The Waste Land
Page 18
from the chief priests and Pharisees, cometh thither with lanterns and
torches and weapons.”
324 [After the agony in stony places]: In the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus with-
draws to pray, according to Luke 22:44: “And being in an agony he prayed
more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling
down to the ground.” The phrase “stony places” is also biblical. It occurs in
Psalm 141:6: “When their judges are overthrown in stony places, they shall
hear my words; for they are sweet.” It occurs again in Matthew 13:5, in the
parable of the sower whose seeds are cast in various places: “Some fell upon
stony places, where they had not much earth: and forthwith they sprung
up, because they had no deepness of earth.” And it occurs a third time in
Matthew 13:20, when the meaning of the parable is expounded: “But he that
received the seed into stony places, the same is he that heareth the word,
and anon with joy receiveth it.”
357: Eliot’s factitious note directs the reader to a book by the Canadian author
Frank M. Chapman (1864–1945) titled Handbook of Birds of Eastern North
America (New York: D. Appleton, 1895). But the reader who follows up this
lead will discover that the quotation Eliot cites is actually taken by Chapman
from the American naturalist Eugene Pintard Bicknell (1859–1925), A Study
of the Singing of Our Birds (Boston, 1885).
359 [Who is the third . . . ]: Eliot’s note at the beginning of part V outlining “three themes” to appear in the first part of part V, refers to the story of the journey
to Emmaus. The story, recounted in Luke 24:13–32, takes place immediately
after the disciples of Jesus return to his grave on Easter Sunday and discover
that his body is no longer there, leaving them bewildered “at that which was
come to pass.”
13 And, behold, two of them went that same day to a village called
Emmaus, which was from Jerusalem about threescore furlongs.
14 And they talked together of all these things which had happened.
15 And it came to pass, that, while they communed together and
reasoned, Jesus himself drew near, and went with them.
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16 But their eyes were holden that they should not know him.
17 And he said unto them, What manner of communications are
these that ye have one to another, as ye walk, and are sad?
18 And one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answering said unto
him, Art thou only a stranger in Jerusalem, and hast not known the
things which are come to pass there in these days?
19 And he said unto them, What things? And they said unto him,
Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, which was a prophet mighty in deed and
word before God and all the people:
20 And how the chief priests and our rulers delivered him to be
condemned to death, and have crucified him.
21 But we trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed
Israel: and beside all this, to-day is the third day since these things were
done.
22 Yea, and certain women also of our company have made us
astonished, which were early at the sepulchre;
23 And when they found not his body, they came, saying, that they
had also seen a vision of angels, which said that he was alive.
24 And certain of them which were with us went to the sepulchre,
and found it even so as the women had said: but him they saw not.
25 Then he said unto them, O fools, and slow of heart to believe all
that the prophets have spoken:
26 Ought not Christ to have su¤ered these things, and to enter into
his glory?
27 And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto
them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.
28 And they drew nigh unto the village, whither they went: and he
made as though he would have gone further.
29 But they constrained him, saying, Abide with us; for it is toward
evening, and the day is far spent. And he went in to tarry with them.
30 And it came to pass, as he sat at meat with them, he took bread,
and blessed it, and brake, and gave to them.
31 And their eyes were opened, and they knew him; and he vanished
out of their sight.
32 And they said one to another, Did not our heart burn within
us, while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the
Scriptures?
360 [When I count]: Eliot’s note directs the reader to “the account of the one
of the Antarctic expeditions (I forget which, but think one of Shackleton’s).”
Sir Ernest Shackleton (1874–1922) made three journeys to the Antarctic,
each beset with problems. His third one attempted to cross the entire
Antarctic ice cap on foot, a journey of 1,500 miles. The expedition set sail
on the Endurance from the island of South Georgia in December 1914, but
their ship became trapped in ice and was eventually crushed. To return they
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made an almost two-year journey. Three years later Shackleton published
his account of the trip, South: The Story of Shackleton’s Last Expedition, 1914–
1917 (London: W. Heinemann, 1919), which includes the following passage
(209):
When I look back at those days I have no doubt that Providence guided
us, not only across those snow-fields, but across the storm-white sea
that separated Elephant Island from our landing-place on South Geor-
gia. I know that during that long and racking march of thirty-six hours
over the unnamed mountains and glaciers of South Georgia it seemed
to me often that we were four, not three. I said nothing to my compan-
ions on the point, but afterwards Worsley said to me, “Boss, I had a
curious feeling on the march that there was another person with us.”
Crean confessed to the same idea. One feels “the dearth of human
words, the roughness of mortal speech” in trying to describe things
intangible, but a record of our journeys would be incomplete without
a reference to a subject very near to our hearts.
The phrase “O dearth / Of human words! roughness of mortal speech!” is
from John Keats (1795–1821), Endymion (1818), book II, lines 819–820.
