The Waste Land

by T. S. Eliot

  266 [The river sweats . . . ]: Eliot’s note states that “the song of the (three)

  Thames-daughters begins here” and continues to line 306, and compares

  their song with that of the Rhine-daughters in Wagner’s opera, Götterdäm-

  merung (The Twilight of the Gods) (1876), the fourth and final part of Der Ring der Nibelungen (The Ring Cycle). The Rhine-daughters first appear in Wagner’s Das Rheingold (1869), part one of the cycle. They are nymphs who

  guard a lump of gold in the river, and their ecstatic joy is expressed in their

  repeated cry, “Weialala leia wallala leialala.” At the start of the opera Alberich,

  the leader of the Nibelung dwarfs, interrupts their play and wants them to

  satisfy his lust. But he is made to flounder in the waters as they mock him

  with these cries. Only someone who has overcome the lusts of the flesh, they

  tell him, can hope to possess the Rhine gold. Alberich curses love, then

  steals the gold. In Götterdämmerung the three Rhine-daughters reappear to

  sing of the Rhine gold they have lost. Even here their song is not mournful,

  but joyously praises the gold and looks forward to the hero who will return

  it to them. When Siegfried returns with the ring and refuses to give it to

  e d i t o r ’ s a n n o t a t i o n s t o l i n e s 2 7 5 – 2 7 9

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  them, they prophesy his death. Siegfried is then murdered. His beloved

  Brünnhilde orders a vast funeral pyre to be built, which she lights and then

  mounts. The flames destroy the hall and engulf all of Valhalla, destroying all

  the gods (whence the opera’s title). The Rhine overflows its banks, and the

  Rhine-daughters take back their gold. It should be noted that the two-beat

  measure which typifies much of this passage is adapted from Wagner’s

  nymphs, who use this measure whenever they sing.

  275–276 [Greenwich reach . . . the Isle of Dogs]: The Isle of Dogs is a peninsula

  created by a loop in the River Thames. Past the Isle of Dogs the Thames is

  called Greenwich Reach.

  279 [Elizabeth and Leicester]: Eliot’s note refers the reader to James Anthony

  Froude (1818–1894), History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of

  Elizabeth, 12 vols. (London: Longman, Green, 1856–1870); vol. 7, Reign of Elizabeth: Volume 1 [1863]). Froude was Regius professor of history at Oxford and a friend of Thomas Carlyle. His history draws heavily on the reports sent

  by Alvarez de Quadra (bishop of Aquila), the Spanish ambassador at Queen

  Elizabeth’s court, to his master Philip II, King of Spain. Since Elizabeth was

  only twenty-five years old when she ascended the throne on 17 November

  1558, the question of whom she might marry loomed large. One perennial

  candidate was Lord Robert Dudley, whose fortunes she encouraged from the

  moment she became queen, naming him her master of the horse, a high-

  ranking position. But when Dudley’s wife was found dead on 8 September

  1560, it was widely speculated that he had had some hand in her death. He

  was banished from the court until a coroner’s jury had found him innocent,

  then returned. Throughout the early months of 1561 de Quadra reported his

  growing conviction that Elizabeth would marry Robert, and that together

  they would return England to the Catholic faith. But when a papal nuncio

  applied to come to Elizabeth’s court in June that year, the Council of State

  (headed by William Cecil, who opposed Robert Dudley) rejected his applica-

  tion, leaving de Quadra enraged. It was in this context that de Quadra wrote

  to Philip on 30 June, a letter which Froude reports in translation, 348–350:

  London, June 30

  Five or six clergy have been exposed on the pillory as conjurors and

  necromancers. These were found making a figure of the nativities of the

  Queen and Lord Robert, with I know not what other strange things—

  trifles all of them, had they not fallen into the hands of men who were

  glad to make priests ridiculous.

  The Queen invited me to a party given by Lord Robert on St. John’s

  day [24 June]. I asked her whether she thought her ministers had done

  good to their country by making a laughing-stock of Catholics in this

  way. She assured me the secretary was not to blame. In speaking of your

  Majesty, she said that as long as you were in England, you had been a

  general benefactor, and had never injured a creature.

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  e d i t o r ’ s a n n o t a t i o n s t o l i n e s 2 9 3 – 2 9 4

  I professed myself shocked at the doings of the Council. I told her

  she should look better to them, and not allow these headstrong violent

  men to guide her in so serious a matter as religion.

  She listened patiently and thanked me for my advice. In the after-

  noon we were in a barge, watching the games on the river. She was

  alone with the Lord Robert and myself on the poop, when they began to

  talk nonsense, and went so far, that Lord Robert at last said, as I was on

  the spot there was no reason why they should not be married if the

  Queen pleased. She said that perhaps I did not understand suªcient

  English. I let them trifle in this way for a time, and then I said gravely to

  them both, that if they would be guided by me they would shake o¤ the

  tyranny of those men who were oppressing the realm and them; they

  would restore religion and good order; and they could then marry when

  they pleased—and gladly would I be the priest to unite them. Let the

  heretics complain if they dared. With your Majesty at her side, the

  Queen might defy danger. At present it seemed she could marry no one

  who displeased Cecil and his companions.

