[Poem I 25 · Textual History II 332–34]
Russell had become an opponent of Bradley (“For some years I was a disciple of Mr. Bradley, but about 1898 I changed my views”, Logical Atomism, 1924). Bradley: “No abstraction · · · is in the end defensible · · · the amount of possible error must remain unknown · · · The truth asserted is not, and cannot be, taken as real by itself”, Appearance and Reality ch. XXVII; alongside this TSE wrote: “This does for Mr. Russell.” Even readers beyond this circle soon identified Russell with the poem; Louis Untermeyer, for instance, wrote in Freeman 30 June 1920 that Mr. Apollinax “sounds suspiciously like Bertrand Russell”.
TSE’s friendship with Russell ended in the 1920s (he wrote to Henry Treece, 8 Feb 1946, “I have not been in touch with Bertrand Russell for something over twenty years”). To Ottoline Morrell, from Harvard, 14 Mar 1933: “Bertie, because at first I admired him so much, is one of my lost illusions. He has done Evil, without being big enough or conscious enough to Be evil. I owe him this, that the spectacle of Bertie was one contributing influence to my conversion. Of course he had no good influence on Vivienne. He excited her mentally, made her read books and become a kind of pacifist, and no doubt was flattered because he thought he was influencing her. (I have tried to subdue the desire to influence anyone). Unfortunately, she found him unattractive.”
Organised pacifism in Britain began when Fenner Brockway, editor of the Labour Leader, published an appeal on 12 Nov 1914 asking men of military age to join him in forming the No-Conscription Fellowship. Russell was among the most famous, writing The Ethics of War (International Journal of Ethics Jan 1915), War and Non-Resistance (Atlantic Monthly Aug 1915) and many other papers and letters to editors. He was fined, deprived of his Cambridge lectureship and prevented by the confiscation of his passport from taking up a post at Harvard. For the “Order of the White Feather”, see note to Gerontion 71.
Title Apollinax: Apollonis arx, a place at the entrance of the Sibyl’s cave where the Sibyl left her prophecies, written on leaves (Aeneid VI 9). Arx = stronghold. TSE’s original spelling of the name, used twice in ms1, was “Apollonax” (see Textual History). Grover Smith 303: “Eliot’s title may have originated in Ford Madox Hueffer’s Mr. Apollo (London, 1908), with some admixture with the name of M. Aronnax in Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea.” On a secretarial letter to Floyd Watkins, 9 Apr 1963, TSE wrote: “Say I have never read Jules Verne’s romance”.
Gautier’s Apollonie invokes the Pythia, the sibyl at Delphi who was priestess of Apollo:
J’aime ton nom d’Apollonie,
Echo grec du sacré vallon,
Qui, dans sa robuste harmonie,
Te baptise soeur d’Apollon.
Sur la lyre au plectre d’ivoire,
Ce nom splendide et souverain,
Beau comme l’amour et la gloire,
Prend des résonances d’airain.
Classique, il fait plonger les Elfes
Au fond de leur lac allemand,
Et seule la Pythie à Delphes
Pourrait le porter dignement,
[Poem I 25 · Textual History II 332–34]
Quand relevant sa robe antique
Elle s’assoit au trépied d’or,
Et dans sa pose fatidique
Attend le dieu qui tarde encor.
[I love your name of Apollonie, a Greek echo from the sacred vale, which in its strong harmony baptizes you the sister of Apollo. To the lyre with its ivory plectrum, this splendid sovereign name, beautiful as love and glory, takes on the resonance of brass. Classical, it makes the Elves dive to the bottom of their German lake, and the Pythian sibyl at Delphi alone could bear the name with dignity, when exalting her ancient robe, she takes her seat on the golden tripod and in her fateful pose awaits the god who still delays.]
OED “Apollonian” 1: “Pertaining to, resembling or having the characteristics of Apollo, the sun-god of the Greeks and Romans, the patron of music and poetry.” 2: “Of Apollonius of Perga, a famous Greek geometer and investigator of conic sections.” Bertrand Russell had published his Principles of Mathematics in 1903. The three volumes of Principia Mathematica, written with Alfred North Whitehead, followed in 1910, 1912 and 1913; TSE owned the first volume. Both Apollo and Apollonius were bringers of light (for dualities of name, see note to The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock 94, “Lazarus”). OED “Apollonian” B: “having the characteristics of Apollo (opp. Dionysian).” Nietzsche: “We shall have gained much for the science of aesthetics, when once we have perceived · · · that the continuous development of art is bound up with the duplexity of the Apollonian and the Dionysian : in like manner as procreation is dependent on the duality of the sexes”, opening words of The Birth of Tragedy.
