’ [King James Version; henceforth, KJV]).
4 (p. 10)
works and days: Greek writer Hesiod (eighth century B.C.) wrote
Works and Days, a poem that offers maxims and practical instruction to farmers.
5 (p. 10)
a dying fall: Eliot here echoes a phrase from Shakespeare’s
Twelfth Night (act 1, scene 1): ‘If music be the food of love, play on; / Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting, / The appetite may sicken, and so die. / That strain again! it had a dying fall.’
6 (p. 12)
my head... brought in upon a platter: Matthew 14:3-11 describes how Salomé danced for Herod and was rewarded with the head of the prophet John the Baptist, brought in upon a platter.
7 (p. 12)
into a ball: Compare Marvell’s To His Coy Mistress‘: ‘Let us roll all our strength and all / Our sweetness up into one ball’ to send against the ‘iron gates of life.’
8 (p. 12)
I am Lazarus, come from the dead: In the Bible, John 11:1-44 tells of how Lazarus was raised from the dead.
9 (p. 12)
magic lantern: This type of slide projector dates back to the seventeenth century; images were painted onto glass and projected on a wall by the light of a candle.
10 (p. 13)
Prince Hamlet: For Eliot’s idiosyncratic appraisal of Shakespeare’s tragic hero, in which he judges the entire play to be an artistic failure, see his 1919 essay ‘Hamlet and His Problems’ (see ‘For Further Reading’).
11 (p. 13)
the Fool: A stock figure in Elizabethan drama, the Fool often spoke nonsense but sometimes conveyed subtle, indirect insights.
12 (p. 13)
I have heard the mermaids singing: The line echoes seventeenth-century poet John Donne’s ‘Song’: ‘Teach me to heare Mermaides singing.’
‘PORTRAIT OF A LADY’
1 (p. 14) Thou hast committed—... THE JEW OF MALTA: In this dialogue from the play (act 4, scene 1) by Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593), a Friar accuses Barabas, the title character, who interrupts and completes the statement with his own words.
2 (p. 14)
Juliet’s tomb: In Shakespeare’s
Romeo and Juliet, Juliet’s tomb is the site of Romeo’s tragically mistaken surmise that Juliet is dead, precipitating his own suicide.
3 (p. 14)
Preludes: Polish composer Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849) wrote piano pieces called preludes.
4 (p. 14)
velleities: This seventeenth-century word signifies desires, without any action to bring them to reality.
5 (p. 15) cauchemar: The word is French for ‘nightmare.’
6 (p. 15)
ariettes: Lively light tunes.
7 (p. 15)
bocks: Bock is a type of dark, strong German beer.
8 (p. 17)
friends: This dialogue is evocative of a scene in Henry James’s novel
The Ambassadors (1903): Madame de Vionnet’s parting words to Strether are ‘we might, you and I, have been friends.’ The poem’s title evokes James’s
The Portrait of a Lady (1881).
9 (p. 18)
a ‘dying fall’: As in ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’ (see note 5 to that poem), this phrase evokes a line from Shakespeare’s
Twelfth Night (act 1, scene 1).
‘RHAPSODY ON A WINDY NIGHT’
1 (p. 21)
a lunar synthesis: This and many other images in the poem—the geranium, the disembodied eyes—evoke the style of French Symbolist poet Jules Laforgue ( 1860-1887).
2 (p. 21)
Dissolve the floors of memory: This concept, explained by Henri Bergson (1859-1941), a philosopher at the Sorbonne with whom Eliot studied, involves the free flow of images into the memory, where they combine. All references to memory in this poem are influenced by Bergsonian philosophy.
3 (p. 21)
‘Regard that woman...’: For this figure, and much of the poem’s late-night seedy atmosphere, Eliot is indebted to Charles-Louis Philippe’s 1901 novel
Bubu de Montparnasse, about a young prostitute.
‘THE BOSTON EVENING TRANSCRIPT’
1 (p. 25)
La Rochefoucauld: French author François La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680) is best known for his
maximes, epigrams expressing a harsh or paradoxical truth in the briefest manner possible.
‘COUSIN NANCY’
1 (p. 27)
Matthew and Waldo: Eliot perhaps intends Matthew Arnold (1822-1888) and Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) as competing British and American emblems of Victorian propriety.
‘MR.APOLLINAX’
1 (p. 28) Ω Γnζ
Kαivóητoζ. ‘Hpakλεiζ τnς
παρδoξoλoeíαζ.