  I enlarged on this point, because I see that unless I can detach her

  and Lord Robert from the pestilential heresy with which they are sur-

  rounded, there will be no change. If I can once create a schism, things

  will go as we desire. This therefore appears to me the wisest course

  to follow. If I keep aloof from the Queen, I leave the field open to the

  heretics. If I keep her in good humour with your Majesty, there is al-

  ways hope—especially if the heretics can be provoked into some act of

  extravagance. They are irritated to the last degree to see me so much

  about the Queen’s person.

  Your Majesty need not fear that I shall alienate the Catholics. Not

  three days ago, those persons whom your Majesty knows of, sent to me

  to say that their party was never so strong as at this moment, nor the

  Queen and Council so universally abhorred.

  That the poem seems to link the historical Elizabeth with the legendary

  Cleopatra, or with Mrs. Porter, has troubled many critics. And unlike the

  Thames-daughters who appear in the following passages, Elizabeth did not

  become a victim of her lover (if Dudley was indeed her lover).

  293–294 [Highbury bore me. Richmond and Kew / Undid me]: Eliot’s note

  directs the reader to Dante, Purgatorio V, 130–136. In canto V, Dante encounters three spirits who have died violent deaths and repented only at the last

  moment. Their speeches have a terse, tormented quality commensurate with

  their fate, and they ask Dante to remember them when he returns to the

  world in order to speed their progress through Purgatory. The third, in par-

  ticular, has
a special poignancy which has always been admired:

  “Deh, quando tu sarai tornato al mondo,

  e riposato della lunga via,”

  e d i t o r ’ s a n n o t a t i o n s t o l i n e s 2 9 6 – 3 0 7

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  seguitò il terzo spirito al secondo,

  “ricorditi di me che son la Pia:

  Siena mi fe’; disfecemi Maremma:

  salsi colui che ’nnanellata pria

  disposando m’avea con la sua gemma.”

  This can be translated as follows:

  “Please, when you’ve returned to the world

  and rested from your long journey,”

  the third spirit said, following on the second,

  “remember me, who am La Pia:

  Sienna bore me; the Maremma undid me:

  He knows of it who, first being engaged to me,

  Married me with his gem.”

  Medieval commentators agreed in identifying the enigmatic speaker as the

  wife of Nello d’Inghiramo dei Pannocchieschi, a ruler in the Maremma, an

  area in southern Tuscany. She was murdered by him, according to some so

  that he could marry another woman, according to others because of her

  infidelity. These historical details, however, matter less than the mood

  evoked by her speech, one which Eliot captures perfectly and transposes in

  a modern key. Highbury was a drab, middle-class suburb in the north of

  London which had been developed in the late Victorian and Edwardian eras.

  Kew Gardens (oªcially, the Royal Botanic Gardens) is situated on the Banks

  of the River Thames between Richmond and Kew in southwest London.

  The Gardens comprise 132 hectares (288 acres), containing an extensive

  arboretum, water features, flower beddings, botanical glass houses, and

  historic buildings. Formerly estates of George III and his father, they were

  donated to the state in 1840, and are still a popular excursion site for city

  dwellers.

  296 [Moorgate]: Moorgate was a gate in the London wall, built in 1415 and pulled

  down in 1761. The street that led to it runs north from the southwest corner

  of the Bank of England (see Fig. 9).

  300 [Margate Sands]: Margate Sands (see Fig. 15) is the principal beach in Mar-

  gate, a seaside resort in the county of Kent, some seventy miles east of

  London. Like many resorts, it expanded enormously with the growth of

  large-scale tourism in the late nineteenth century. The majority of its tourists

  were from the lower middle classes, shopkeepers and typists. Eliot himself

  stayed at the Albemarle Hotel, in Cliftonville, Margate, for three weeks in

  late October and early November 1921, the first part of a three-month leave

  from work to rest his nerves (see Introduction). Lines 259–311 were drafted

  while he was there.

  307 [To Carthage then I came]: Eliot cites a passage that begins book III of The Confessions of Saint Augustine, trans. Edward B. Pusey (London: Dent, 1907),

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  e d i t o r ’ s a n n o t a t i o n s t o l i n e s 3 0 8 – 310

  31–32. A more extended transcription of the passage follows, which includes

  the last lines of book II:

  I sank away from Thee, and I wandered, O my God, too much astray

  from Thee my stay, in these days of my youth, and I became to myself

  a barren land.

  Book III

  To Carthage I came, where there sang all around me in my ears a

  cauldron of unholy loves. I loved not yet, yet I loved to love, and out of a

  deep-seated want, I hated myself for wanting not. I sought what I might

  love, in love with loving, and safety I hated, and a way without snares.

