View source for The Waste Land

{{Poem|author=T. S. Eliot|date=1922}}
''T. S. Eliot’s ''The Waste Land'' (1922) is a dense, fragmented modernist poem that captures the disillusionment and spiritual barrenness of post–World War I Europe. Blending myth, religion, and literary allusion, it seeks meaning amid cultural decay.''

<div style="display: flex; justify-content: center; padding: 25px 0 25px 0;">
{| style="width: 700px;"
|
<poem>
Nam Sybillam quidem Cumis ego ipse oculis meis vidi in ampulla pendere, et cum pueri illi dicerent: Στβμλλ τί Θέλεις; respondebat illa: άπσΘνειν Θελω.{{refn|This epigraph is from [[w:Petronius|Petronius]]’ ''[[w:Satyricon|Satyricon]]''. [[w:Apollo|Apollo]] had granted the [[w:Sibyl|Sybil]] immortality, but she had forgotten to ask for perpetual youth, so she still aged. Literally: “I have seen with my own eyes the Sibyl hanging in a jar, and when the boys asked her ‘What do you want?’ She answered, ‘I want to die.{{' "}} Eliot’s note: The Sibyl’s words introduce one of the poem’s ambivalent concepts: (1) that life in the Waste Land is a living death; (2) that death may be made the means of rebirth.}}
::::::::::::::::For [[w:Ezra Pound|Ezra Pound]]<ref>Pound suggested cuts and edits to the first manuscript of the poem.</ref><br />
::::::::::::::::''il miglior fabbro''.<ref>“The better craftsman.” From [[w:Dante Alighieri|Dante]]’s ''[[w:Purgatorio|Purgatory]]'' (26.117)</ref>

I. The Burial of the Dead{{refn|From the Anglican burial ceremony.}}

April is the cruellest month, breeding{{refn|Compare to the beginning of [https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43926/the-canterbury-tales-general-prologue ''The Canterbury Tales'': General Prologue]. Eliot’s  opening reverses [[w:Geoffrey Chaucer|Chaucer]]’s joy in springtime. Several lines follow expressing resentment felt by the buried at being stirred into life again. This is followed by casual talk of tourists (it is summer now) in the Hofgarten. Again Chaucer is reversed, his pilgrims, devout or bawdy, had a definite goal, a shrine, while the secular tourist of Eliot wanders about sightseeing.}}
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing	 
Memory and desire, stirring	 
Dull roots with spring rain. 
Winter kept us warm, covering {{ln|5}}
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding	 
A little life with dried tubers.	 
Summer surprised us, coming over the [[w:Lake Starnberg|Starnbergersee]]
With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade,	 
And went on in sunlight, into the [[w:Hofgarten (Munich)|Hofgarten]], {{ln|10}}
And drank coffee, and talked for an hour.	 
Bin gar keine Russin, stamm’ aus Litauen, echt deutsch.{{refn|“I am not Russian at all; I come from Lithuania, I am a real German.”}} 
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, {{ln|15}}
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{{refn|This paragraph universalizes the terror with clutching roots and branches that grow from the “stony rubbish,” of fallen civilizations, and heightens it by allusion to the tribulations of [[w:Ezekiel|Ezekiel]], whom God addresses as “Son of man.” We are now in the midst of the true desert, with its “heap of broken images,” where “the dead tree gives no shelter.” The dead tree suggests, amoung other recollections, the ''arbre sec'' (dried tree) of medieval legend, i.e., the withered stump of fallen humanity, the sons of [[w:Adam|Adam]]. We are invited to “Come in under the shadow of this red rock,” where we will be shown “fear in a handful of dust”; the end of every man is the grave.}}
Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,{{refn|Cf. [[w:Book of Ezekiel|Ezekiel]] 2:7 [E]: “Son of man, stand upon thy feet, and I will speak unto thee.”}} {{ln|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,{{refn|Cf. [[w:Ecclesiastes|Ecclesiastes]] 12:5 [E]: “Also when they shall be afraid of that which is high, and fears shall be in the way . . . the grasshopper shall he a burden, and desire shall fail.”}}
And the dry stone no sound of water. Only	 
There is shadow under this red rock, {{ln|25}}
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),{{refn|Cf. [[w:Book of Isaiah|Isaiah]] 32:2, where it is said that at Christ’s coming “a man shall be . . . as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.” In the Grail story as told by [[w:Wolfram von Eschenbach|Wolfram von Eschenbach]] (''Parzifal'', ix 627 ff.), the Grail is said to be a stone, and those who are called to its quest are said to be called as children and to grow up under its shadow. (“As children the Grail doth call them, ’neath its shadow, they wax and grow.”)}} 
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.{{refn|Cf. [[w:Book of Genesis|Genesis]] 2:7: “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground.” And Genesis 3:19: “dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.”}} {{ln|30}}
:::::''Frisch weht der Wind''
:::::''Der Heimat zu,''
:::::''Mein Irisch Kind,''
:::::''Wo weilest du?''{{refn|“The wind blows fresh / To the Homeland / My Irish Girl / Where are you lingering?” V. ''[[w:Tristan und Isolde|Tristan und Isolde]]'', I, verses 5-8. [E] The verses are sung by a sailor on the ship bringing the Irish Isolde to Cornwall.}}
“You gave me hyacinths first a year ago; {{ln|35}}
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, {{ln|40}}
Looking into the heart of light,{{refn|'''the light''': cf. [[w:Dante Alighieri|Dante]]’s phrase from ''[[w:Divine Comedy#Paradiso|Paradiso]]'', xii 28: “''del cor dell’ una luci nuove''” (from the heart of one of the new lights).}} the silence.{{refn|[[w:Hyacinth (mythology)|Hyacinth]], loved by Apollo, was accidentally slain by the god, who then caused the flower bearing the youth’s name to grow from his blood. The hyacinth girl herself is forgotten by her lover—distracted by a vision of light. This is a reversal of Dante’s experience, who saw all of Paradise in [[w:Beatrice Portinari|Beatice]]’s eyes.}}
''Öd’ und leer das Meer''.{{refn|''Tristan und Isolde'', III, verse 24 [E]: “Desolate and empty sea.” The dying Tristan hears this erroneous report as he waits for Isolde’s ship in the third act of [[w:Richard Wagner|Wagner]]’s opera. The anguish of fractured love is added to the canvas. Tristan dies thinking Isolde will not come to him (though she is on her way).}}

