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<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Waste Land, by T. S. Eliot</title>
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<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1321 ***</div>
<h1>The Waste Land</h1>
<h2 class="no-break">By T. S. Eliot</h2>
<hr />
<h2>Contents</h2>
<table summary="" style="">
<tr>
<td> <a href="#chap01">I. THE BURIAL OF THE DEAD</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> <a href="#chap02">II. A GAME OF CHESS</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> <a href="#chap03">III. THE FIRE SERMON</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> <a href="#chap04">IV. DEATH BY WATER</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> <a href="#chap05">V. WHAT THE THUNDER SAID</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> <a href="#chap06">NOTES ON “THE WASTE LAND”</a></td>
</tr>
</table>
<div class="chapter">
<p class="letter">
“Nam Sibyllam quidem Cumis ego ipse oculis meis<br />
vidi in ampulla pendere, et cum illi pueri dicerent:<br />
Σίβυλλα τί
θέλεις; respondebat illa:
ἀποθανεῖν
θέλω.”<br />
<br />
<i>For Ezra Pound<br />
il miglior fabbro</i>
</p>
</div><!--end chapter-->
<div class="chapter">
<h2><a name="chap01"></a>I. THE BURIAL OF THE DEAD</h2>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.
Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee
With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade,
And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten, 10
And drank coffee, and talked for an hour.
Bin gar keine Russin, stamm’ aus Litauen, echt deutsch.
And when we were children, staying at the archduke’s,
My cousin’s, he took me out on a sled,
And I was frightened. He said, Marie,
Marie, hold on tight. And down we went.
In the mountains, there you feel free.
I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.
What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man, 20
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water. Only
There is shadow under this red rock,
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),
And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust. 30
<i>Frisch weht der Wind
Der Heimat zu
Mein Irisch Kind,
Wo weilest du?</i>
“You gave me hyacinths first a year ago;
“They called me the hyacinth girl.”
—Yet when we came back, late, from the Hyacinth garden,
Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not
Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither
Living nor dead, and I knew nothing, 40
Looking into the heart of light, the silence.
<i>Oed’ und leer das Meer</i>.
Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyante,
Had a bad cold, nevertheless
Is known to be the wisest woman in Europe,
With a wicked pack of cards. Here, said she,
Is your card, the drowned Phoenician Sailor,
(Those are pearls that were his eyes. Look!)
Here is Belladonna, the Lady of the Rocks,
The lady of situations. 50
Here is the man with three staves, and here the Wheel,
And here is the one-eyed merchant, and this card,
Which is blank, is something he carries on his back,
Which I am forbidden to see. I do not find
The Hanged Man. Fear death by water.
I see crowds of people, walking round in a ring.
Thank you. If you see dear Mrs. Equitone,
Tell her I bring the horoscope myself:
One must be so careful these days.
Unreal City, 60
Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,
A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,
I had not thought death had undone so many.
Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled,
And each man fixed his eyes before his feet.
Flowed up the hill and down King William Street,
To where Saint Mary Woolnoth kept the hours
With a dead sound on the final stroke of nine.
There I saw one I knew, and stopped him, crying “Stetson!
“You who were with me in the ships at Mylae! 70
“That corpse you planted last year in your garden,
“Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year?
“Or has the sudden frost disturbed its bed?
“Oh keep the Dog far hence, that’s friend to men,
“Or with his nails he’ll dig it up again!
“You! hypocrite lecteur!—mon semblable,—mon frère!”
</pre>
</div><!--end chapter-->
<div class="chapter">
<h2><a name="chap02"></a>II. A GAME OF CHESS</h2>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
The Chair she sat in, like a burnished throne,
Glowed on the marble, where the glass
Held up by standards wrought with fruited vines
From which a golden Cupidon peeped out 80
(Another hid his eyes behind his wing)
Doubled the flames of sevenbranched candelabra
Reflecting light upon the table as
The glitter of her jewels rose to meet it,
From satin cases poured in rich profusion.
In vials of ivory and coloured glass
Unstoppered, lurked her strange synthetic perfumes,
Unguent, powdered, or liquid—troubled, confused
And drowned the sense in odours; stirred by the air
That freshened from the window, these ascended 90
In fattening the prolonged candle-flames,
Flung their smoke into the laquearia,
Stirring the pattern on the coffered ceiling.