εvµnχανo avθρωπ
oς...
LUCIAN: From the second-century Greek historian’s ‘Zeuxis or Antiochus’: ‘What an ingenious fellow!’
2 (p. 28)
Mr. Apollinax : The poem’s title character is a caricature of Bertrand Russell (1872-1970), the Harvard philosopher and mathematician with whom Eliot studied.
3 (p. 18)
Priapus: This Roman fertility god was mainly known for his huge phallus. All the other characters named in this poem are Eliot’s inventions.
‘CONVERSATION GALANTE’
1 (p. 31)
Prester John’s: Prester (Priest) John was a legendary Christian king of the east.
‘LA FIGLIA CHE PIANGE’
1 (p. 32) La Figlia che Piange: The title is Italian for ‘The Weeping Girl.’
2 (p. 32) O quam te memorem virgo ...: The epigraph is a quotation from Virgil’s
Aeneid 1.327: ‘0 maiden, by what name shall I know you?’ Eliot’s poem was inspired by a scene on a stele (a sculptured or inscribed stone slab used as a monument) that Eliot had been told to see on a trip to Italy but was unable to find.
Poems 1920
‘GERONTION’
1 (p. 37)
Gerontion: The word is Greek for ‘little old man.’
2 (p. 37)
Thou hast ... of both: The lines are slightly misquoted from Shakespeare’s
Measure for Measure (act 3, scene 1).
3 (p. 37)
estaminet: Café.
4 (p. 37) ‘We
would see a sign!’: In the Bible (Matthew 12:38-39), the Pharisees called upon Christ to demonstrate his divinity by performing a miracle. Eliot’s source is a 1618 Nativity Sermon by Bishop Lancelot Andrewes.
5 (p. 37) judas: This tree—named after Judas Iscariot, the apostle who betrayed Jesus—is reputed to be the type of tree from which he hanged himself.
6 (p. 38) Limoges: This French city is renowned for its China.
7 (p. 38)
Fräulein von Kulp : This and the other proper names in this passage (excepting Titian, an Italian Renaissance painter, c.1485-1576) are characters Eliot invented; their names are meant to suggest dubious foreigners who are perhaps participating in some sort of seance.
8 (p. 38)
contrived corridors: Perhaps Eliot means to evoke the Polish Corridor, a piece of land taken from Germany and given to Poland under the Treaty of Versailles (1919) that followed the end of World War I. Eliot would probably concur with the judgment of many historians that the treaty carved up Europe in a way which was politically and culturally unstable, and that it effected only a temporary peace which led to the resumption of European conflict in World War II.
9 (p. 38)
weak hands: The phrase echoes Percy Bysshe Shelley’s
Adonais (stanza 27).
10 (p. 38)
the wrath-bearing tree: Perhaps Eliot is referring to the tree of knowledge of good and evil in the Garden of Eden.
11 (p. 39) De
Bailhache, Fresca, Mrs.
Cammel: Again, these are fictitious figures.
12 (p. 39) Bear: Eliot is referring to the constellation Ursa Major (also known as the Big Dipper).
13 (p. 39)
the windy straits / Of Belle Isle: The Strait of Belle Isle is a passage in eastern Canada, between Newfoundland and Labrador, that connects the Atlantic Ocean with the Gulf of St. Lawrence; the cold Labrador Current flows through the strait.
14 (p. 39) the Horn: Cape Horn is a rocky headland off the southern tip of South America.
15 (p. 39)
the Trades: That is, the trade winds, steady westward winds that blow toward the equator.
‘BURBANK WITH ABAEDEKER: BLElSTElN WITH A CIGAR’
1 (p. 40)
Burbank with a Baedeker: Bleistein with a Cigar: A Baedeker is a tourist guidebook. Burbank and Bleistein are made-up American characters.
2 (p. 40) Tra-la-la-la-la-la-laire ... and so departed: The epigraph contains fragments from six texts connected with Venice, by Théophile Gautier, Mantegna, Henry James
(The Aspern Papers), Shakespeare
(Othello), Robert Browning (‘A Toccata of Galuppi’s’), and John Marston.
3 (p. 40)
Princess Volupine: Princess Volupine and, near the end of the poem, Sir Ferdinand Klein are Eliot’s inventions.
4 (p. 40)
They were together, and he fell: Echoes a line from ‘The Sisters,’ by Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809-1892).