[Poem I 25 · Textual History II 333]
Epigraph] Not printed until AraVP, then not again until 1932. The attribution to Lucian was not added until 1936, although TSE added it by hand in Thayer’s AraVP. Ω τῆς καινότητος. Ἡράκλεις, τῆς παραδοξολογίας. εὐμήχανος ἄνθρωπος: [What novelty! What marvellous paradoxes! How inventive he is!], Lucian, Zeuxis or Antiochus (Loeb VI, tr. K. Kilburn, 1959). The Greek is quoted in a footnote to Charles Whibley’s Lucian II in Studies in Frankness (1896) 217, with the comment “The shouts of the people were as fatuous then as to-day” (Worthington 4). On the letter to Floyd Watkins (see note to title), TSE wrote that he “had read in Greek a small selection of Lucian’s work, from which I took the epigraph”. The phrases are those of Lucian’s audience, admiring a lecture of his for its “freshness of thought”. Finding that “this praise caused me considerable annoyance”, he reflects that he was not commended for “good vocabulary, conformity to the ancient canon, penetration of intellect, power of perception, Attic grace · · · their approval is little different from that which they would give a conjuror.” He compares the acclamation with that afforded to the painter Zeuxis for a picture of a mother Centaur nursing infant Centaur twins: “The Centaur herself is depicted lying on fresh young grass with all the horse part of her on the ground · · · The human part is slightly raised up on her elbows · · · Towards the top of the picture · · · is a Hippocentaur, clearly the husband of her who is feeding her children · · · He is leaning down and laughing · · · and his glance, although he is laughing, is altogether savage, wild, and of the hills.” John Hayward wrote in Hayward’s 1936 proof: “‘What a wonder novelty! O Hercules, what a wonder! Man is a crafty creature of many wiles’”. TSE in Second Thoughts about Humanism (1929): “the teaching of Plato and Aristotle to youths who know no Greek, and are completely ignorant of ancient history, is one of the tragic farces of American education · · · Incidentally, it is a public misfortune that Mr. Bertrand Russell did not have a classical education.” TSE, the year after writing Mr. Apollinax: “Dans nos lycées, dans nos universités, la déchéance de la langue grecque est un crime contre la civilisation” [The decline of Greek in our schools and in our universities is a crime against civilisation], Autour d’une Traduction d’Euripide (1916). To Sir Richard Livingstone, 31 Mar 1941, on being invited to become President of the Classical Association: “In my younger days I found it paid me to pretend discreetly to more learning than I possessed (so long as I could keep a line of retreat open) but when one is past middle age I think it is wiser to be honest. It is the imperfection of my own classical education that has made me such a strong defender of the classics.” To Helen Gardner, 4 June 1959: “The study of Latin · · · is essential, if people are to understand and speak and write correctly the English language. Besides, some knowledge of Latin literature, if not of Greek literature, is essential for appreciation of so much in English poetry also.” [What paradoxes!]: for the sciences in addition to the arts, see “Apollonian” in note to title; for the Dionysiac in addition to the Apollonian, see note to 6. LUCIAN: among the itinerant orator’s best known works is A True Story, involving a voyage to the moon. In opening he writes: “as
I had nothing to tell, not having had any adventures of significance, I took to lying · · · though I tell the truth in nothing else, I shall at least be truthful in saying that I am a liar” (Loeb I, tr. A. M. Harmon, 1913).
Epigraph, 2, 4, 7 LUCIAN: · · · laughter · · · Priapus · · · laughed: Lucian, Dialogues of the Gods XXIII (discussing Eros, Hermaphroditus and Priapus), DIONYSUS: “as for Priapus · · · the other day · · · he invited me home with him and put me up for the night. Now we’d gone to sleep in his dining-room after and were pretty well soaked, when about midnight up gets our bold lad—but I’m ashamed to tell you. APOLLO: And made an attempt on you, Dionysus? DIONYSUS: Something like that. APOLLO: How did you deal with the situation? DIONYSUS: What could I do but laugh?” (Loeb VII, tr. M. D. Macleod, 1967) (Paul Hartle, personal communication).
2 variant across the teacups: “across the floors of silent seas”, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock 74 (“submarine · · · sea’s · · · silence”, Mr. Apollinax 8–11, and variant “Without sound”). “Across the floors that soak”, Interlude: in a Bar 4. For Oliver Wendell Holmes’s Over the Teacups, see note to Rhapsody on a Windy Night 5.
2–3 tinkled among the teacups · · · that shy figure: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland ch. VII:
“Up above the world you fly,
Like a teatray in the sky.
Twinkle, twinkle ———”
Here the Dormouse shook itself, and began singing in its sleep “Twinkle, twinkle, twinkle, twinkle—” · · ·
A bright idea came into Alice’s head. “Is that the reason so many tea-things are put out here?” she asked.