Huge sea-wood fed with copper
Burned green and orange, framed by the coloured stone,
In which sad light a carvèd dolphin swam.
Above the antique mantel was displayed
As though a window gave upon the sylvan scene
The change of Philomel, by the barbarous king
So rudely forced; yet there the nightingale 100
Filled all the desert with inviolable voice
And still she cried, and still the world pursues,
“Jug Jug” to dirty ears.
And other withered stumps of time
Were told upon the walls; staring forms
Leaned out, leaning, hushing the room enclosed.
Footsteps shuffled on the stair.
Under the firelight, under the brush, her hair
Spread out in fiery points
Glowed into words, then would be savagely still. 110
“My nerves are bad to-night. Yes, bad. Stay with me.
“Speak to me. Why do you never speak. Speak.
“What are you thinking of? What thinking? What?
“I never know what you are thinking. Think.”
I think we are in rats’ alley
Where the dead men lost their bones.
“What is that noise?”
The wind under the door.
“What is that noise now? What is the wind doing?”
Nothing again nothing. 120
“Do
“You know nothing? Do you see nothing? Do you remember
“Nothing?”
I remember
Those are pearls that were his eyes.
“Are you alive, or not? Is there nothing in your head?”
But
O O O O that Shakespeherian Rag—
It’s so elegant
So intelligent 130
“What shall I do now? What shall I do?”
I shall rush out as I am, and walk the street
“With my hair down, so. What shall we do tomorrow?
“What shall we ever do?”
The hot water at ten.
And if it rains, a closed car at four.
And we shall play a game of chess,
Pressing lidless eyes and waiting for a knock upon the door.
When Lil’s husband got demobbed, I said—
I didn’t mince my words, I said to her myself, 140
HURRY UP PLEASE IT’S TIME
Now Albert’s coming back, make yourself a bit smart.
He’ll want to know what you done with that money he gave you
To get yourself some teeth. He did, I was there.
You have them all out, Lil, and get a nice set,
He said, I swear, I can’t bear to look at you.
And no more can’t I, I said, and think of poor Albert,
He’s been in the army four years, he wants a good time,
And if you don’t give it him, there’s others will, I said.
Oh is there, she said. Something o’ that, I said. 150
Then I’ll know who to thank, she said, and give me a straight look.
HURRY UP PLEASE IT’S TIME
If you don’t like it you can get on with it, I said.
Others can pick and choose if you can’t.
But if Albert makes off, it won’t be for lack of telling.
You ought to be ashamed, I said, to look so antique.
(And her only thirty-one.)
I can’t help it, she said, pulling a long face,
It’s them pills I took, to bring it off, she said.
(She’s had five already, and nearly died of young George.) 160
The chemist said it would be all right, but I’ve never been the same.
You <i>are</i> a proper fool, I said.
Well, if Albert won’t leave you alone, there it is, I said,
What you get married for if you don’t want children?
HURRY UP PLEASE IT’S TIME
Well, that Sunday Albert was home, they had a hot gammon,
And they asked me in to dinner, to get the beauty of it hot—
HURRY UP PLEASE IT’S TIME
HURRY UP PLEASE IT’S TIME
Goonight Bill. Goonight Lou. Goonight May. Goonight. 170
Ta ta. Goonight. Goonight.
Good night, ladies, good night, sweet ladies, good night, good night.
</pre>
</div><!--end chapter-->
<div class="chapter">
<h2><a name="chap03"></a>III. THE FIRE SERMON</h2>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
The river’s tent is broken: the last fingers of leaf
Clutch and sink into the wet bank. The wind
Crosses the brown land, unheard. The nymphs are departed.
Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song.
The river bears no empty bottles, sandwich papers,
Silk handkerchiefs, cardboard boxes, cigarette ends
Or other testimony of summer nights. The nymphs are departed.
And their friends, the loitering heirs of city directors; 180
Departed, have left no addresses.
By the waters of Leman I sat down and wept . . .
Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my song,
Sweet Thames, run softly, for I speak not loud or long.