5 (p. 40)
the God Hercules: This mythical hero (Hercules to the Romans, Heracles to the Greeks) possessed fabulous strength; he performed twelve monumental tasks (‘the labors of Hercules’) that earned him immortality and the status of a god.
6 (p. 40) Istria: City near Venice, in present-day Croatia.
7 (p. 40)
Canaletto: Giovanni Antonio Canale (1697-1768), known by the nickname Canaletto, painted many views of the Venetian canals.
8 (p. 40)
Rialto: This ancient district of Venice is the city’s commercial center.
9 (p. 41)
lion’s wings: A winged lion is the emblem of Saint Mark, patron saint of Venice.
‘SWEENEY ERECT’
1 (p. 42) And the trees ... wenches!: The quotation is from
The Maides Tragedy (c.1611; act 2, scene 2), by Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher.
2 (p. 42)
Cyclades: This group of Greek islands is in the Aegean Sea.
3 (p. 42)
Aeolus: Greek god of the winds.
4 (p. 42)
Ariadne: In Greek myth, daughter of King Minos of Crete; in love with the hero Theseus, she helped him find his way in and out of the labyrinth.
5 (p. 42)
Nausicaa: In Greek myth, this king’s daughter discovered Odysseus when he was shipwrecked and cast up upon the shore.
6 (p. 42)
Polypheme: In Greek myth, he was the leader of the Cyclopes, a race of one-eyed giants.
7 (p. 43)
Emerson: Eliot paraphrases Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essay ‘Self-Reliance’ (1841): ‘an institution is the lengthened shadow of one man.
‘ACOOKING EGG’
1 (p. 44) A
Cooking Egg: An egg too stale to be eaten plain, but usable in a recipe.
2 (p. 44) En l’an trentiesme ... j‘ay beues ... : The lines are by French lyric poet François Villon (1431-after 1463): ‘In my thirtieth year, when I drank up all my shame ...’
3 (p. 44) Invitation to the Dance: Sheet music for a nineteenth-century song.
4 (p. 44)
Sir Philip Sidney: English poet and statesman (1554-1586) of the Elizabethan era.
5 (p. 44)
Coriolanus: Hero of Shakespeare’s play of that name—a Roman general.
6 (p. 44)
Sir Alfred Mond: Mond (1868-1930) was a wealthy British industrialist ; his Jewish heritage prompts a stereotypical slur here.
7 (p. 44)
Lucretia Borgia: Borgia ( 1480-1519), duchess of Ferrara, was intimate with many noble Italian families.
8 (p. 44)
Madame Blavatsky: Russian-born Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1831-1891) was a spiritualist who in 1875 organized the Theosophical Society.
9 (p. 44)
Seven Sacred Trances: Part of the secret doctrines of Theosophy.
10 (p. 44)
Piccarda de Donati: Figure from canto 3 of Dante’s
Paradiso: a nun who broke her vows.
11 (p. 45)
penny world: A bakery sweet treat.
12 (p. 45)
Kentish Town and Golder’s Green: Northern suburbs of London.
13 (p. 45) A.B.C.’s: The Aerated Bread Company, a chain of English tea shops.
‘LE DIRECTEUR’
1 (p. 46)
Le Directeur: French for ‘The Director.’ English translation by Annie Sokolov-Uris and Robert G. Uris:
Woe unto the woeful Thames
Which runs so close to the Spectator.
The director
Conservative
Of the Spectator
Infects the breeze.
The stockholders
Reactionaries
Of the Spectator
Conservative
Arm in arm
Playing tricks
With slinking steps.
In a gutter
A little girl
In rags
Grimly
Looks at
The director
Of the Spectator
Conservative
And dies of love.
2 (p. 46) Spectateur: The Spectator, a highbrow London weekly magazine.
‘MELANGE ADULTÈRE DE TOUT’
1 (p. 47)
Mélange adultère de tout: French for ‘Adulterous Mixture of Everything.’ English translation by Annie Sokolov-Uris and Robert G. Uris:
In America, professor;
In England, journalist;
It is with big steps and in a sweat
That you barely follow my tracks.
In Yorkshire, lecturer;
In London, a little bit of a banker,
You will pay me well by the head.
It is in Paris that I get my hairdo
Black helmet of a carefree person.
In Germany, philosopher
Over-excited by Emporheben
With the grand air of Bergsteigleben;
I always wander from here to there
With some tra là là
From Damascus to Omaha.