Madame Sosostris,{{refn|The name suggests an Egyptian fortuneteller that Eliot borrowed from [[w:Aldous Huxley|Aldous Huxley]]’s novel ''[[w:Crome Yellow|Crome Yellow]]''.}} famous clairvoyante,{{refn|Fear engendered by ignorance of the future comes next at a seance run by Madame Sosostris. She is both a debased form of the ancient Sibyl and a reflection of the diviners of Egypt (the name is masculine) who predicted the floods of the Nile by use of the Tarot. She reads the cards for her client, beginning with his own, “The drowned Phoenician Sailor,” the symbol of a fertility god annually thrown into the sea at the death of summer.}}
Had a bad cold, nevertheless	 
Is known to be the wisest woman in Europe, {{ln|45}}
With a wicked pack of cards.{{refn|I am not familiar with the exact constitution of the [[w:Tarot|Tarot]] pack of cards, from which I have obviously departed to suit my own convenience. [[w:The Hanged Man (Tarot card)|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 [[w:James George Frazer|Frazer]], and because I associate him with the hooded figure in the passage of the disciples to [[w:Emmaus|Emmaus]] in Part V. The Phoenician Sailor and the Merchant appear later; also the “crowds of people,” and Death by Water is executed in [[The Waste Land/4|Part IV]]. The Man with Three Staves (an authentic member of the Tarot pack) I associate, quite arbitrarily, with the [[w:Fisher King|Fisher King]] himself. [E] The Tarot pack of cards seems to have played a significant part in the ancient fertility rituals. Here it has degenerated into a fortune-teller’s property.}}&nbsp;Here, said she,
Is your card, the drowned Phoenician Sailor,
(Those are pearls that were his eyes.{{refn|'''Those . . . eyes''': From Ariel’s song to Prince Ferdinand in ''[[w:The Tempest|The Tempest]]'' (I.ii.398), touching on the “sea change” of King Alonzo, Ferdinand’s father, whom Ferdinand supposes to be drowned.}} Look!)	 
Here is Belladonna, the Lady of the Rocks,{{refn|With ironic reminder of the Madonna, of whom there is a painting by [[w:Leonardo da Vinci|Leonardo da Vinci]] entitled “[[w:Virgin of the Rocks|Madonna of the Rocks]].”}} 
The lady of situations. {{ln|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.{{refn|She does not see the Hanged Man (suggesting the hanged Jesus of Nazareth, who appears as the hooded figure in part V).}}&nbsp;Fear death by water.{{refn|I.e., fear death of the old Adam by baptism into the life of the new Adam, Christ, could be one of several meanings.}}{{ln|55}}
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,{{refn|Cf. [[w:Charles Baudelaire|Baudelaire]]: Fourmillante cité, cité pleine de rêves, / Où le spectre en plein jour raccroche le passant. [E] “Swarming city, city full of dreams / Where the specter in broad daylight accosts the passerby.” Baudelaire, ''The Seven Old Men''.}}{{refn|Here is a nightmare vision of the “Unreal City,” with its slaves of a secular [[w:Mammon|Mammon]] flowing over London Bridge on their way to work. Warfare in commerce and war on the battlefield are but two aspects of one activity, as [[w:Virgil|Virgil]] and his commentators knew. The average businessman, here called Stetson, is one in the same with the average warrior in the commercial rivalry between Rome end Carthage at the battle of Mylae. By the end of part I, Stetson is identified with the poet and with the reader—with all of us for we all bear the mark of [[w:Curse and mark of Cain|Cain]].