I. The Burial of the Dead3 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 Starnbergersee4
1. From the Satyricon of Petronius (1st century nally paid to the Provencal poet Arnaut Daniel in C.E.) : 'For once I myself saw with my own eyes the Dante's Purgatorio 26.117. Ezra Pound (1885? Sibyl at Cumae hanging in a cage, and when the 1972), American expatriate poet who was a key fig- boys said to her 'Sibyl, what do you want?' she ure in the modern movement in poetry, helped replied, 'I want to die.' ' (The Greek may be trans-Eliot massively revise the manuscript. literated, 'Sibylla tl theleis?' and 'apothanein 3. The title comes from the Anglican burial serthelo.') The Cumaean Sibyl was the most famous vice. of the Sibyls, the prophetic old women of Greek 4. Lake a few miles south of Munich, where the mythology; she guided Aeneas through Hades in 'mad' King Ludwig II of Bavaria drowned in 1886 Virgil's Aeneid. She had been granted immortality in mysterious circumstances. This romantic, melby Apollo, but because she forgot to ask for per-ancholy king passionately admired Richard Wagpetual youth, she shrank into withered old age and ner and especially Wagner's opera Tristan und her authority declined. Isolde, which plays a significant part in The Waste 2. The better craftsman (Italian); a tribute origi-Land. Ludwig's suffering of 'death by water' in the
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2296 / T. S. ELIOT
With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade, And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten,5 And drank coffee, and talked for an hour. Bin gar keine Russin, stamm' aus Litauen, echt deutsch.6 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,7 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,8 And the dry stone no sound of water. Only There is shadow under this red rock,9 (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.
Frisch weht der Wind Der Heimat zn, Mein Irisch Kind, Wo weilest du?l
'You gave me hyacinths first a year ago; 'They called me the hyacinth girl.' ?Yet when we came back, late, from the Hyacinth2 garden, Yours arms full, and your hair wet, I could not Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither Living nor dead, and I knew nothing, Looking into the heart of light, the silence. Oed' und leer das Meer.3
Starnbergersee thus evokes a cluster of themes central to the poem. Eliot had met King Ludwig's second cousin Countess Marie Larisch and talked with her. Although he had probably not read the countess's book My Past, which discusses King Ludwig at length, he got information about her life and times from her in person, and the remarks made in lines 8?18 are hers.
5. A small public park in Munich. 6. I am not Russian at all; I come from Lithuania, a true German (German). 7. Cf. Ezelael II, i [Eliot's note]. God, addressing Ezekiel, continues: 'stand upon thy feet, and I will speak unto thee.' 8. Cf. Ecclesiastes XII, v [Eliot's note]. The verse Eliot cites is part of the preacher's picture of the desolation of old age, 'when they shall be afraid of that which is high, and fears shall be in the way and the almond tree shall flourish, and the grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall fail.'
9. Cf. Isaiah 32.2: the 'righteous king' 'shall be .. . as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.' 1. V. [see] Tristan und Isolde, I, verses 5?8 [Eliot's note]. In Wagner's opera a sailor recalls the girl he has left behind: 'Fresh blows the wind to the homeland; my Irish child, where are you waiting?' 2. Name of a young man loved and accidentally killed by Apollo in Greek mythology; from his blood sprang the flower named for him, inscribed with 'AI,' a cry of grief. 3. Id. [Ibid] III, verse 24 [Eliot's note]. In act 3 of Tristan und Isolde, Tristan lies dying. He is waiting for Isolde to come to him from Cornwall, but a shepherd, appointed to watch for her sail, can report only, 'Waste and empty is the sea.' Oed' (or Od') was originally misspelled Od'.
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THE WASTE LAND / 2297
Madame Sosostris,4 famous clairvoyante, Had a bad cold, nevertheless
45 Is known to be the wisest woman in Europe, With a wicked pack of cards.5 Here, said she, Is your card, the drowned Phoenician Sailor,6 (Those are pearls that were his eyes. Look!) Here is Belladonna,7 the Lady of the Rocks,
50 The lady of situations. Here is the man with three staves, and here the Wheel,8 And here is the one-eyed merchant,9 and this card, Which is blank, is something he carries on his back, Which I am forbidden to see. I do not find
55 The Hanged Man.1 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.
60 Unreal City,2 Under the brown fog of a winter dawn, A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,3 I had not thought death had undone so many. Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled,4
4. A mock Egyptian name (suggested to Eliot by nand is associated with Phlebas and Mr. Eugeni' Sesostris, the Sorceress of Ecbatana,' the name des and, therefore, with the 'drowned Phoenician assumed by a character in Aldous Huxley's novel Sailor.' Crome Yellow [1921] who dresses up as a gypsy to 7. Beautiful lady (Italian). The word also suggests tell fortunes at a fair). Madonna (the Virgin Mar)') and, therefore, the 5. I.e., the deck of Tarot cards. The four suits of Madonna of the Rocks (as in Leonardo da Vinci's the Tarot pack, discussed by Jessie Weston in From painting); the rocks symbolize the Church. Bella- Ritual to Romance, are the cup, lance, sword, and donna is also an eye cosmetic and a poison?the dish?the life symbols found in the Grail story. deadly nightshade. Weston noted that 'today the Tarot has fallen 8. I.e., the wheel of fortune, whose turning rep- somewhat into disrepute, being principally used resents the reversals of human life. for purposes of divination.' Some of the cards 9. I.e., Mr. Eugenides, 'one-eyed' because the fig- mentioned in lines 46?56 are discussed by Eliot in ure is in profile on the card. Unlike the man with his note to this passage: 'I am not familiar with the three staves and the wheel, which are Tarot cards, exact constitution of the Tarot pack of cards, from he is Eliot's creation. which I have obviously departed to suit my own 1. On his card in the Tarot pack he is shown hang- convenience. The Hanged Man, a member of the ing by one foot from a T-shaped cross. He symtraditional pack, fits my purpose in two ways: bolizes the self-sacrifice of the fertility god who is because he is associated in my mind with the killed so that his resurrection may restore fertility Hanged God of Frazer, and because I associate to land and people. him with the hooded figure in the passage of the 2. Cf. Baudelaire: 'Fourmillante cite, cite pleine disciples to Emmaus in part V. The Phoenician de reves, / Ou le spectre en plein jour raccroche le Sailor and the Merchant appear later; also the passant' [Eliot's note]. The lines are quoted from 'crowds of people,' and Death by Water is executed 'Les Sept Vieillards' ('The Seven Old Men') of Les in part IV. The Man with Three Staves (an authen-Fletirs du Mai (The
