[II] 77–78 burnished · · · Glowed on the: Shelley, echoing Antony and Cleopatra: “the sun’s image radiantly intense | | Burned on the waters of the well that glowed”, The Triumph of Life 345–46. TSE conflated Shakespeare, The Waste Land and perhaps Shelley in characterising “the speech in which Enobarbus describes the first meeting of Antony and Cleopatra, which is very deliberately grandiose—‘The barge she sat in, like a golden throne, | Glowed on the waters’ … —and in which the language is so strikingly out of character as to make us feel that the rough soldier becomes another man when thinking of the fascination and beauty of the queen”, The Development of Shakespeare’s Verse (1950 text). Pope, on a proposed variant: “tho’ the difference between burn and glow may seem not very material to others, to me I confess the latter has an elegance, a Jenesçay quoy, which is much easier to be conceiv’d than explain’d”, burlesque note to The Dunciad (1728) II 175–76 (Valentine Cunningham, personal communication).
[Poem I 58, 328 · Textual History II 376]
[II] 77–89 sat · · · throne · · · golden · · · vials · · · odours: Revelation 5: 7–8: “sat upon the throne · · · golden vials full of odours”.
[II] 77, 94 burnished throne · · · copper: Pound: “By the mirror of burnished copper, | O Queen of Cypress”, The Alchemist (1920), one of the poems added by TSE to Anne Ridler’s Selection of Poems by Pound (1940).
[II] 78–80] WLFacs notes: “Eliot offered these revised lines: ‘Glowed on the marble, where the glass | Sustained by standards wrought with fruited vines | Wherefrom …’ ‘OK’ replied Pound. However, Eliot restored ‘Held up’ to the second line, and ‘Wherefrom’ appeared in The Criterion only, all later printings reverting to ‘From which’” (quoting TSE’s letter [26? Jan 1922] and Pound’s comments upon it: see headnote, 1. COMPOSITION).
[II] 78–87 marble · · · the glitter of her jewels · · · ivory · · · Unstoppered · · · perfumes: Mary Elizabeth Braddon: “her glittering toilette apparatus lay about on the marble dressing-table. The atmosphere of the room was almost oppressive from the rich odours of perfumes in bottles whose stoppers had not been replaced · · · Jewellery, ivory-backed hair-brushes, and exquisite china, were scattered here and there about the apartment”, Lady Audley’s Secret ch. VIII (Heywood).
[II] 78, 110 Glowed on the marble · · · Glowed into words, then would be savagely still: the return of “Glowed” at the head of 110, as though forming a long syntactic arc, had no counterpart when “Glowed into words, then was suddenly still” was used alone in The Death of the Duchess II 22 (which had taken up “suddenly still” from Silence 13). TSE’s only other use of “Glowed” in his poems is likewise at the head of a line: “Glowed in the shadow of the bed”, Song (“The golden foot I may not kiss or clutch”) 2, for which see headnote to The Waste Land, 1. COMPOSITION.
[II] 79 fruited vines: William Morris: “the fruited vines a-row”, The Earthly Paradise, An Apology st. 5 (see note to Ash-Wednesday I 5–6).
[II] 79–118 vines · · · golden Cupidon · · · flames of sevenbranched candelabra · · · stirred by the air | That freshened from the window · · · candle-flames · · · ceiling · · · window · · · told upon the walls; staring forms · · · her hair · · · “My nerves are bad · · · “What is that noise?” | The wind: Poe’s Ligeia is set in a gothick abbey with “carvings of Egypt · · · golden candelabra · · · trellice-work of an aged vine · · · ceiling vaulted · · · a huge censer · · · so contrived that there writhed in and out of them, as if endued with a serpent vitality, a continual succession of parti-colored fires · · · gorgeous volutes of the curtains which partially shaded the window · · · with arabesque figures · · · wrought · · · ghastly forms · · · The phantasmagoric effect was vastly heightened by the artificial introduction of a strong continual current of wind behind the draperies—giving a hideous and uneasy animation · · · figures upon the wall.” The tale tells how a wife, without love for her husband and morbidly “hated” by him, suffered recurrent illnesses and “nervous irritation” which caused “excitability by trivial causes of fear”: “She spoke again, and now more frequently · · · of the sounds—of the slight sounds—and of the unusual motions among the tapestries.” After her death, as he watched her corpse, she “stirred · · · I repeat, stirred” and finally unloosened “her hair”. For Poe’s story, see notes to Elegy and to East Coker III 13–17.