But at my back in a cold blast I hear
The rattle of the bones, and chuckle spread from ear to ear.
A rat crept softly through the vegetation
Dragging its slimy belly on the bank
While I was fishing in the dull canal
On a winter evening round behind the gashouse 190
Musing upon the king my brother’s wreck
And on the king my father’s death before him.
White bodies naked on the low damp ground
And bones cast in a little low dry garret,
Rattled by the rat’s foot only, year to year.
But at my back from time to time I hear
The sound of horns and motors, which shall bring
Sweeney to Mrs. Porter in the spring.
O the moon shone bright on Mrs. Porter
And on her daughter 200
They wash their feet in soda water
<i>Et O ces voix d’enfants, chantant dans la coupole!</i>
Twit twit twit
Jug jug jug jug jug jug
So rudely forc’d.
Tereu
Unreal City
Under the brown fog of a winter noon
Mr. Eugenides, the Smyrna merchant
Unshaven, with a pocket full of currants 210
C.i.f. London: documents at sight,
Asked me in demotic French
To luncheon at the Cannon Street Hotel
Followed by a weekend at the Metropole.
At the violet hour, when the eyes and back
Turn upward from the desk, when the human engine waits
Like a taxi throbbing waiting,
I Tiresias, though blind, throbbing between two lives,
Old man with wrinkled female breasts, can see
At the violet hour, the evening hour that strives 220
Homeward, and brings the sailor home from sea,
The typist home at teatime, clears her breakfast, lights
Her stove, and lays out food in tins.
Out of the window perilously spread
Her drying combinations touched by the sun’s last rays,
On the divan are piled (at night her bed)
Stockings, slippers, camisoles, and stays.
I Tiresias, old man with wrinkled dugs
Perceived the scene, and foretold the rest—
I too awaited the expected guest. 230
He, the young man carbuncular, arrives,
A small house agent’s clerk, with one bold stare,
One of the low on whom assurance sits
As a silk hat on a Bradford millionaire.
The time is now propitious, as he guesses,
The meal is ended, she is bored and tired,
Endeavours to engage her in caresses
Which still are unreproved, if undesired.
Flushed and decided, he assaults at once;
Exploring hands encounter no defence; 240
His vanity requires no response,
And makes a welcome of indifference.
(And I Tiresias have foresuffered all
Enacted on this same divan or bed;
I who have sat by Thebes below the wall
And walked among the lowest of the dead.)
Bestows one final patronising kiss,
And gropes his way, finding the stairs unlit . . .
She turns and looks a moment in the glass,
Hardly aware of her departed lover; 250
Her brain allows one half-formed thought to pass:
“Well now that’s done: and I’m glad it’s over.”
When lovely woman stoops to folly and
Paces about her room again, alone,
She smooths her hair with automatic hand,
And puts a record on the gramophone.
“This music crept by me upon the waters”
And along the Strand, up Queen Victoria Street.
O City city, I can sometimes hear
Beside a public bar in Lower Thames Street, 260
The pleasant whining of a mandoline
And a clatter and a chatter from within
Where fishmen lounge at noon: where the walls
Of Magnus Martyr hold
Inexplicable splendour of Ionian white and gold.
The river sweats
Oil and tar
The barges drift
With the turning tide
Red sails 270
Wide
To leeward, swing on the heavy spar.
The barges wash
Drifting logs
Down Greenwich reach
Past the Isle of Dogs.
Weialala leia
Wallala leialala
Elizabeth and Leicester
Beating oars 280
The stern was formed
A gilded shell
Red and gold
The brisk swell
Rippled both shores
Southwest wind
Carried down stream
The peal of bells
White towers
Weialala leia 290
Wallala leialala
“Trams and dusty trees.
Highbury bore me. Richmond and Kew
Undid me. By Richmond I raised my knees
Supine on the floor of a narrow canoe.”
“My feet are at Moorgate, and my heart
Under my feet. After the event
He wept. He promised ‘a new start’.
I made no comment. What should I resent?”
“On Margate Sands. 300
I can connect
Nothing with nothing.
The broken fingernails of dirty hands.