I will celebrate my saint’s day
In an African oasis
Clothed in a giraffe’s skin.
One will show my cenotaph
On the burning coast of Mozambique.
‘LUNE DE MIEL’
1 (p. 48)
Lune de miel: French for ‘Honeymoon.’ English translation by Annie Sokolov-Uris and Robert G. Uris:
They saw the Low Countries, they returned to Terre Haute;
But one summer night, here they are in Ravenna,
At ease between two sheets, in the home of two hundred
bedbugs.
The summer sweat, and a strong odor of bitch.
They stay on their backs their knees spread
From four flabby legs completely swollen from bites.
One lifts the sheet to scratch better.
Less than a league from here is Saint Apollinaire
In class, a basilica known by lovers
Of acanthus columns with winds swirling around.
They are going to take the eight o‘clock train
To prolong their misery from Padua to Milan
Where one finds The Last Supper, and a cheap restaurant.
He thinks about tips, and draws up his balance sheet.
They will have seen Switzerland and crossed France.
And Saint Apollinaire, stiff and ascetic,
Old deconsecrated factory, still holding
In its crumbling stones the precise form of Byzantium.
‘THE HIPPOPOTAMUS’
1 (p. 49)
The Hippopotamus: A parody of ‘L’Hippopotame,’ by Théophile Gautier (1811-1872).
2 (p. 49) Similiter et omnes ... S.
IGNATII AD TRALLIANOS: In like manner let all men respect the deacons as Jesus Christ, even as they should respect the bishop as being a type of the Father and the presbyters as the council of God and as the college of Apostles. Apart from these there is not even the name of a church. And I am persuaded that ye are so minded as touching these matters. Saint Ignatius to the Trallians.
3 (p. 49) And when this epistle ... church of the Laodiceans: From the Bible, St. Paul’s epistle to the Colossians 4:16.
4 (p. 49)
based upon a rock: In the Bible (Matthew 16:18), Christ says, ‘Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church’ (KJV).
5 (p. 50)
quiring: Choiring.
‘DANS LE RESTAURANT’
1 (p. 51 )
Dans le Restaurant: French for ‘In the Restaurant.’ English translation by Annie Sokolov-Uris and Robert G. Uris:
The dilapidated waiter who has nothing to do
But to scratch his fingers and lean on my shoulder:
‘In my country the weather will be rainy,
Some wind, some strong sun and some rain;
It is what one calls the tramp’s laundry day.’
(Chatterbox, drooling, with a rounded rump,
I beg you, at least, don’t drool in the soup).
‘The wet willow, and some buds on the roots.
It is here, in a downpour, where you find shelter.
I was seven, she was younger.
She was all wet, I gave her some primroses.’
The spots on his vest summed to thirty-eight.
‘I would tickle her to make her laugh.
I felt a moment of power and delirium.’
But then, lubricious old man, at your age ...
‘Sir, the fact is hard.
He came, to hug us, a big dog;
I was afraid, I left him halfway.
It’s a shame.’
But then you have your vulture!
Go and wipe the wrinkles off your face;
Here, my fork, scrape away the dirt from your skull.
By what right are you paying for experiences like me?
Hold on, here are ten sous, for the bathroom.
Phlebas, the Phoenician, a fortnight dead,
Forgot the cry of gulls and the wind’s howl of
Cornwall,
And the profit and loss, and the cargo ships of pewter:
An undertow took him far away,
Passing the stages of his former life.
Go figure, it was a hard fate;
Nevertheless, he was once a handsome man, of great
stature.
‘WHISPERSOF IMMORTALITY’
1 (p. 53)
Webster: English dramatist John Webster (c.1580-c.1625).
2 (p. 53)
Donne: English metaphysical poet John Donne (1572-1631).
3 (p. 53)
Grishkin: Based on the character of the Russian dancer Serafima Astafieva (1876-1934).
4 (p. 54)
Abstract Entities: Philosophical ideas about existence.
‘MR.ELIOT’S SUNDAY MORNING SERVICE’
1 (p. 55) Look, look, master ...
THE JEW OF MALTA: From the play (act 4, scene 1) by Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593).
2 (p. 55)
Polyphiloprogenitive: A word of Eliot’s invention, meaning highly fecund or fertile.
3 (p. 55)
sutlers: Provision merchants to an army.
