phrase is part of the first 9. Cf. Webster: 'Is the wind in that door still?' description of Eden, seen through Satan's eyes. [Eliot's note]. In John Webster's The Devil's Law 6. V. Ovid, Metamorphoses, VT, Philomela [Eliot's Case (3.2.162), a physician asks this question on note]. Philomela was raped by 'the barbarous king' finding that the victim of a murderous attack is still Tereus, husband of her sister, Procne. Philomela breathing, meaning 'Is he still alive?' was then transformed into a nightingale. Eliot's 1. Cf. Part I, 1. 37. 48 [Eliot's note]. note for line 100 refers ahead to his elaboration of 2. American ragtime song, which was a hit of Ziegthe nightingale's song. feld's Follies in 1912. The chorus is 'That Shake7. Conventional representation of nightingale's spherean Rag, most intelligent, very elegant.' song in Elizabethan poetry.
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2300 / T. S. ELIOT
'With my hair down, so. What shall we do tomorrow? 'What shall we ever do?'
135 The hot water at ten. And if it rains, a closed car at four. And we shall play a game of chess,3 Pressing lidless eyes and waiting for a knock upon the door.
When Lil's husband got demobbed,4 I said? 140 I didn't mince my words, I said to her myself,
HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME5
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,
us 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 dont give it him, there's others will, I said,
iso Oh is there, she said. Something o' that, I said. Then I'll know who to thank, she said, and give me a straight look.
HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
If you dont like it you can get on with it, I said, Others can pick and choose if you can't.
155 But if Albert makes off, it wont 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.
160 (She's had five already, and nearly died of young George.) The chemist6 said it would be alright, but I've never been the same. You are a proper fool, I said. Well, if Albert wont leave you alone, there it is, I said, What you get married for if you dont want children?
165 HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
Well, that Sunday Albert was home, they had a hot gammon,0 ham, bacon And they asked me in to dinner, to get the beauty of it hot?
HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
i7o Goonight Bill. Goonight Lou. Goonight May. Goonight. Ta ta. Goonight. Goonight. Good night, ladies, good night, sweet ladies, good night, good night.7
III. The Fire Sermon8 The river's tent is broken: the last fingers of leaf Clutch and sink into the wet bank. The wind
3. Cf. the game of chess in Middleton's Women tion. Beware Women (Eliot's note]. The significance 7. Cf. the mad Ophelia's departing words (Shakeof this chess game is discussed in the first note to speare, Hamlet 4.5.69?70). Ophelia, too, met part 2. 'death by water.' Cf. also the popular song lyric 4. British slang for 'demobilized' (discharged 'Good night ladies, we're going to leave you now.' from the army after World War I). 8. The Buddha preached the Fire Sermon, against 5. The traditional call of the British bartender at the fires of lust and other passions that destroy closing time. people and prevent their regeneration. 6. Pharmacist. 'To bring it off: to cause an abor
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TH E WAST E LAN D / 230 1 175 Crosses the brown land, unheard. The nymphs are departed. Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song.9 The river bears no empty bottles, sandwich papers, Silk handkerchiefs, cardboard boxes, cigarette ends Or other testimony of summer nights. The nymphs are departed. 180 And their friends, the loitering heirs of city directors; Departed, have left no addresses. By the waters of Leman I sat down and wept1 . . . Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my song, 185Sweet Thames, run softly, for I speak not loud or long. But at my back in a cold blast I hear2 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 190 On a winter evening round behind the gashouse Musing upon the king my brother s wreck And on the king my father's death before him.3 White bodies naked on the low damp ground And bones cast in a little low dry garret, 195 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,4 which shall bring Sweeney to Mrs. Porter in the spring.5 O the moon shone bright on Mrs. Porter 200 And on her daughter They wash their feet in soda water6 Et O ces voix d'enfants, chantant dans la coupoleI7 Twit twit twit Jug jug jug jug jug jug 205 So rudely forc'd. Tereus
9. V. Spenser, Prothalamion (Eliot's note]. Eliot's line is the refrain from Edmund Spenser's marriage song, which is also set by the river Thames in London. 1. Cf. Psalms 137.1, in which the exiled Hebrews mourn for their homeland: 'By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion.' Lake Leman is another name for Lake Geneva, in Switzerland; Eliot wrote The Waste Land in Lausanne, by that lake. The noun leman is an archaic word meaning lover. 2. An ironic distortion of Andrew Marvell's 'To His Coy Mistress,' lines 21?22: 'But at my back I always hear/Time's winged chariot hurrvingnear.' Cf. lines 196-97. 3. Cf. The Tempest, 1, ii [Eliot's note]. See line 48. 4. Cf. Marvell, To His Coy Mistress [Eliot's note]. 5. Cf. Day, Parliament of Bees: 'When of the sudden, listening, you shall hear, / A noise of horns and hunting, which shall bring/Actaeon to Diana in the spring, / Where all shall see her naked skin' [Eliot's note]. Actaeon was changed to a stag and hunted to death after he saw Diana, the goddess of chastity, bathing with her nymphs. John Day (1574-ca. 1640), English poet.
6. I do not know the origin of the ballad from which these lines are taken; it was reported to me from Sydney, Australia [Eliot's note]. One of the less bawdy versions of the song, which was popular among Australian troops in World War I, went as follows: 'O the moon shines bright on Mrs. Porter /And on the daughter / Of Mrs. Porter. /They wash their feet in soda water / And so they oughter / To keep them clean.' 7. V. Verlaine, Parsifal [Eliot's