}}{{ln|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.{{refn|Cf. Dante’s ''[[w:Inferno (Dante)|Inferno]]'', iii. 55-7: si lunga tratta / di gente, ch’io non avrei mai creduto / che morte tanta n’avesse disfatta. [E] “So long a train of people, that I should never have believed death had undone so many.”}} 
Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled,{{refn|Cf. 63. Cf. Dante’s ''Inferno'', iv. 25-27: Quivi, secondo che per ascoltare, / non avea pianto, ma' che di sospiri, / che l'aura eterna facevan tremare. [E] “Here there was no plaint, that could be heard, except of sighs, which caused the eternal air to tremble.”}} 
And each man fixed his eyes before his feet. {{ln|65}}
Flowed up the hill and down King William Street,{{refn|[[w:King William Street, London|King William Street]] is one of London’s most thronged with commuting office workers at the morning rush hour.}}
To where [[w:St Mary Woolnoth|Saint Mary Woolnoth]] kept the hours	 
With a dead sound on the final stroke of nine.{{refn|A phenomenon which I have often noticed. [E]}}{{refn|Nine is the hour when the business crowd must be at work. But cf. also, [[w:Gospel of Matthew|Matthew]] 27:45-6: “Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land unto the ninth hour. And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying . . . ‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?{{' "}} }}
There I saw one I knew, and stopped him, crying “Stetson!{{refn|So Dante in the ''Inferno'' sees and stops friends. Stetson is simply a typical businessman’s name.}}
You who were with me in the ships at [[w:Battle of Mylae|Mylae]]!{{refn|The Battle of Mylae took place in 260 BC during the First Punic War—a “business” war—and was the first real naval battle between Carthage and the Roman Republic.}} {{ln|70}}
That corpse you planted last year in your garden,{{refn|Cf. [[w:Epistle to the Romans|Romans]] 6:3-5: “Know ye not that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection.” See the whole chapter.}} 
Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year?	 
Or has the sudden frost disturbed its bed?	 
Oh keep the Dog{{refn|Cf. [[w:Psalm 22|Psalm 22]]:20: “Deliver my soul from the sword; my darling from the power of the dog.” Also, Eliot’s lines in ''[[w:T. S. Eliot's Ariel poems|Marina]]'': “Those who sharpen the tooth of the dog, meaning Death.”}} far hence, that’s friend to men,	 
Or with his nails he’ll dig it up again!{{refn|Cf. the Dirge in [[w:John Webster|Webster]]’s ''[[w:The White Devil|The White Devil]]''. [E]—sung by a mad woman to her son over the corpse of his brother whom he has killed.}} {{ln|75}}
You! ''hypocrite lecteur!—mon semblable,—mon frère!”{{refn|V. Baudelaire, Preface to ''[[w:Les Fleurs du mal|Les Fleurs du Mal]]''. [E] “Hypocrite reader!—my double—my brother!” Where the “menagerie” of men’s vices concluded with “Boredom.”}}