4 (p. 55)
Superfetation: Multiple impregnation resulting in the birth of more than one child.
5 (p. 55) τ
ò eν: The Greek words translate as ‘the one.’
6 (p. 55)
mensual: Monthly.
7 (p. 55)
Origen: Early Christian theological writer (c. A.D. 185-254).
8 (p. 55)
the Umbrian school: School of painting from fifteenth-century Italy.
9 (p. 55)
a gesso ground: Plaster surface for murals.
11 (p. 55)
the Paraclete: The Holy Ghost.
12 (p. 55)
sable presbyters: Black-robed priests.
13 (p. 55)
piaculative pence: Collection money, which the pimply (‘pustular’) youth hope will expiate (piaculate) their sins.
14 (p. 55)
Seraphim: Angels.
15 (p. 56)
Along the garden-wall ... /
The staminate and pistillate: These lines describe the process of pollination.
16 (p. 56)
epicene: Having characteristics of both sexes.
17 (p. 56)
polymath : Having great and varied learning.
‘SWEENEYAMONG THE NIGHTINGALES’
1 (p. 57)
Nightingales: Slang for prostitutes.
2 (p. 57) w
µoi, πeπηlµαi
Kαiρíαν
πληγnv eσω
: ‘Alas, I am struck deep with a mortal blow,’ the words of Agamemnon as he is slain by his wife, Clytemnestra, in
Agamemnon, by Aeschylus (525-456 B.C.).
3 (p. 57)
maculate: Polluted.
4 (p. 57)
River Plate: In Spanish this is the Río de la Plata, a broad inlet of the Atlantic Ocean that separates Uruguay and Argentina.
5 (p. 57)
Gloomy Orion: Eliot took the phrase from Christopher Marlowe’s
Dido, Queen of Carthage (1594; act 1, scene 2). The constellation of Orion includes Sirius, the Dog Star.
6 (p. 57)
murderous paws: This image is also taken from
Dido (see note just above; act 2, scene 1), in a description of the Myrmidons, a war-like race.
7 (p. 58)
Convent of the Sacred Heart: Convent of nuns, the Roman Catholic congregation of the Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and Mary.
8 (p. 58)
Agamemnon: See epigraph.
The Waste Land
DEDICATION
1 (p. 61)
‘Nam Sibyllam ... aπoθανεiν θeλω’: ‘I saw with my own eyes the Sibyl hanging in a cage, and when the boys cried at her, “Sybil, what do you want?” she responded, “I wish I were dead.”’ From the
Satyricon, by Petronius (first century A.D.). Sybils were women believed to have prophetic powers; they were gatekeepers to the underworld.
2 (p. 61) il miglior fabbro: ‘The better craftsman,’ from Dante’s
Purgatorio 34.117. American poet and critic Ezra Pound (1885-1972) was a friend and supporter of Eliot’s, and a fellow American expatriate in Europe. Eliot appreciated greatly his editing of the poem’s manuscript.
‘I.THE BURIAL OF THE DEAD’
1 (p. 65)
The Burial of the Dead: This is the title of the Church of England’s burial service.
2 (p. 65)
April is the cruellest month: Compare the opening lines of the General Prologue in
The Canterbury Tales, by Geoffrey Chaucer (c.1343-1400):
When that April, with his showers swoot [sweet],
The drought of March hath pierced to the root,
And bathed every vein in such licour,
Of which virtue engender’d is the flower;
When Zephyrus eke with his swoote breath
Inspired hath in every holt [forest] and heath
The tender croppes [boughs] and the younge sun
Hath in the Ram his halfe course y-run,
And smalle fowles make melody ...’
3 (p. 65)
Stambergersee: Lake resort near Munich.
4 (p. 65)
Hofgarten: Park in Munich.
5 (p. 65)
Bin gar ... echt deutsch: The German line translates as ‘I am not Russian at all; I come from Lithuania, a real German.’
6 (p. 65)
Son of man: See Eliot’s note to line 20. The line from Ezekiel reads: ‘And he said unto me, Son of man, stand upon thy feet, and I will speak unto thee’ (KJV).
7 (p. 65)
the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief See Eliot’s note to line 23. The line from Ecclesiastes reads: ‘Also when they shall be afraid of that which is high, and fears shall be in the way, and the almond tree shall flourish, and the grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall fail: because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets’ (KJV).