[Poem I 58, 328 · Textual History II 376–77]
[II] 80 a golden Cupidon peeped out: Flaubert: “Il y avait sur la pendule un petit Cupidon de bronze, qui minaudait, en arrondissant les bras sous une guirlande dorée” [On the clock there was a little bronze cupid, simpering and curving its arms under a gilded wreath], Madame Bovary III v (J. C. Maxwell, English Studies Aug 1963). OED has “Cupidon” only as “a ‘beau’ or ‘Adonis’”, citing Byron.
134 one: Pound’s annotation: “‘one’ wee red mouse”] WLFacs notes: “La Nuit Blanche [22] by Rudyard Kipling. ‘Me and one wee Blood Red Mouse’. The poem itself has no relevance to The Waste Land; Pound said he was merely teasing Eliot about ‘one’.”
[II] 80–91 peeped out · · · hid his eyes · · · flames · · · light · · · perfumes · · · stirred by the air | That freshened from the window · · · fattening the prolonged candle-flames: Cymbeline II ii: “’Tis her breathing that | Perfumes the chamber thus. The flame o’ th’ taper | Bows toward her, and would under-peep her lids | To see th’ enclosed lights.” Before falling asleep Imogen had been reading “The tale of Tereus; here the leaf’s turn’d down | Where Philomel gave up” (Melchiori); see note to [II] 98–104.
[II] 82–83, 91 sevenbranched candelabra | Reflecting light upon the table · · · the prolonged candle-flames: Poe: “flames of the seven lamps · · · Uprearing themselves in tall slender lines of light, they thus remained burning all pallid · · · and in the mirror which their lustre formed upon the round table of ebony”, Shadow—A Parable (Grover Smith 1983 123–25).
[II] 83–88 light · · · glitter · · · profusion · · · ivory · · · liquid: Poe: “liquid eyes · · · and a profusion of curling, black hair, from which a forehead of unusual breadth gleamed forth at intervals all light and ivory”, The Assignation (which has “marble” repeatedly; TSE: [II] 78). See note to [II] 85–95.
[II] 83–96 Reflecting light · · · coloured glass · · · drowned · · · window · · · ascended · · · Stirring · · · sea-wood · · · coloured stone · · · In which sad light a carvèd dolphin swam:
And lights directed through the coloured panes of windows
And light reflected from the polished stone,
The gilded carven wood, the coloured fresco.
Our gaze is submarine, our eyes look upward
And see the light that fractures through unquiet water.
Choruses from “The Rock” X 29–33
(For the submarine world, see note to Mr. Apollinax 11–15.)
[II] 83–87, 96, 108–109 Reflecting light upon the table as | The glitter of her jewels · · · vials of ivory · · · her strange synthetic perfumes · · · swam · · · her hair | Spread out in fiery points: William Morris: “her hair · · · Like ivory in the sea, and the sun gleamed | In the strange jewels · · · swimming”, The Life and Death of Jason IV 257–60, 266. TSE quoted Morris’s poem in Andrew Marvell (1921). See notes to [II] 79 and [IV] 312.
[Poem I 58, 328 · Textual History II 377]
[II] 84–87 The glitter of her jewels · · · satin cases · · · vials of ivory and coloured glass · · · synthetic perfumes: Pope: “decks the Goddess with the glitt’ring Spoil. | This Casket India’s glowing Gems unlocks, | And all Arabia breathes from yonder Box”, The Rape of the Lock I 132–34 (Irène Simon, English Studies Apr 1953, giving other parallels). jewels · · · cases: The Picture of Dorian Gray ch. XI: “he took up the study of jewels · · · resettling in their cases the various stones”. Wilde’s chapter (for which see notes to [II] 87–95 and to The Love
Song of J. Alfred Prufrock 17–22) three times mentions the carbuncle (see note to [III] 231). vials · · · unstoppered: Pope: “stopt in Vials”, The Rape of the Lock II 126.
[II] 85–95 poured · · · perfumes · · · troubled, confused | And drowned the sense · · · the window · · · Flung their smoke · · · Burned green and orange: Poe: “The senses were oppressed by mingling and conflicting perfumes, reeking up from strange convolute censers, together with multitudinous flaring and flickering tongues of emerald and violet fire. The rays of the newly-risen sun poured in upon the whole, through windows”, The Assignation.
[II] 87–89 lurked · · · troubled, confused | And drowned · · · stirred: main verbs or participles: on the “blurring of the grammar” here, see Empson, Seven Types of Ambiguity (1930) ch. II. (For TSE on “intentional ambiguity”, see note to [V] 398, “crouched, hunched”.) “Flattened · · · Stretched · · · prepared”, Prufrock’s Pervigilium [23–24].