My people humble people who expect
Nothing.”
la la
To Carthage then I came
Burning burning burning burning
O Lord Thou pluckest me out
O Lord Thou pluckest 310
burning
</pre>
</div><!--end chapter-->
<div class="chapter">
<h2><a name="chap04"></a>IV. DEATH BY WATER</h2>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
Phlebas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead,
Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep sea swell
And the profit and loss.
A current under sea
Picked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell
He passed the stages of his age and youth
Entering the whirlpool.
Gentile or Jew
O you who turn the wheel and look to windward, 320
Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you.
</pre>
</div><!--end chapter-->
<div class="chapter">
<h2><a name="chap05"></a>V. WHAT THE THUNDER SAID</h2>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
After the torchlight red on sweaty faces
After the frosty silence in the gardens
After the agony in stony places
The shouting and the crying
Prison and palace and reverberation
Of thunder of spring over distant mountains
He who was living is now dead
We who were living are now dying
With a little patience 330
Here is no water but only rock
Rock and no water and the sandy road
The road winding above among the mountains
Which are mountains of rock without water
If there were water we should stop and drink
Amongst the rock one cannot stop or think
Sweat is dry and feet are in the sand
If there were only water amongst the rock
Dead mountain mouth of carious teeth that cannot spit
Here one can neither stand nor lie nor sit 340
There is not even silence in the mountains
But dry sterile thunder without rain
There is not even solitude in the mountains
But red sullen faces sneer and snarl
From doors of mudcracked houses
If there were water
And no rock
If there were rock
And also water
And water 350
A spring
A pool among the rock
If there were the sound of water only
Not the cicada
And dry grass singing
But sound of water over a rock
Where the hermit-thrush sings in the pine trees
Drip drop drip drop drop drop drop
But there is no water
Who is the third who walks always beside you?
When I count, there are only you and I together 360
But when I look ahead up the white road
There is always another one walking beside you
Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded
I do not know whether a man or a woman
—But who is that on the other side of you?
What is that sound high in the air
Murmur of maternal lamentation
Who are those hooded hordes swarming
Over endless plains, stumbling in cracked earth
Ringed by the flat horizon only 370
What is the city over the mountains
Cracks and reforms and bursts in the violet air
Falling towers
Jerusalem Athens Alexandria
Vienna London
Unreal
A woman drew her long black hair out tight
And fiddled whisper music on those strings
And bats with baby faces in the violet light
Whistled, and beat their wings 380
And crawled head downward down a blackened wall
And upside down in air were towers
Tolling reminiscent bells, that kept the hours
And voices singing out of empty cisterns and exhausted wells.
In this decayed hole among the mountains
In the faint moonlight, the grass is singing
Over the tumbled graves, about the chapel
There is the empty chapel, only the wind’s home.
It has no windows, and the door swings,
Dry bones can harm no one. 390
Only a cock stood on the rooftree
Co co rico co co rico
In a flash of lightning. Then a damp gust
Bringing rain
Ganga was sunken, and the limp leaves
Waited for rain, while the black clouds
Gathered far distant, over Himavant.
The jungle crouched, humped in silence.
Then spoke the thunder
DA 400
<i>Datta:</i> what have we given?
My friend, blood shaking my heart
The awful daring of a moment’s surrender
Which an age of prudence can never retract
By this, and this only, we have existed
Which is not to be found in our obituaries
Or in memories draped by the beneficent spider
Or under seals broken by the lean solicitor
In our empty rooms
DA 410
<i>Dayadhvam:</i> I have heard the key
Turn in the door once and turn once only
We think of the key, each in his prison
Thinking of the key, each confirms a prison
Only at nightfall, aetherial rumours
Revive for a moment a broken Coriolanus
DA
<i>Damyata:</i> The boat responded
Gaily, to the hand expert with sail and oar
The sea was calm, your heart would have responded 420
Gaily, when invited, beating obedient
To controlling hands
I sat upon the shore
Fishing, with the arid plain behind me
Shall I at least set my lands in order?
London Bridge is falling down falling down falling down
<i>Poi s’ascose nel foco che gli affina
Quando fiam ceu chelidon</i> — O swallow swallow
<i>Le Prince d’Aquitaine à la tour abolie</i>
These fragments I have shored against my ruins 430
Why then Ile fit you. Hieronymo’s mad againe.
Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata.
Shantih shantih shantih
Line 415 aetherial] aethereal
Line 428 ceu] uti— Editor
</pre>
</div><!--end chapter-->
<div class="chapter">
<h2><a name="chap06"></a>NOTES ON “THE WASTE LAND”</h2>
<p>
Not only the title, but the plan and a good deal of the incidental symbolism of
the poem were suggested by Miss Jessie L. Weston’s book on the Grail
legend: <i>From Ritual to Romance</i> (Macmillan, Cambridge) Indeed, so deeply
am I indebted, Miss Weston’s book will elucidate the difficulties of the
poem much better than my notes can do; and I recommend it (apart from the great
interest of the book itself) to any who think such elucidation of the poem
worth the trouble. To another work of anthropology I am indebted in general,
one which has influenced our generation profoundly; I mean <i>The Golden
Bough</i>; I have used especially the two volumes <i>Adonis, Attis, Osiris</i>.
Anyone who is acquainted with these works will immediately recognise in the
poem certain references to vegetation ceremonies.
</p>
<h5>I. THE BURIAL OF THE DEAD</h5>
<p>
Line 20. Cf. <i>Ezekiel</i> 2:1.
</p>
<p>
23. Cf. <i>Ecclesiastes</i> 12:5.
</p>
<p>
31. V. <i>Tristan und Isolde</i>, i, verses 5-8.
</p>
<p>
42. Id. iii, verse 24.
</p>
<p>
46. I am not familiar with the exact constitution of the Tarot pack
of cards, from which I have obviously departed to suit my own convenience.
The Hanged Man, a member of the traditional pack, fits my purpose
in two ways: because he is associated in my mind with the Hanged God
of Frazer, and because I associate him with the hooded figure in
the passage of the disciples to Emmaus in Part V. The Phoenician Sailor
and the Merchant appear later; also the “crowds of people,” and
Death by Water is executed in Part IV. The Man with Three Staves
(an authentic member of the Tarot pack) I associate, quite arbitrarily,
with the Fisher King himself.
</p>
<p>
60. Cf. Baudelaire:
</p>
<p class="poem">
“Fourmillante cité, cité; pleine de rêves,<br />
Où le spectre en plein jour raccroche le passant.”
</p>
<p>
63. Cf. <i>Inferno</i>, iii. 55-7.
</p>
<p class="poem">
“si lunga tratta<br />
di gente, ch’io non avrei mai creduto<br />
che morte tanta n’avesse disfatta.”
</p>
<p>
64. Cf. <i>Inferno</i>, iv. 25-7:
</p>
<p class="poem">
“Quivi, secondo che per ascoltare,<br />
“non avea pianto, ma’ che di sospiri,<br />
“che l’aura eterna facevan tremare.”
</p>
<p>
68. A phenomenon which I have often noticed.
</p>
<p>
74. Cf. the Dirge in Webster’s <i>White Devil</i>.
</p>
<p>
76. V. Baudelaire, Preface to <i>Fleurs du Mal</i>.
</p>
<h5>II. A GAME OF CHESS</h5>
<p>
77. Cf. <i>Antony and Cleopatra</i>, II. ii., l. 190.
</p>
<p>
92. Laquearia. V. <i>Aeneid</i>, I. 726:
</p>
<p class="poem">
dependent lychni laquearibus aureis<br />
incensi, et noctem flammis funalia vincunt.
</p>
<p>
98. Sylvan scene. V. Milton, <i>Paradise Lost</i>, iv. 140.
</p>
<p>
99. V. Ovid, <i>Metamorphoses</i>, vi, Philomela.
</p>
<p>
100. Cf. Part III, l. 204.
</p>
<p>
115. Cf. Part III, l. 195.
</p>
<p>
118. Cf. Webster: “Is the wind in that door still?”
</p>
<p>
126. Cf. Part I, l. 37, 48.
</p>
<p>
138. Cf. the game of chess in Middleton’s <i>Women beware Women</i>.
</p>
<h5>III. THE FIRE SERMON</h5>
<p>
176. V. Spenser, <i>Prothalamion</i>.
</p>
<p>
192. Cf. <i>The Tempest</i>, I. ii.
</p>
<p>
196. Cf. Marvell, <i>To His Coy Mistress</i>.
</p>
<p>
197. Cf. Day, <i>Parliament of Bees</i>:
</p>
<p class="poem">
“When of the sudden, listening, you shall hear,<br />
“A noise of horns and hunting, which shall bring<br />
“Actaeon to Diana in the spring,<br />
“Where all shall see her naked skin . . .”