366–367 [What is that sound . . . lamentation]: Eliot’s note directs the reader to
a book by the German author Hermann Hesse (1872–1962), Blick ins Chaos:
Drei Aufsätze (A Look into the Chaos: Three Essays) (Berne: Verlag Seldwyla, 1920), from which Eliot quotes a passage in the original German, one that
refers to the Russian Revolution and the collapse of the German and Austro-
Hungarian empires: “Already half of Europe, and at the least half of Eastern
Europe, is on the way toward chaos; it is drunkenly driving forward in a holy
frenzy toward the abyss, drunkenly singing, as if singing hymns, the way
Dmitri Karamazov sang. The o¤ended bourgeois laughs over these songs;
the saint and seer hears them with tears.” Dmitri Karamazov is a character
in the novel The Brothers Karamazov by Feodor Dostoevsky (1821–1881).
Eliot was so taken with Hesse’s book that he urged his
friend Sydney Schi¤
(1868–1948) to translate it into English. His translation, titled In Sight of
Chaos, appeared a year later under Schi¤’s nom de plume, Stephen Hudson
(Zurich: Verlag Seldwyla, 1923). Schi¤ was a well-to-do man who financed
the quarterly journal Art and Letters (1917–1920), to which Eliot contributed two poems and four essays and reviews in 1919 and 1920.
377–384 [A woman . . . exhausted wells]: Conrad Aiken (1890–1972), who had
been a friend of Eliot’s since their student days at Harvard, later recalled that
when he first read The Waste Land in 1922, he “had long been familiar with
such passages as ‘A woman drew her long black hair out tight,’ which I had
seen as poems, or part-poems, in themselves. And now saw inserted into
The Waste Land as into a mosaic.” See his Prefatory Note (1958) in Charles
Brian Cox and Arnold P. Hinchli¤e, eds., T. S. Eliot, The Waste Land: A Case-
book (London: Macmillan, 1978), 91.
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385–394 [In this decayed hole . . . rain]: Eliot’s note at the beginning of part V
states that “the approach to the Chapel Perilous” is one of “three themes”
employed in this part’s opening section (322–394), and he tells the reader to
“see Miss Weston’s book.” Weston’s From Ritual to Romance devotes a chapter (chapter 13, 175–188) to “The Perilous Chapel,” a motif which she summarizes in her opening paragraph:
Students of the Grail romances will remember that in many of the ver-
sions the hero—sometimes it is a heroine—meets with a strange and
terrifying adventure in a mysterious Chapel, an adventure which, we
are given to understand, is fraught with extreme peril to life. The details
vary: sometimes there is a Dead Body laid on the altar; sometimes a
Black Hand extinguishes the tapers; there are strange and threatening
voices, and the general impression is that this is an adventure in which
supernatural, and evil, forces are engaged.
392 [Co co rico]: In French and Italian, “cocorico” is the onomatopoeic word
which represents the sound of a rooster, like the English “cock-a-doodle-do.”
395 [Ganga]: A colloquial version of the Ganges, the sacred river of India.
397 [Himavant]: A Sanskrit adjective meaning “snowy,” applied to one or more
mountains in the Himalayas.
399 [Then spoke the thunder]: Eliot’s note to line 402 directs the reader to
“the fable of the meaning of the Thunder,” recounted in the Brihadaranyaka
Upanishad 5. The Upanishads are sacred texts written in Sanskrit, the earliest of which belong to the eighth and seventh centuries b.c., a group includ-
ing the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad. Their number exceeds two hundred,
though Indian tradition put it at one hundred and eight. The Indian philoso-
pher Shankara, who flourished around a.d. 800, commented on eleven
Upanishads, including the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, and these with two
or three others are considered the principal Upanishads. Upanishads were
first translated into English in 1817–1818 by Rammohun Roy (1772–1832),
a Bengali scholar, and other translations followed throughout the nineteenth
century. The German translation cited by Eliot, Paul Deussen’s Sechzig Upani-
shads des Veda (Leipzig: F. A. Brockhaus, 1897), comprised sixty Upanishads.
Eliot studied Sanskrit at Harvard in 1911–1913. In the fable of the Thun-
der which he cites, the Lord of Creation, Prajapati, thunders three times, the
sound being represented by the Sanskrit word “da.” The text of the fable is
from The Upanishads, ed. and trans. Swami Nikhilananda (London: George
Allen and Unwin, 1963), 239–240:
Praja¯pati had three kinds of o¤spring: gods, men, and demons. They
lived with Praja¯pati, practicing the vows of brahmacha¯rins. After finish-
ing their term, the gods said to him: “Please instruct us, Sir.” To them
he uttered the syllable da, and asked: “Have you understood?” They
replied: “We have. You said to us, ‘Control yourselves (da¯myata).’”