[II] 87–95 perfumes · · · troubled, confused | And drowned the sense in odours; stirred · · · copper | Burned: The Picture of Dorian Gray ch. XI: “And so he would now study perfumes · · · burning odorous gums · · · that stirred one’s passions · · · musk that troubled the brain” (with “copper” in the next paragraph).
[II] 88 Unguent: pronounced ungwent (as OED) in TSE’s recordings.
[II] 89 drowned the sense: Chapman: “drowning their eternal parts in sense | And sensual affections”, The Conspiracy of Charles, Duke of Byron III i. See note to Gerontion 38–39. odours: in Johnson’s Dictionary and OED almost entirely positive or neutral, but see note to “une odeur fémelle”, Petit Epître 8.
[II] 89–90 stirred by the air | That freshened from the window: “Across the window panes the plumes of lilac swept | Stirred by the morning air”, Oh little voices of the throats of men 37–38.
[II] 91 prolonged candle-flames: Purg. XVIII 28–30: “come il foco movesi in altura, | per la sua forma, ch’è nata a salire | là dove più in sua materia dura” [even as fire moves upward by reason of its form, whose nature is to ascend, there where it endures longest in its material]. (In the copy his mother had given him, TSE scored XVIII 19–40 in the Italian.) Scientifically: “where flame assumes a prolonged or lengthened appearance, as in the case of the candle”, C. W. Williams, The Combustion of Coals and the Prevention of Smoke (1840) 139.
[II] 92–93 laquearia · · · coffered ceiling: TSE’s Notes quote two lines from Virgil’s description of Dido’s banquet for Aeneas, Aeneid I 723–30:
Postquam prima quies epulis mensaeque remotae,
crateras magnos statuunt et vina coronant.
fit strepitus tectis vocemque per ampla volutant
atria; dependent lychni laquearibus aureis
incensi et noctem flammis funalia vincunt.
hic regina gravem gemmis auroque poposcit
implevitque mero pateram, quam Belus et omnes
a Belo soliti; tum facta silentia tectis
[Poem I 58, 328–29 · Textual History II 377]
[When first there came a lull in the feasting, and the boards were cleared, they set down great bowls and crown the wine. A din arises in the palace and voices roll through the spacious halls; lighted lamps hang down from the fretted roof of gold, and flaming torches drive out the night. Then the queen called for a cup, heavy with jewels and gold, and filled it with wine—one that Belus and all of Belus’ line had been wont to use.]
“Laquearia” did not appear in the first edition of OED, but was added in 1976 as TSE’s nonce word (“A ceiling, roof”). OED “laquear”: Arch. 1706. “a Roof of a Chamber embowed, channelled, and done with Fret-work”. OED “lacunar” (pl. lacunars, lacunaria): “a. The ceiling or under surface of any part, when it consists of sunk or hollowed compartments. b. pl. The sunken panels in such a ceiling. 1823. Lacunariæ, or Lacunars, panels or coffers formed on the ceilings of apartments.” TSE’s earliest form, “laquenaria”, not recognised by OED, appears in the surviving drafts shown to Pound (WLFacs) and then in the Quinn, Watson and Thayer tss (Q and T/W). Whether the n was omitted deliberately is unclear.
[II] 94–95 copper | Burned green and orange: Coleridge: “a hot and copper sky · · · The water, like a witch’s oils, | Burnt green, and blue and white”, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner II 29, 47–48 (Melchiori).
[II] 94–109 sea-wood · · · Burned green · · · the sylvan scene · · · withered stumps of time · · · firelight · · · fiery: Cowper:
So wither’d stumps disgrace the sylvan scene,
No longer fruitful and no longer green,
The sapless wood, divested of the bark,
Grows fungous and takes fire at ev’ry spark.
Conversation 51–54
In Titus Andronicus, the “stumps” (V ii) of Lavinia’s arms prompt the question “what stern ungentle hands | Hath lopp’d and hew’d and made thy body bare | Of her two branches?” (II iv), and her plight is compared to “the tragic tale of Philomel” (IV i) (Schmidt 1982b).
[II] 96 In which sad light a carvèd dolphin swam: Antony and Cleopatra V ii (on Antony): “his delights | Were dolphin-like” (Melchiori). Tennyson: “And in the light the white mermaiden swam”, Guinevere 243 (James Smith 132). a carvèd dolphin: the mistaken adjective “coloured” in the Hogarth Press edition (H) is from “coloured stone” in the previous line (following “coloured glass”, [II] 86). TSE emended “coloured” to “carven” in some copies of H, including the one he sent to his mother. Alongside the words “un dauphin de couleur” in the ts of Menasce’s translation, TSE wrote: “The English text is wrong here—Read ‘carvèn stone dolphin’” (“goddess carved of stone”, On a Portrait 5). To his Swedish translator Erik Mesterton, 20 Jan 1932: “Porphyry will do.”