</p>
<p>
199. I do not know the origin of the ballad from which these lines
are taken: it was reported to me from Sydney, Australia.
</p>
<p>
202. V. Verlaine, <i>Parsifal</i>.
</p>
<p>
210. The currants were quoted at a price “carriage and insurance
free to London”; and the Bill of Lading etc. were to be handed
to the buyer upon payment of the sight draft.
</p>
<p>
210. “Carriage and insurance free”] “cost, insurance and freight”-Editor.
</p>
<p>
218. Tiresias, although a mere spectator and not indeed a “character,”
is yet the most important personage in the poem, uniting all the rest.
Just as the one-eyed merchant, seller of currants, melts into
the Phoenician Sailor, and the latter is not wholly distinct
from Ferdinand Prince of Naples, so all the women are one woman,
and the two sexes meet in Tiresias. What Tiresias <i>sees</i>, in fact,
is the substance of the poem. The whole passage from Ovid is
of great anthropological interest:
</p>
<p class="poem">
‘. . . Cum Iunone iocos et maior vestra profecto est<br />
Quam, quae contingit maribus,’ dixisse, ‘voluptas.’<br />
Illa negat; placuit quae sit sententia docti<br />
Quaerere Tiresiae: venus huic erat utraque nota.<br />
Nam duo magnorum viridi coeuntia silva<br />
Corpora serpentum baculi violaverat ictu<br />
Deque viro factus, mirabile, femina septem<br />
Egerat autumnos; octavo rursus eosdem<br />
Vidit et ‘est vestrae si tanta potentia plagae,’<br />
Dixit ‘ut auctoris sortem in contraria mutet,<br />
Nunc quoque vos feriam!’ percussis anguibus isdem<br />
Forma prior rediit genetivaque venit imago.<br />
Arbiter hic igitur sumptus de lite iocosa<br />
Dicta Iovis firmat; gravius Saturnia iusto<br />
Nec pro materia fertur doluisse suique<br />
Iudicis aeterna damnavit lumina nocte,<br />
At pater omnipotens (neque enim licet inrita cuiquam<br />
Facta dei fecisse deo) pro lumine adempto<br />
Scire futura dedit poenamque levavit honore.
</p>
<p>
221. This may not appear as exact as Sappho’s lines, but I had in mind
the “longshore” or “dory” fisherman, who returns at nightfall.
</p>
<p>
253. V. Goldsmith, the song in <i>The Vicar of Wakefield</i>.
</p>
<p>
257. V. <i>The Tempest</i>, as above.
</p>
<p>
264. The interior of St. Magnus Martyr is to my mind one of
the finest among Wren’s interiors. See <i>The Proposed Demolition
of Nineteen City Churches</i> (P. S. King & Son, Ltd.).
</p>
<p>
266. The Song of the (three) Thames-daughters begins here.
From line 292 to 306 inclusive they speak in turn.
V. <i>Götterdämmerung</i>, III. i: the Rhine-daughters.
</p>
<p>
279. V. Froude, <i>Elizabeth</i>, Vol. I, ch. iv, letter of De Quadra
to Philip of Spain:
</p>
<p>
“In the afternoon we were in a barge, watching the games on the river.
(The queen) was alone with 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.”
</p>
<p>
293. Cf. <i>Purgatorio</i>, v. 133:
</p>
<p class="poem">
“Ricorditi di me, che son la Pia;<br />
Siena mi fe’, disfecemi Maremma.”
</p>
<p>
307. V. St. Augustine’s <i>Confessions</i>: “to Carthage then I came,
where a cauldron of unholy loves sang all about mine ears.”