II. A Game of Chess{{refn|A reference to [[w:Thomas Middleton|Thomas Middleton]]’s 1624 play ''[[w:A Game at Chess|A Game at Chess]]''.}}

The Chair she sat in, like a burnished throne,{{refn|Cf. ''Antony and Cleopatra'', II.ii.190. [E]: “The barge she sat in, like a burnished throne, / Burned on the water.”}}
Glowed on the marble, where the glass
Held up by standards wrought with fruited vines	 
From which a golden Cupidon peeped out {{ln|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; {{ln|85}}
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 {{ln|90}}
In fattening the prolonged candle-flames,	 
Flung their smoke into the laquearia,{{refn|Laquearia. V. ''Aeneid'', I. 726: dependent lychni laquearibus aureis incensi, et noctem flammis funalia vincunt. [E] “Blazing torches hang from the gold-panelled ceiling (laquearibus aureis), and torches conquer the night with flames.” In this scene, Dido throws a banquet for her future lover, Aeneas. Like Antony and Cleopatra’s affair, Aeneas and Dido’s also ends in tragedy.}}
Stirring the pattern on the coffered ceiling.	 
Huge sea-wood fed with copper	 
Burned green and orange, framed by the coloured stone, {{ln|95}}
In which sad light a carvèd dolphin swam.	 
Above the antique mantel was displayed	 
As though a window gave upon the sylvan scene{{refn|V. Milton, ''Paradise Lost'', iv. 140 [E]. Milton describes Satan’s first glimpse of Eden.}}
The change of Philomel,{{refn|V. Ovid, ''Metamorphoses'', vi, Philomela [E]. Philomela was raped by King Tereus who cut out her tongue so she could not tell her sister.}} by the barbarous king	 
So rudely forced; yet there the nightingale{{refn|Cf. Part III, l. 204 [E].}} {{ln|100}}
Filled all the desert with inviolable voice	 
And still she cried, and still the world pursues,	 
“Jug Jug”{{refn|The nightingale’s song.}} to dirty ears.	 
And other withered stumps of time	 
Were told upon the walls; staring forms {{ln|105}}
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. {{ln|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{{refn|Cf. Part III, l. 195 [E].}} {{ln|115}}
Where the dead men lost their bones. 

“What is that noise?”	 
:::::The wind under the door.{{refn|Cf. Webster: “Is the wind in that door still?” [E]}} 
“What is that noise now? What is the wind doing?”	 
{{sp}}{{sp}}{{sp}}{{sp}}{{sp}}Nothing again nothing. {{ln|120}} 
:::::::::::::::“Do	 
You know nothing? Do you see nothing? Do you remember	 
Nothing?”	 

:I remember	 
Those are pearls that were his eyes.{{refn|Cf. Part I, l. 48.}} {{ln|125}}
“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 {{ln|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 to-morrow?	 
What shall we ever do?”
{{sp}}{{sp}}{{sp}}{{sp}}{{sp}}{{sp}}{{sp}}{{sp}}{{sp}}{{sp}}The hot water at ten. {{ln|130}}
And if it rains, a closed car at four.	 
And we shall play a game of chess,{{refn|Cf. the game of chess in Middleton’s ''Women beware Women''. [E]}} 
Pressing lidless eyes and waiting for a knock upon the door.

When Lil’s husband got demobbed,{{refn|Demobilized, i.e., discharged from the army.}} I said,	 
I didn’t mince my words, I said to her myself, {{ln|140}}
{{font|font=Alegreya SC|Hurry up please its time}}{{refn|The bartender’s warning that the pub is about to close. Perhaps a suggestion to take action to save their souls. Or it could be an inhumane disregard for Lil’s plight, a comment on the soullessness of capitalism.}}
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, {{ln|145}}
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. {{ln|150}}
Then I’ll know who to thank, she said, and give me a straight look.	 
{{font|font=Alegreya SC|Hurry up please its 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. {{ln|155}}
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.) {{ln|160}}
The chemist{{refn|The pharmacist. Think: morning-after pill.}}said it would be alright, but I’ve never been the same.	 
You ''are'' 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?	 
{{font|font=Alegreya SC|Hurry up please its time}} {{ln|165}}
Well, that Sunday Albert was home, they had a hot gammon,{{refn|Ham.}} 
And they asked me in to dinner, to get the beauty of it hot—	 
{{font|font=Alegreya SC|Hurry up please its time}}
{{font|font=Alegreya SC|Hurry up please its time}} 
Goonight Bill. Goonight Lou. Goonight May. Goonight. {{ln|170}}
Ta ta. Goonight. Goonight.	 
Good night, ladies, good night, sweet ladies, good night, good night.{{refn|An echo of Ophelia’s last words in ''Hamlet'' before she drowns herself.}}

III. The Fire Sermon<ref>In his [[w:Ādittapariyāya Sutta|fire sermon]], the Buddha denounces the lusts and passions for earthly experience. Follow the link next to read the whole sermon. In this section, Eliot shows these passions further deteriorating into sterility.</ref>