8 (p. 66) Frisch weht der Wind / ... Wo weilist du?: The German lines translate as ‘Fresh blows the wind toward home. My Irish child, where are you waiting?‘ See Eliot’s note to line 31.
9 (p. 66) Oed’ und leer das Meer: The German line translates as ‘Empty and waste is the sea.’ See Eliot’s note to line 42.
10 (p. 66)
a wicked pack of cards: See Eliot’s note to line 46.
11 (p. 66)
Those are pearls that were his eyes: Line 3 of the second part of Ariel’s song in Shakespeare’s
Tempest (act 1, scene 2).
12 (p. 66)
Unreal City: See Eliot’s note to line 60. The lines of French poet Charles Baudelaire translate as: ‘Swarming city, city full of dreams, / where the specter in broad daylight accosts the passerby.’
13 (p. 67)
I had not thought death had undone so many: See Eliot’s note to line 63. Dante, just outside the gate of hell, has seen ‘the wretched souls of those who lived without disgrace and without praise.’
14 (p. 67)
Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled: See Eliot’s note to line 64. The lines from
Inferno translate as: ‘Here, as far as I could tell by listening, there was no lamentation except sighs which caused the eternal air to tremble.’
15 (p. 67)
With a dead sound on the final stroke of nine: See Eliot’s note to line 68.
16 (p. 67)
at Mylae: Sicilian port, site of the battle of Mylae (260 B.C.), in which Rome gained dominance over Carthage in Sicilian waters.
17 (p. 67)
‘keep the Dog far hence, that’s friend to men’: See Eliot’s note to line 74.
18 (p. 67)
‘hypocrite lecteur!—mon semblable,—mon frère!’: The French translates as ‘Hypocrite reader!—my likeness,—my brother!’ See Eliot’s note to line 76.
‘II. A GAME OF CHESS’
1 (p. 68)
A Game of Chess: Allusion to
A Game at Chesse (1624), by English dramatist Thomas Middleton.
2 (p. 68)
The Chair she sat in, like a burnished throne: See Eliot’s note to line 77. In Shakespeare’s play, Enobarbus describes Cleopatra:
The barge she sat in, like a burnish’d throne,
Burn’d on the water; the poop was beaten gold,
Purple the sails, and so perfumed, that
The winds were love-sick with them, the oars were silver,
Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made
The water which they beat to follow faster,
As amorous of their strokes. For her own person,
It beggar’d all description; she did lie
In her pavilion,—cloth-of -gold of tissue,—
O‘er-picturing that Venus where we see
The fancy outwork nature; on each side her
Stood pretty-dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids,
With divers-colour’d fans, whose wind did seem
To glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool,
And what they undid did.
3 (p. 68)
laquearia: Paneled ceiling. See Eliot’s note to line 92. The lines from Virgil’s
Aeneid translate as: ‘Blazing torches hang from the gold-paneled ceiling, and torches conquer the night with flames.’
4 (p. 68)
sylvan scene: See Eliot’s note to line 98. The lines from Paradise Lost read:
... and overhead upgrew
Insuperable height of loftiest shade,
Cedar, and pine, and fir, and branching palm,
A sylvan scene, and, as the ranks ascend,
Shade above shade, a woody theatre
Of stateliest view. Yet higher than their tops
The verdurous wall of Paradise upsprung.
5 (p. 68)
Philomel: Philomela, a character in Ovid’s
Metamorphoses, is raped by her brother-in-law and has her tongue cut out so that she cannot tell her story, but she weaves a tapestry that condemns her assailant. See Eliot’s note to line 99.
6 (p. 68)
nightingale: Philomela metamorphosed into a nightingale. See Eliot’s note to line 100.
7 (p. 69) rats’ alley: Slang for the trenches of World War I. See Eliot’s note to line 115.
8 (p. 69)
the wind under the door: See Eliot’s note to line 118. The line is from John Webster’s
The Devil’s Lawcase (1623; act 3, scene 2).
9 (p. 69)
Those are pearls that were his eyes: See Eliot’s note to line 126.
10 (p. 69)
Shakespeherian Rag: A contemporary popular ragtime song.
11 (p. 70) Pressirig ... door: See Eliot’s note to line 138.
12 (p. 70)
demobbed: Demobilized (discharged from service) after World War I.
13 (p. 70)
HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME: Last call for drinks at a pub.
14 (p. 71)
gammon: Smoked ham.