[II] 96–105 carvèd · · · upon the walls; staring forms: Keats: “The carvèd angels, ever eager-eyed, | Stared, where upon their heads the cornice rests, | With hair blown back, and wings put cross-wise on their breasts”, The Eve of St. Agnes 34–36 (Melchiori).
[Poem I 58, 329 · Textual History II 377–78]
[II] 98–104 sylvan scene · · · by the barbarous king | So rudely forced · · · the nightingale | Filled all the desert with inviolable voice · · · “Jug Jug” · · · stumps: TSE’s Notes refer to Ovid, Metamorphoses VI 424–674. Lemprière on Philomela: “a daughter of Pandion king of Athens, and sister of Procne, who had married Tereus, king of Thrace · · · he offered violence to Philomela, and afterwards cut out her tongue, that she might not be able to discover his barbarity, and the indignities which she had suffered · · · Philomela, during her captivity, described on a piece of tapestry her misfortunes and the brutality of Tereus, and privately conveyed it to Procne · · · Procne and Philomela died through excess of grief and melancholy, and as the nightingale’s and swallow’s voice is peculiarly plaintive and mournful, the poets have embellished the fable by supposing that the two unfortunate sisters were changed into birds” (see note to [V] 428). Ovid, tr. Golding: “so barbrous and so beastly was his thought · · · by force bicause she was a Maide | And all alone he vanquisht hir · · · barbrous · · · my voyce the verie woods shall fill · · · He tooke her rudely · · · did catch hir by the tung, | And with his sword did cut it off. The stumpe whereon it hung | Did patter still”, Metamorphoses VI 655–711. The tale is also told in the Pervigilium Veneris. Williamson 140 points to John Lyly:
What Bird so sings, yet so dos wayle?
O t’is the ravish’d Nightingale.
Iug, Iug, Iug, Iug, tereu, shee cryes,
And still her woes at Midnight rise.
Brave prick-song!
Campaspe V i, Trico’s song
Kenner 133: “Lyly of course is perfectly aware of what she is trying to say: ‘tereu’ comes very close to ‘Tereus’.” Richard Barnfield: “Fie, fie, fie, now would she cry; | Tereu, Tereu, by and by”, An Ode (“As it fell upon a day”) 13–14. The Golden Treasury prints this as The Nightingale. Camelia Elias and Bent Soerensen sug
gest that the repetition “Tereu, tereu” in TSE’s draft (WLComposite 318) makes Barnfield the likely source, and discuss “Tereu” as both the vocative of “Tereus” and as onomatopoeia (Explicator Winter 2004). Barnfield’s own spelling was “Teru Teru”, but both the Lyly and the Barnfield are printed in the Oxf Bk of English Verse (as Spring’s Welcome and Philomel), with the spelling “Tereu”. George Gascoigne:
In sweet April · · · I walked out alone,
To hear the descant of the Nightingale” · · ·
Orphæus harpe, was never halfe so sweete,
Tereu, Tereu, and thus she gan to plaine · · ·
Hir Iug, Iug, Iug, (in griefe) had such a grace · · ·
But one strange note, I noted with the rest
And that saide thus: Nêmesis, Némesis
The Complaynt of Phylomene (1–6, 74–75, 86, 93–94)
sylvan scene: TSE’s Notes refer to Paradise Lost IV 137–42:
over head up grew
Insuperable highth of loftiest shade,
Cedar, and Pine, and Fir, and branching Palm,
A Silvan Scene, and as the ranks ascend
Shade above shade, a woody Theatre
Of stateliest view.
[Poem I 58, 329 · Textual History II 377–78]
(TSE: “sevenbranched”, [II] 82.) Virgil: “silvis scaena coruscis” [a background of shimmering woods], Aeneid I 164. Dryden: “a Sylvan Scene | Appears above, and Groves for ever green”, Aeneid I 233–34; “A Sylvan Scene with various Greens was drawn”, Palamon and Arcite 619. Both phrases of Dryden’s are quoted by Mark Van Doren, The Poetry of John Dryden 71–72, reviewed by TSE in John Dryden (1921) (Grover Smith 1983 127). TSE: “window · · · And beyond · · · a pasture scene”, Ash-Wednesday III 13–14. For Cowper’s “sylvan scene”, see note to [II] 94–109. sylvan · · · nightingale · · · inviolable · · · still · · · pursues · · · ears:
The Poems of T. S. Eliot Volume I Page 79