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. {{ln|175}}
Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song.<ref>V. Spenser, ''Prothalamion''. [E]</ref>
The river bears no empty bottles, sandwich papers,	 
Silk handkerchiefs, cardboard boxes, cigarette ends	 
Or other testimony of summer nights. The nymphs are departed.<ref>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 . . .”</ref>
And their friends, the loitering heirs of city directors; {{ln|180}}
Departed, have left no addresses.	 
By the waters of Leman<ref>Lake Geneva (where Eliot wrote much of ''The Waste Land''). A leman is a mistress or lover.</ref> I sat down and wept. . .<ref>In Psalm 137:1, the exiled Hebrews sit by the rivers of Babylon and weep for their lost homeland.</ref> 
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<ref>An echo of Andrew Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress”: “But at my back I always hear / Time’s winged chariot hurrying near.”</ref> {{ln|185}}
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. {{ln|190}}
Musing upon the king my brother’s wreck
And on the king my father’s death before him.<ref>Cf. The Tempest, I.ii. [E]</ref>
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. {{ln|195}}
But at my back from time to time I hear
The sound of horns and motors, which shall bring<ref>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...” [E]</ref>
Sweeney to Mrs. Porter in the spring.	 
O the moon shone bright on Mrs. Porter<ref>I do not know the origin of the ballad from which these lines are taken: it was reported to me from Sydney, Australia. [E]</ref>
And on her daughter {{ln|200}}
They wash their feet in soda water	 
''Et, O ces voix d’enfants, chantant dans la couple!''<ref>And oh, the sound of children, singing in the cupola! - V. Verlaine, ''Parsifal'' [E].</ref>
 
Twit twit twit	 
Jug jug jug jug jug jug	 
So rudely forc’d. {{ln|205}}
Tereu<ref>Cf. Ovid ''Metamorphosis'' (Book VI, 519–562) where Tereus rapes Philomela and then cuts out her tongue for defying him.</ref>
 
Unreal City	 
Under the brown fog of a winter noon	 
Mr Eugenides, the Smyrna merchant	 
Unshaven, with a pocket full of currants {{ln|210}}
C. i. f. London: documents at sight,{{refn|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. [E]}}	 
Asked me in demotic French	 
To luncheon at the Cannon Street Hotel	 
Followed by a week-end at the Metropole.	 
 
At the violet hour, when the eyes and back {{ln|215}}
Turn upward from the desk, when the human engine waits	 
Like a taxi throbbing waiting,	 
I Tiresias,{{refn|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 sees, in fact, is the substance of the poem. The whole passage from Ovid is of great anthropological interest: [E] He then goes on to quote a passage from Ovid wherein Tiresias spent part of his life as a woman and was able, therefore, to experience sex both as a man and a woman.}} though blind, throbbing between two lives, 
Old man with wrinkled female breasts, can see	 
At the violet hour, the evening hour that strives {{ln|220}}
Homeward, and brings the sailor home from sea,{{refn|This may not appear as exact as Sappho’s lines, but I had in mind the ’longshore’ or ’dory’ fisherman, who returns at nightfall. [E]}} 
The typist home at tea-time, 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, {{ln|225}}
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. {{ln|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{{refn|A manufacturing town in Yorkshire that prospered because of World War 1.}} millionaire.	 
The time is now propitious, as he guesses, {{ln|235}}
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; {{ln|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{{refn|Tiresias appears in Sophocles’ ''Oedipus Rex'' and made prophecies around Thebes before dying.}} below the wall {{ln|245}}
And walked among the lowest of the dead.)	 
Bestows one final patronizing kiss,	 
And gropes his way, finding the stairs unlit. . . 
 
She turns and looks a moment in the glass,	 
Hardly aware of her departed lover; {{ln|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{{refn|V. Goldsmith, the song in ''The Vicar of Wakefield''. [E]}} and	 
Paces about her room again, alone,	 
She smoothes her hair with automatic hand, {{ln|255}}
And puts a record on the gramophone.	 
 