  For within me was a famine of that inward food, Thyself, my God; yet,

  through that famine I was not hungered; but was without all longing

  for incorruptible sustenance, not because filled therewith, but the more

  empty, the more I loathed it. For this cause my soul was sickly and

  full of sores, it miserably cast itself forth, desiring to be scraped by the

  touch of objects of sense. Yet if these had not a soul, they would not be

  objects of love. To love then, and to be beloved, was sweet to me; but

  more, when I obtained to enjoy the person I loved. I defiled, therefore,

  the spring of friendship with the filth of concupiscence, and I be-

  clouded its brightness with the hell of lustfulness; and thus foul and un-

  seemly, I would fain, through exceeding vanity, be fine and courtly. I fell

  headlong into the love, wherein I longed to be ensnared. My God, my

  Mercy, with how much gall didst thou of thy great goodness besprinkle

  for me that sweetness? For I was both beloved, and secretly arrived at

  the bond of enjoying; and was with joy fettered with sorrow-bringing

  bonds, that I might be scourged with the iron burning rods of jealousy,

  and suspicions, and fears, and angers, and quarrels.

  308 [Burning burning burning burning]: Eliot cites “The Fire Sermon” by the

  Buddha; for the text, see the note to the title of part III of The Waste Land.

  Another passage from book III of The Confessions of Saint Augustine is also pertinent. Augustine describes how he was converted to faith in God by

  reading Cicero’s “Hortensius,” then comments (36): “How I did burn then,

  my God, how did I burn to re-mount from earthly things to thee.”

  309–310 [O Lord Thou . . . pluckest]: Compare this passage from book X of

  The Confessions of Saint Augustine, 237–238:

  But I, my God and my Glory, do hence also sing a hymn to Thee, and do

  consecrate praise to Him who consecrateth me, because those beautiful

  patterns which through men’s souls are conveyed into their cunning

  hands, come from that Beauty, Which is above our souls, Which my soul

  day and night sigheth after. But the framers and followers of the out-

  ward beauties derive thence the rule of judging of them, but not of us-

  ing them. And He is there, though they perceive Him not, that so they

  might not wander, but keep their strength for Thee, and not scatter it

  e d i t o r ’ s a n n o t a t i o n s t o l i n e s 312 – 319

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  abroad upon pleasurable wearinesses. And I, though I speak and see

  this, entangle my steps with these beauties; but Thou pluckest me out,

  O Lord, Thou pluckest me out; because Thy loving-kindness is before

  my eyes.

  Death by Water: The title replicates a part of Madame Sosostris’s warning to an

  unnamed client in part I, line 55: “Fear death by water.” Earlier critics often

  associated this title with Jessie Weston’s comments on the worship of Adonis

  that was spread by traders from Phoenicia (an ancient kingdom on the east-

  ern shores of the Mediterranean which included the coasts of modern-day

  Lebanon and Syria). According to Weston, the spring festival of Adonis in

  Alexandria “began with the solemn and joyous celebration of the nuptials of

  Adonis and Aphrodite, at the conclusion of which a Head, of papyrus, repre-

  senting the god, was with every show of mourning, committed to the waves,

  and borne within seven days by a current (always to be counted upon at that

  season of the year) to Byblos [in ancient Phoenicia], where it was received

  and welcomed with popular rejoicing. The duration of the feast varied from

  two days, as at Alexandria, to seven or eight” ( From Ritual to Roma
nce, 47).

  More recent critics have questioned the significance or usefulness of part IV,

  noting that it is a translation of poem written by Eliot in 1916–1917 (see next

  note) and hence not originally related in any way to Weston’s theses. Eliot

  himself had doubts about part IV and briefly jettisoned it, but then restored

  it at the insistence of Ezra Pound (see Introduction, 25).

  312 [Phlebas the Phoenician]: This section is a close adaptation of the last seven

  lines of a poem written by Eliot in French in 1916–1917, “Dans le Restau-

  rant” (In the restaurant):

  Phlébas, le Phénicien, pendant quinze jours noyé,

  Oubliait les cris des mouettes et le houle de Cornouaille,

  Et les profits ets pertes, et la cargaison d’étain:

  Un courant de sous-mer l’emporta très loin,

  Le repassant aux étapes de sa vie antérieure.

  Figurez-vous donc, c’était un sort pénible;

  Cependant, ce fut jadis un bel homme, de haute taille.

  Phlebas the Phoenician, a fortnight drowned,

  Forgot the cries of the gulls, and swell of the Cornish sea,

  And the profits and losses, and the cargo of tin.

  An undercurrent carried him far away,

  Taking him back through the stages of his former life.

  Imagine it—a terrible fate;

  Yet he was once so handsome and tall.

  The name Phlebas may be derived from the Latin adjective flebilis, meaning

  “lamentable, to be wept over.”

  319 [Gentile or Jew]: Compare Romans 3:9–12:

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  e d i t o r ’ s a n n o t a t i o n s t o l i n e s 3 2 2 – 3 5 9

  9 What then? are we no better than they? No, in no wise: for we have

  before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin;

  10 As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:

  11 There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after

  God.

  12 They are all gone out of the way, they are together become

  unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.

  What the Thunder Said: On the title, see note to lines 399–401.

  322 [torchlight]: While the verse paragraph from line 322 to 330 draws on

  images associated with the betrayal and arrest of Christ in the garden of

  Gethsemane, these are highly stylized and remote from biblical particulars.

  Compare John 18:3: “Judas then, having received a band of men and oªcers