“Yes, that’s it,” said the Hatter with a sigh: “it’s always tea-time.”
[Poem I 25 · Textual History II 333]
2–5 among the teacups · · · Fragilion · · · swing: “among the bric-à-brac”, Portrait of a Lady III 9. In his London Baedeker, TSE ticked three paragraphs of the description of the Wallace Collection, including descriptions of rooms devoted to the French 18th century, where “the sumptuous contemporary furniture and bric-à-brac are admirably in harmony with the decorative character of the paintings.” He underlined the numeral in “Room XVIII”, which contained “a charming series of fêtes champêtres, conversations galantes, pastoral and romantic scenes” (TSE’s title: Conversation Galante). Room XIX contained Fragonard’s The Swing, in which a swain points up the petticoats of the elegant lady as she throws off a shoe. The cupids of a formal garden are surrounded by dark trees in which contorted figures are suggested. Nearby were displays of Sèvres porcelain. To Eleanor Hinkley, 26 Apr [1911]: “note that I have seen / National Gallery / Brit Mus / Wallace Collection (made notes!!)” See note to 4 variant.
2, 4, 5, 16, 17 laughter · · · Priapus in the shrubbery · · · the lady · · · turf · · · afternoon: “The ladies · · · Sunday afternoon · · · fade beyond the Roman statuary · · · comedians across a lawn”, Afternoon 1, 6–8 (for “week-end” see Russell to Ottoline Morrell in headnote above).
3 Fragilion: the pronunciation may be with soft or hard g, but “fragile” and “fragility” are the only entries beginning “fragi-” in OED. “fragile” 1b: “Of persons, etc. Of weak or tender frame or constitution, delicate”, quoting Ouida, “so pretty and so fragile”. 2: “Liable to err or fall into sin: frail. Obs.” with 1548: “Suche is the blyndnes of our fraile and fragile nature, euer giuen to carnal concupiscence.”
3–4 Fragilion · · · shy · · · Priapus: Megalobulimus fragilion is a species of air-breathing land snail. OED “fragility” cites Tate on the brown snail: “The shell of this species is .. characterized by its extreme thinness and fragility”, A Plain and Easy Account of the Land and Fresh-Water Molluscks of Great Britain (1866) 131. OED “priapus” 5: “A kind of holothurian [F. priape de mer]”, obs.”, a sea-slug. shy: Russell to Ottoline Morrell, 19 Mar 1914, of his first lecture at the Lowell Institute: “There were 500 people, I was seized with shyness.” Priapus: Lemprière: “Priapus was deformed in all his limbs, particularly the genitals · · · and he received the name of Priapus, propter deformitatem membri virilis magnitudinem. He soon became a favourite of the people of Lampsacus, but he was expelled by the inhabitants on account of the freedom he took with their wives. This violence was punished by the son of Venus, and when the Lympsacenians had been afflicted with a disease in the genitals, Priapus was recalled, and temples erected to his honour · · · and the people · · · gave themselves up to every lasciviousness and impurity · · · the Romans revered him more as a god of orchards and gardens than as the patron of licentiousness · · · He is generally represented with a human face and the ears of a goat · · · often represented by the epithet of phallus”. (“His pointed ears”, 19.) OED 1: “The Greek and Roman god of procreation; hence, also, of gardens, vineyards, etc. (in which his statues were placed).” Priapus in the shrubbery: “Pudibund, in the clinging vine”, Exequy 15–21 variant.
4 variant terra cotta in the shrubbery: “the terra cotta fawns | Among the potted palms, the lawns”, Suite Clownesque I 2–3. Among the terra cotta items in the Wallace Collection listed by Baedeker (282) is a “head of John the Baptist (Ital. 16th cent.)” (TSE: “I looked for the head”, 13).
[Poem I 25 · Textual History II 333]
6 palace of Mrs. Phlaccus: combining “flaccid” (Fowler: “pronounce -ks-”) with “phallus”. OED “phallus” 1a: “An image of the male generative organ · · · spec. that carried in · · · Dionysiac festivals”. For “official disapproval” of Dionysus, see note to The Dry Salvages V 10. Mrs. Phlaccus: see note to 21. Professor Channing-Cheetah’s: in his copy of English Literature from the Norman Conquest to Chaucer, TSE later wrote: “ I had to use this book at Harvard when I took Professor Schofield’s course in this subject, in 1907–08. (Schofield, I do not quite know why, was in my mind in inventing Professor Channing-Cheetah)”. As well as attending William Henry Schofield’s courses on “The Literary History of England and its relations to that of the Continent” at Harvard, TSE may have heard him lecture at the Sorbonne in 1911. In a letter received by Donald J. Childs on 4 Apr 1984, Charles Monteith recalled a conversation with TSE: “I said to him—as a piece of lunch-table conversation—that everybody knew that Mr. Apollinax was Bertrand Russell—from which he didn’t dissent, but that I’d often wondered who Professor and Mrs. Channing-Cheetah were. He reflected for a moment and then said, ‘They were in fact a Professor and Mrs. Schofield’” (quoted by Childs, Journal of Modern Literature Mar 1986). Russell: “Schofield, the professor of Fine Arts, considered Alfred Noyes a very good poet”, Autobiography I 211.