“This music crept by me upon the waters”{{refn|V. ''The Tempest'', as above. (Eliot’s note referring to l. 191)}}	 
And along the Strand, up Queen Victoria Street.	 
O City city, I can sometimes hear	 
Beside a public bar in Lower Thames Street, {{ln|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{{refn|The interior of St. Magnus Martyr is to my mind one of the finest among Wren’s interiors. See ''The Proposed Demolition of Nineteen City Churches'' (P. S. King & Son, Ltd.). [E]}} hold	 
Inexplicable splendour of Ionian white and gold. {{ln|265}}
 
::The river sweats{{refn|The Song of the (three) Thames-daughters begins here. From line 292 to 306 inclusive they speak in turn. V. ''Götterdammerung'', III. i: The Rhine-daughters. [E]}} 
::Oil and tar	 
::The barges drift	 
::With the turning tide	 
{{sp}}{{sp}}Red sails {{ln|270}}
::Wide	 
::To leeward, swing on the heavy spar.	 
::The barges wash	 
::Drifting logs	 
{{sp}}{{sp}}Down Greenwich reach {{ln|275}}
::Past the Isle of Dogs.{{refn|East of London, the Isle of Dogs is a peninsula on the north bank of the Thames across from Greenwich.}}	 
:::::::Weialala leia	 
:::::::Wallala leialala
 
::Elizabeth and Leicester{{refn|V. Froude, ''Elizabeth'', vol. I, ch. iv, letter of De Quadra to Philip of Spain: 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. [E]}} 
{{sp}}{{sp}}Beating oars {{ln|280}}
::The stern was formed	 
::A gilded shell	 
::Red and gold	 
::The brisk swell	 
{{sp}}{{sp}}Rippled both shores {{ln|285}}
::South-west wind	 
::Carried down stream	 
::The peal of bells	 
::White towers	 
{{sp}}{{sp}}{{sp}}{{sp}}{{sp}}{{sp}}{{sp}}Weialala leia {{ln|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.” {{ln|295}}
 
“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. {{ln|300}}
I can connect	 
Nothing with nothing.	 
The broken finger-nails of dirty hands.	 
My people humble people who expect	 
Nothing.” {{ln|305}}
 
:::::::la la	 
 
To Carthage then I came	 
 
Burning burning burning burning	 
O Lord Thou pluckest me out	 
O Lord Thou pluckest {{ln|310}}
 
burning

IV. Death by Water

Phlebas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead,	 
Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep seas swell	 
And the profit and loss.	 
{{sp}}{{sp}}{{sp}}{{sp}}{{sp}}{{sp}}{{sp}}{{sp}}{{sp}}{{sp}}{{sp}}A current under sea {{ln|315}}
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, {{ln|320}}
Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you.

V. What the Thunder Said{{refn|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. 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: ''From Ritual to Romance'' (Macmillan). 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 ''The Golden Bough''; I have used especially the two volumes ''Attis Adonis Osiris''. Anyone who is acquainted with these works will immediately recognise in the poem certain references to vegetation ceremonies. [E] }}

After the torch-light red on sweaty faces	 
After the frosty silence in the gardens	 
After the agony in stony places	 
The shouting and the crying {{ln|325}}
Prison and place 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 {{ln|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 {{ln|335}}
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 {{ln|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 mud-cracked houses {{ln|345}}
:::::::::::::If there were water 
:And no rock	 
:If there were rock	 
:And also water	 
{{sp}}And water {{ln|350}}
:A spring 
:A pool among the rock	 
:If there were the sound of water only	 
:Not the cicada	 
{{sp}}And dry grass singing {{ln|355}} 
:But sound of water over a rock 
:Where the hermit-thrush{{refn|This is ''Turdus aonalaschkae pallasii'', the hermit-thrush which I have heard in Quebec Province. Chapman says (''Handbook of Birds of Eastern North America'') “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 unequaled.” Its “water-dripping song” is justly celebrated. [E]}} 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?{{refn|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 ''one more member'' than could actually be counted. [E]}} {{ln|360}} 
When I count, there are only you and I together 
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 {{ln|365}}
—But who is that on the other side of you? 
 
What is that sound high in the air{{refn|367–77 Cf. Hermann Hesse, ''Blick ins Chaos'': “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 Biirger beleidigt, der Heilige und Seher hört sie mit Tranen.” [E] ''A Glimpse into Chaos'': “Already half of Europe, already at least the eastern half of Europe is on the way to chaos, driving drunk on holy delusion along the edge of an abyss and singing to it, drunk songs and hymnals like Dmitri Karamazov sang. Over these songs the commoner laughs scornfully, the saint and seer listens with tears on her cheeks.”}}
Murmur of maternal lamentation	 
Who are those hooded hordes swarming	 
Over endless plains, stumbling in cracked earth	{{ln|370}}
Ringed by the flat horizon only 
What is the city over the mountains	 
Cracks and reforms and bursts in the violet air	 
Falling towers	 
Jerusalem Athens Alexandria {{ln|375}}
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 {{ln|380}}
Whistled, and beat their wings 
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. {{ln|385}}
 