He said: “Yes, you have understood.”
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Then the men said to him: “Please instruct us, Sir.” To them he
uttered the same syllable da, and asked: “Have you understood?” They
replied: “We have. You said to us, ‘Give (datta).’” He said: “Yes, you
have understood.”
Then the demons said to him: “Please instruct us, Sir.” To them he
uttered the same syllable da, and asked: “Have you understood?” They
replied: “We have. You said to us: ‘Be compassionate (dayadhvam).’”
He said: “Yes, you have understood.”
This very thing is repeated even today by the heavenly voice, in
the form of thunder, as “Da,” “Da,” “Da,” which means: “Control your-
selves,” “Give,” and “Have compassion.” Therefore one should learn
these three: self-control, giving, and mercy.
In one tradition of commentary, it was said that self-control was demanded
of the gods because they were naturally unruly, charity of men because they
were naturally greedy, and compassion of the demons because they were
naturally cruel. But it was also suggested that there were no gods or demons
other than men. Men who lack self-control, while endowed with other good
qualities, are gods. Men who are particularly greedy are men. And those who
are cruel are demons.
407: Eliot’s note directs the reader to John Webster’s play The White Devil,
V.vi.154–158. Flamineo, a villain who has prostituted his sister, murdered
his brother-in-law, and slaughtered his own brother, discovers that his sister
Vittoria has betrayed him:
O men
That lie upon your death-beds, and are haunted
With howling wives, ne’er trust them: they’ll re-marry
Ere the worm pierce your winding-sheet, ere the spider
Make a thin curtain for your epitaphs.
411 [I have heard the key]: Eliot’s note refers the reader to Dante’s Inferno,
XXXIII, 46–47. In the previous canto Dante has come upon Ugolino della
Gherardesca, who is forever devouring the head of Archbishop Ruggieri of
Pisa. Ugolino now explains that Ruggieri had locked up him and his four
children in a tower, leaving them to starve. His four children had died first,
and Ugolino had eaten their corpses. Ugolino had “heard the key / Turn in
the door once and turn once only” because the guards were leaving him and
his children to starve. Eliot’s adaptation of these lines is based on a minor
mistake. Because the word for “key” in modern Italian is chiave, he assumes that the verb chiavar in the passage by Dante must mean “to lock” or “to turn the key.” But the word chiavi in medieval Italian meant “a nail,” and what
Ugolino heard, in the English translation of John Sinclair, was “the door of
the terrible tower nailed up.”
Eliot also quotes from Appearance and Reality: A Metaphysical Essay
(London: Swan Sonnenschein, 1893), a book by the philosopher Francis Her-
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bert Bradley (18
46–1924). Bradley attended University College, Oxford, and
graduated in 1869. In 1870 he was elected to a fellowship at Merton College,
Oxford, tenable for life, with no teaching duties. He published Ethical Studies
(1876), The Principles of Logic (1883), and then Appearance and Reality. During his lifetime he published only one other book, Essays on Truth and Reality
(1914). He was the first philosopher to receive an Order of Merit, from King
George V in 1924, three months before his death. Eliot wrote his Ph.D. thesis
on Bradley for Harvard University, begun in 1911 and completed in 1916
(though never formally submitted). He lived in Merton College from October
to December 1914 and again in the spring term of 1915. His thesis, Knowl-
edge and Experience in the Philosophy of F. H. Bradley, was published in 1964.
416 [a broken Coriolanus]: the protagonist of Shakespeare’s play Coriolanus
(1607–1608) is a Roman general who despises the fickle mob. Driven
by pride and his desire to punish an ungrateful Roman populace, he joins
the Volscian forces against Rome. Though victorious, he is persuaded by
his mother, wife, and son to spare Rome from sacking. To punish this new
treachery, the Volscians hack him to death.
424 [Fishing . . . behind me]: Eliot’s note refers the reader to chapter 9, “The
Fisher King” (112–136), in Jessie Weston’s From Ritual to Romance. Weston
sums up her arguments to this point in the chapter when she declares:
“We have already seen that the personality of the King, the nature of the
disability under which he is su¤ering, and the reflex e¤ect exercised upon
his folk and his land, correspond, in a most striking manner, to the intimate
relation at one time held to exist between the ruler and his land; a relation
mainly dependent upon the identification of the King with the Divine prin-
ciple of Life and Fertility” (114). She goes on to argue that the Fisher King’s
name in no way derived from early Christian use of the fish as a symbol,
nor from any Celtic myth or legend. Instead, fish played “an important part
in Mystery Cults, as being the ‘holy’ food” (129), partly because of “the belief
. . . that all life comes from the water” (133) and partly because “the Fish
was considered a potent factor in ensuring fruitfulness” among certain pre-
historic peoples (135), a belief that had persisted and helped shape the figure