William Ellery Channing (1780–1842) was a preacher at King’s Chapel, Boston, whose “1819 sermon on ‘Unitarian Christianity’ gave the classic definition of the Unitarian faith in America” (Oser 45). His philosophy was discussed in Josiah Royce’s seminar of 1913, which TSE attended (Costello 67–68). TSE on his mother’s play: “This Savonarola is a disciple of Schleiermacher, Emerson, Channing and Herbert Spencer”, Savonarola (1926). Edward Channing taught history at Harvard in or just before Eliot’s time (Copey 99). On 7 May 1936 TSE sent John Hayward a press cutting, which he headed “Thought for the Day: Art in Boston”, underlining the name of the artist “Mrs. Channing Frothingham” (King’s).
6–7 Channing-Cheetah’s | He laughed like an irresponsible fœtus: Tailhade: “innommables fœtus” [unnamable fœtuses], rhyming with “Rictus” [grin], Candidats à l’immortalité. Richard Aldington quoted from elsewhere in the poem in his introduction to Tailhade, Egoist 1 Oct 1915. (For Tailhade, see headnote to Cousin Nancy and note to Afternoon 1–2.) Laforgue’s Complainte du fœtus de poète [The Dirge of the Poet’s Fœtus] (Mordell 31). Against Robert L. Beare’s suggestion that the omission of TSE’s line in Poetry was editorial, TSE wrote “Yes, Harriet Monroe, I think” (ts of Beare). Yet the ts sent to Poetry shows the editors doing no more than change the spelling to “fetus”, so it may have been the printers who refused to counten
ance the line (and possible prosecution). Pound to Harriet Monroe, 16 Sept 1916: “I have this a.m. written you what I think of the alterations in the text. The editorial office ought at least to have the courage of its own prudery. If you are going to knuckle under to the super-degenerate now reigning in the place of the dead decayed dung-minded Comstock of putrid memory, at least you ought to leave dots (in my case and Eliot’s), indicating that the author has written something which the editors blush to reproduce.” (Anthony Comstock had died in 1915, but his New York Society for the Suppression of Vice remained active until 1950.) For censorship in 1932, see headnote to Animula. irresponsible: OED 1: “not answerable · · · incapable of legal responsibility”. TSE: “exercise of the irresponsible activity of a legal mind”, A Neglected Aspect of Chapman (1924).
[Poem I 25 · Textual History II 333]
8 His laughter was submarine and profound: on submarines, see headnote. “Subterrene laughter”, Ode (“Tired. | Subterrene”) 2. “A breathless chuckle underground”, Exequy 28. “under ground | Leaned backward with a lipless grin”, Whispers of Immortality 3–4. “laughter · · · where all the waters meet”, Marina 20–21. “Our gaze is submarine”, Choruses from “The Rock” X 32. “a smile | Simple and profound”, First Debate between the Body and Soul 44–45. A revision of OED after the 2nd ed. differentiates a new sense of “submarine”, with this line as the first citation: “fig. That possesses a quality, colour, atmosphere, etc. associated with or suggestive of that found beneath the surface of the sea” (with second citation from Aldous Huxley: “With a kind of submarine laughter below the surface of his voice”, Those Barren Leaves, 1925). submarine and profound: if a submarine in 1915 was deep down, it was not in attack mode (Kevin Barents, personal communication). profound: OED 1a: “Having great or considerable downward (or inward) measurement; of great depth”, with The Winter’s Tale IV iv: “for all the · · · profound sea hides in unknown fathoms”. 1c: “deeply drawn, deep-fetched (as a sigh)”. 2a: “Of a person: Characterized by intellectual depth · · · Deep or subtle in contrivance, crafty, cunning. (The earliest sense in English)” with “profound geometers” (1734) and “profoundest of metaphysicians” (1869). 3a: “Difficult to ‘fathom’ · · · having a meaning that does not lie on the surface”. 3b: “concealed or involving concealment”. B 1b: “spec. · · · the deep sea, ‘the deep’. poetical.”
The Poems of T. S. Eliot Volume I Page 44