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,	{{ln|390}}
Dry bones can harm no one. 
Only a cock stood on the roof-tree	 
Co co rico co co rico{{refn|The rooster’s crowing portends morning and perhaps the promise of renewal in a new day.}} 
In a flash of lightning. Then a damp gust	 
Bringing rain {{ln|395}}

{{H:title|The Ganges in India and Bangladesh is a 1,569 mile river sacred to Hinduism.|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 {{ln|400}}
{{font|font=Alegreya SC|Da}} 
''Datta'': what have we given?{{refn|“Datta, dayadhvam, damyata” (Give, sympathise, control). The fable of the meaning of the Thunder is found in the ''Brihadaranyaka-Upanishad'', 5, I. A translation is found in Deussen’s ''Sechzig Upanishads des Veda'', p. 489. [E]}}
My friend, blood shaking my heart	 
The awful daring of a moment’s surrender	 
Which an age of prudence can never retract {{ln|405}}
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{{refn|Cf. Webster, ''The White Devil'', V, vi: “. . . they’ll remarry / Ere the worm pierce your winding-sheet, ere the spider / Make a thin curtain for your epitaphs.” [E]}}
Or under seals broken by the lean solicitor	 
In our empty rooms {{ln|410}}
{{font|font=Alegreya SC|Da}} 
''Dayadhvam'': I have heard the key{{refn|Cf. ''Inferno'', XXXIII, 46: “ed io sentii chiavar l’uscio di sotto / all’orrible torre.” (“Below I heard them nailing up the door / Of the horrible tower”). Also F. H. Bradley, ''Appearance and Reality'', p. 346. “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.” [E]}} 
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 {{ln|415}}
Only at nightfall, aetherial rumours 
Revive for a moment a broken Coriolanus	 
{{font|font=Alegreya SC|Da}} 
''Damyata'': The boat responded	 
Gaily, to the hand expert with sail and oar {{ln|420}} 
The sea was calm, your heart would have responded 
Gaily, when invited, beating obedient	 
To controlling hands	 
 
:::::::::::::I sat upon the shore	 
Fishing,{{refn|V. Weston: ''From Ritual to Romance''; chapter on the Fisher King. [E]}} with the arid plain behind me {{ln|425}}
Shall I at least set my lands in order?{{refn|The only thing it seems an individual may do faced with the destruction of Western Civilization following World War I. This question is not only  asked by the narrator about himself, but also resonates with the reader as a call to personal responsibility in finding meaning and order within one’s self. Renewal begins with the individual.}}	
 
London Bridge is falling down falling down falling down	 
 
''Poi s’ascose nel foco che gli affina''{{refn|V. ''Purgatorio'', XXVI, 148. {{" '}}Now I petition you, by that kind Power / Escorting you to the summit of the staircase, / At the appropriate time, recall my pain.’ / Then he hid himself in the refining fire.” [E]}}
''Quando fiam ceu chelidon''—O swallow swallow{{refn|V. Pervigilium Veneris. Cf. ''Philomela'' in Parts II and III. [E]}}
''Le Prince d’Aquitaine à la tour abolie''{{refn|V. Gerard de Nerval, ''Sonnet El Desdichado''. [E]}} {{ln|430}} 
These fragments I have {{H:title|To give support to.|shored}} against my ruins{{refn|In other words: these “fragments” support the narrator against the total devastation. This idea seems to be at the heart of Eliot’s “[[July 19, 2004|mythic method]].”}} 
Why then Ile fit you. Hieronymo’s mad againe.{{refn|V. Kyd's ''Spanish Tragedy''.}}
Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata.	 
 
Shantih{{sp}}shantih{{sp}}shantih{{refn|Shantih. Repeated as here, a formal ending to an ''Upanishad''. “The Peace which passeth understanding” is our equivalent to this word. [E]}}

</poem>
|-
| style="text-align:right;" | —'''[[w:T. S. Eliot|T. S. Eliot]]''' (1922)
|}</div>
{{FH}}

== Introduction and Context ==
T. S. Eliot’s ''The Waste Land'' is often regarded as the defining poem of high modernism. Published in 1922—the same year as Joyce’s ''Ulysses''—it reflects a moment of deep cultural crisis following the First World War. Eliot’s poem presents Western civilization as a desolate landscape, spiritually sterile and fragmented by the loss of traditional structures of faith, morality, and meaning.