</p>
<p>
308. The complete text of the Buddha’s Fire Sermon (which corresponds
in importance to the Sermon on the Mount) from which these words are taken,
will be found translated in the late Henry Clarke Warren’s <i>Buddhism
in Translation</i> (Harvard Oriental Series). Mr. Warren was one
of the great pioneers of Buddhist studies in the Occident.
</p>
<p>
309. From St. Augustine’s <i>Confessions</i> again. The collocation
of these two representatives of eastern and western asceticism,
as the culmination of this part of the poem, is not an accident.
</p>
<h5>V. WHAT THE THUNDER SAID</h5>
<p>
In the first part of Part V three themes are employed:
the journey to Emmaus, the approach to the Chapel Perilous
(see Miss Weston’s book) and the present decay of eastern Europe.
</p>
<p>
357. This is <i>Turdus aonalaschkae pallasii</i>, the hermit-thrush
which I have heard in Quebec County. Chapman says (<i>Handbook of
Birds of Eastern North America</i>) “it is most at home in secluded
woodland and thickety retreats. . . . Its notes are not remarkable
for variety or volume, but in purity and sweetness of tone and
exquisite modulation they are unequalled.” Its “water-dripping song”
is justly celebrated.
</p>
<p>
360. The following lines were stimulated by the account of one
of the Antarctic expeditions (I forget which, but I think one
of Shackleton’s): it was related that the party of explorers,
at the extremity of their strength, had the constant delusion
that there was <i>one more member</i> than could actually be counted.
</p>
<p>
366-76. Cf. Hermann Hesse, <i>Blick ins Chaos</i>:
</p>
<p>
“Schon ist halb Europa, schon ist zumindest der halbe Osten Europas auf dem
Wege zum Chaos, fährt betrunken im heiligem Wahn am Abgrund entlang
und singt dazu, singt betrunken und hymnisch wie Dmitri Karamasoff sang.
Ueber diese Lieder lacht der Bürger beleidigt, der Heilige
und Seher hört sie mit Tränen.”
</p>
<p>
401. “Datta, dayadhvam, damyata” (Give, sympathize,
control). The fable of the meaning of the Thunder is found
in the <i>Brihadaranyaka—Upanishad</i>, 5, 1. A translation is found
in Deussen’s <i>Sechzig Upanishads des Veda</i>, p. 489.
</p>
<p>
407. Cf. Webster, <i>The White Devil</i>, v. vi:
</p>
<p class="poem">
“. . . they’ll remarry<br />
Ere the worm pierce your winding-sheet, ere the spider<br />
Make a thin curtain for your epitaphs.”
</p>
<p>
411. Cf. <i>Inferno</i>, xxxiii. 46:
</p>
<p class="poem">
“ed io sentii chiavar l’uscio di sotto<br />
all’orribile torre.”
</p>
<p>
Also F. H. Bradley, <i>Appearance and Reality</i>, p. 346:
</p>
<p>
“My external sensations are no less private to myself than are my
thoughts or my feelings. In either case my experience falls within
my own circle, a circle closed on the outside; and, with all its
elements alike, every sphere is opaque to the others which surround
it. . . . In brief, regarded as an existence which appears in a soul,
the whole world for each is peculiar and private to that soul.”
</p>
<p>
424. V. Weston, From <i>Ritual to Romance</i>; chapter on the Fisher King.
</p>
<p>
427. V. <i>Purgatorio</i>, xxvi. 148.
</p>
<p class="poem">
“‘Ara vos prec per aquella valor<br />
‘que vos guida al som de l’escalina,<br />
‘sovegna vos a temps de ma dolor.’<br />
Poi s’ascose nel foco che gli affina.”
</p>
<p>
428. V. <i>Pervigilium Veneris</i>. Cf. Philomela in Parts II and III.
</p>
<p>
429. V. Gerard de Nerval, Sonnet <i>El Desdichado</i>.
</p>
<p>
431. V. Kyd’s <i>Spanish Tragedy</i>.
</p>
<p>
433. Shantih. Repeated as here, a formal ending to an Upanishad.
‘The Peace which passeth understanding’ is a feeble translation
of the content of this word.
</p>
</div><!--end chapter-->
<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1321 ***</div>
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