15 (p. 71)
Good night ... good night: Ophelia’s farewell before drowning, in
Hamlet (act 4, scene 5).
‘III. THE FIRE SERMON’
1 (p. 72) The Fire Sermon: The reference is to the Buddha’s Fire Sermon, in which he says that the body and its sensations as well as the mind and its ideas are aflame with passion and emotion, and thus should be ignored by those seeking enlightenment.
2 (p. 72)
Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song: See Eliot’s note to line 176.
3 (p. 72)
By the waters of Leman I sat down and wept ... : This line echoes the lament of the exiled Jews in Psalm 137: ‘By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion’ (KJV). Lac Léman is Lake Geneva in Lausanne, Switzerland, where Eliot wrote much of this poem while recuperating from his nervous breakdown.
4 (p. 72)
And on the king my father’s death before him: See Eliot’s note to line 192.
5 (p. 72)
at my back from time to time I hear: See Eliot’s note to line 196. Marvell wrote: ‘But at my back I always hear / Time’s winged chariot hurrying near.’
6 (p. 72)
the sound of horns and motors: See Eliot’s note to line 197.
7 (p. 72)
Mrs. Porter: The line is from a bawdy World War I soldiers’ song. See Eliot’s note to line 199.
8 (p. 72) Et O ces voix d’enfants, chantant dans la coupole!: ‘And O those children’s voices singing in the dome!’ See Eliot’s note to line 202. French lyric poet Paul Verlaine (1844-1896) was a leading Symbolist.
9 (p. 73)
Tereu: King Tereus, who raped Philomela (see line 99).
10 (p. 73)
currants: See Eliot’s note to line 210.
11 (p. 73)
demotic: Colloquial.
12 (p. 73)
Cannon Street Hotel: The hotel was at London’s Cannon Street Station, the main terminus for business travelers to and from continental Europe.
13 (p. 73) the
Metropole: This luxury resort hotel was at Brighton, on England’s south coast.
14 (p. 73)
Tiresias, though blind, throbbing between two lives: The Greek mythic character Tiresias experienced life as both a woman and a man, in order to adjudicate the question of which sex was more sexually fulfilled, and ultimately decided that women were. See Eliot’s note to line 218, which conveys an important insight about the poem’s narrative perspective: All the characters in the poem are, in a sense, united, so that what seems like a dazzling multiplicity of viewpoints may actually be regarded as a single, coherent vision. The lines were translated by John Dryden and Alexander Pope as:
‘Twas now, while these transactions past on Earth,
And Bacchus thus procur’d a second birth,
When Jove, dispos’d to lay aside the weight
Of publick empire and the cares of state,
As to his queen in nectar bowls he quaff’d,
‘In troth,’ says he, and as he spoke he laugh‘d,
‘The sense of pleasure in the male is far
More dull and dead, than what you females share.’
juno the truth of what was said deny’d;
Tiresias therefore must the cause decide,
For he the pleasure of each sex had try’d
It happen’d once, within a shady wood,
Two twisted snakes he in conjunction view‘d,
When with his staff their slimy folds he broke,
And lost his manhood at the fatal stroke.
But, after seven revolving years, he view’d
The self-same serpents in the self-same wood:
‘And if‘says he, ‘such virtue in you lye,
That he who dares your slimy folds untie
Must change his kind, a second stroke I’ll try.’
Again he struck the snakes, and stood again
New-sex’d, and strait recover’d into man.
Him therefore both the deities create
The sov‘raign umpire, in their grand debate;
And he declar’d for Jove: when Juno fir’d,
More than so trivial an affair requir‘d,
Depriv’d him, in her fury, of his sight,
And left him groping round in sudden night.
But Jove (for so it is in Heav’n decreed,
That no one God repeal another’s deed)
Irradiates all his soul with inward light,
And with the prophet’s art relieves the want of sight.
15 (p. 73)
Homeward, and brings the sailor home from sea: See Eliot’s note to line 221.
16 (p. 73)
carbuncular: The word ‘carbuncle’ may describe a precious gem, but here the meaning is more pedestrian—pimply.
17 (p. 74)
a Brad ford millionaire: Bradford is a manufacturing town in northern England that created many wealthy people, whom Eliot regards as nouveaux riche.
18 (p. 74)
When lovely woman stoops to folly: See Eliot’s note to line 253.