Drawing from a vast network of sources—classical mythology, the Bible, Buddhism, Dante, Shakespeare, the Upanishads, and popular culture—Eliot crafts a polyphonic collage of voices and references that mirror the fractured consciousness of modern life. ''The Waste Land'' was edited heavily by [[w:Ezra Pound|Ezra Pound]] (to whom the poem is dedicated as ''il miglior fabbro'', “the better craftsman”), and it incorporates the anthropological ideas of Jessie Weston’s ''From Ritual to Romance'' and James Frazer’s ''The Golden Bough'', both of which link death and rebirth in mythic ritual to the possibility of renewal.

Eliot’s notes (indicated by the '''[E]'''), sometimes clarifying and sometimes deliberately misleading, reinforce the modernist tension between meaning and obscurity. The poem’s structure—five sections moving from desolation toward the faint hope of spiritual renewal—can be read as an allegory of civilization’s fall and possible redemption. Yet its central message remains ambiguous: whether rebirth is achievable or only longed for in vain.

===Eliot's Introduction ===
Not only the title, but the plan and a good deal of the incidental symbolism of the poem were suggested by Miss [[w:Jessie Weston|Jessie L. Weston]]’s book on the Grail legend: ''[[w:From Ritual to Romance|From Ritual to Romance]]'' (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 ''[[w:The Golden Bough|The Golden Bough]]''; I have used especially the two volumes ''Adonis, Attis, Osiris''. Anyone who is acquainted with these works will immediately recognise in the poem certain references to vegetation ceremonies.{{refn|In the original [[w:Holy Grail|Grail legend]] a wounded king called the [[w:Fisher King|Fisher King]] rules over a land called the Waste Land, doomed to remain waste, until a knight of surpassing purity comes to heal the king’s wound, which is in the sexual organs. This story became associated in the Middle Ages with [[w:Matter of Britain|Arthurian stories]] and particularly with the story of the Holy Grail, the vessel supposed to have been used by Christ at the Last Supper. Through the efficacy of this vessel, the Fisher King is healed by one of Arthur’s knights, usually [[w:Percival|Sir Perceval]], and the land’s fertility is restored. But before he can execute this mission, the knight has had to suffer terrifying trials and temptations in the Waste Land (as in Eliot’s poem, section V), which culminate in the ordeal of the Chapel Perilous. Miss Weston argues that the roots of this story are to be found in the rites by which primitive men invoked spring and new fertility after the apparent death of winter.<br />{{Sp}}Aside from [[w:Allen Ginsberg|Ginsberg]]’s ''[[w:Howl|Howl]]'', this is probably the most influential poem in English of the twentieth century, partly because it utilizes a universal myth, partly because it chronicles, and transcends, the ugly spiritual chaos of our time.}}

== Questions for Consideration ==
# How does Eliot’s use of fragmentation (abrupt shifts in voice, language, and reference) mirror the modernist vision of cultural breakdown?
# In what ways does ''The Waste Land'' both critique and participate in the Western literary canon through its allusions?
# How does the poem treat the relationship between sexuality, sterility, and renewal?
# How might Eliot’s religious sensibilities—especially his later Anglo-Catholicism—inform the poem’s view of modernity?
# Consider the poem’s gendered voices (Marie, the hyacinth girl, Madame Sosostris, the typist, Lil). What do they reveal about power, fragmentation, or moral decay?
# What role does myth serve in the poem? Is myth a source of redemption, or another sign of modern disconnection?
# How does the final invocation of the Upanishads (“Datta, Dayadhvam, Damyata … Shantih”) reframe the European themes of the poem?
# Does the poem’s conclusion offer peace or only exhaustion?

== Sample Journal Approaches ==
# Fragmentation and Voice: Choose one section and trace its shifting speakers and tones. How do these transitions shape your sense of coherence—or deliberate incoherence—in the poem?
# Intertextual Web: Identify two allusions and consider how they interact. Does Eliot’s use of myth or scripture illuminate or obscure meaning?
# Modern Alienation: Record your personal response to the poem’s portrayal of isolation or spiritual emptiness. Where do you see parallels to contemporary culture?
# Sound and Rhythm: How do Eliot’s repetitions, abrupt breaks, and multilingual lines affect your reading experience?
# Possibility of Renewal: By the end of the poem, do you feel any genuine movement toward redemption or hope? Why or why not?
# Critical Lens: Apply a feminist, Marxist, or psychoanalytic reading to one passage. How does that perspective reshape your understanding of Eliot’s depiction of the modern world?

== Notes & References ==
{{Reflist}}

[[Category:Modernism]]
[[Category:ENGL 2122]]