19 (p. 74)
‘This music crept by me upon the waters’: See Eliot’s note to line
257. 20 (p. 74)
along the Strand, up Queen Victoria Street: These locations are in the City of London, the financial district, where Eliot was then working.
21 (p. 74)
Lower Thames Street: Near London Bridge.
22 (p. 74)
Magnus Martyr: See Eliot’s note to line 264.
23 (p. 74)
The river sweats: See Eliot’s note to line 266.
Götterdämmerung (The Twilight of the Gods; first performed in 1876) is the fourth part of Wagner’s
Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung). In
Götterdämmerung a stolen magic golden ring is returned to the Rhine Maidens.
24 (p. 75)
Leicester: Lord Robert Dudley, earl of Leicester, was rumored to be Queen Elizabeth’s lover. See Eliot’s note to line 279.
25 (p. 75)
Highbury.... Richmond and Kew: Highbury is a gloomy neighborhood in northeast London. Richmond and Kew are districts on the Thames, west of London. See Eliot’s note to line 293. The lines from Dante’s
Purgatorio translate as: ‘Remember me, who am La Pia. / Siena made me, Maremma undid me.’
26 (p. 75)
Moorgate: Station on the London Underground, in the financial district.
27 (p. 75)
Margate Sands: Seaside resort where Eliot went to recuperate at the beginning of his breakdown (before traveling to Lausanne) and where he began to compose
The Waste Land. 28 (p. 76)
Carthage: Ancient north African city. See Eliot’s note to line 307.
29 (p. 76)
Burning burning burning burning: See Eliot’s note to line 308.
30 (p. 76) O
Lord Thou pluckest me out: See Eliot’s note to line 309.
‘IV. DEATH BY WATER’
1 (p. 77)
Death by Water: This section resembles the last lines of ‘Dans le Restaurant’ from
Poems 1920.
‘V. WHAT THE THUNDER SAID’
1 (p. 78)
What the Thunder Said: See Eliot’s note at the head of his notes to part V.
2 (p. 78)
agony in stony places: This passage echoes the agony of Christ’s betrayal and crucifixion.
3 (p. 78)
Here is no water but only rock: In a letter to Ford Madox Ford, Eliot called lines 331-358 ‘the water-dripping song’ and said he felt it was the best part of the poem.
4 (p. 79)
hermit-thrush: See Eliot’s note to line 357.
5 (p. 79)
Who is the third who walks always beside you?: See Eliot’s note to line 360.
6 (p. 79)
What is that sound high in the air: See Eliot’s note to line 367-377. Hesse’s lines translate as: ‘Already half of Europe, already at least half of Eastern Europe, on the way to Chaos, drives drunk in sacred infatuation along the edge of the precipe, sings drunkenly, as though hymn singing, as Dmitri Karamazov [in Dostoevsky’s
Brothers Karamazov] sang. The offended bourgeois laughs at the songs; the saint and the seer hear them with tears.’
7 (p. 80)
Co co rico co co rico: Alternate rendering of ‘cock-a-doodledoo.’
8 (p. 80)
Ganga: The River Ganges, in India.
9 (p. 80)
Himavant: Mountain in the Himalayas.
10 (p. 80) Datta: See Eliot’s note to line 402.
11 (p. 80)
the beneficent spider: See Eliot’s note to line 408.
12 (p. 80)
I have heard the key: See Eliot’s note to line 412. Dante’s words translate as: ‘And I heard below the door of the horrible tower being locked up.’
13 (p. 80)
Coriolanus: The hero of Shakespeare’s play of that title.
14 (p. 81)
Fishing, with the arid plain behind me: See Eliot’s note to line 425.
15 (p. 81) Poi s’ascose nel foco che gli affina: ‘Then he stepped back into the fire which refines.’ See Eliot’s note to line 428. Dante’s lines translate as: ‘Now I pray you, by that virtue which guides you to the top of the stairway, be mindful in due time of my pain. Then he stepped back into the fire which refines.’
16 (p. 81) Quando fiam uti chelidon: ‘When shall I be like the swallow?’ See Eliot’s note to line 429.
17 (p. 81) Le Prince d‘Aquitaine à la tour abolie: ‘The Prince of Aquitaine, to the ruined tower.’ See Eliot’s note to line 430.
18 (p. 81)
Why then Ile fit you. Hieronymo’s mad againe: See Eliot’s note to line 432.
19 (p. 81)
Shantih shantih shantih: See Eliot’s note to line 434.