A Wicked Pack Of Cards

T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land (TWL), lines 43-59





          Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyante,

                  See Aldous Huxley, Crome Yellow, 27 (1921), introducing Sesostris, 
                  the Sorceress of Ecbatana, a transvestite palm-reader who predicted 
                  the manner of clients’ deaths and ended sessions with an abrupt 
                  “Thank you.” Huxley’s influence on Eliot has been disputed, but the 
                  coincidence is still remarkable.  

          Had a bad cold, nevertheless

                  See Flamineo's dying words in John Webster, White Devil 5.6.311-313
                  (1612), a play about moral corruption: 

                  I have caught
                  An everlasting cold; I have lost my voice
                  Most irrecoverably. Farewell, glorious villains.
                  This busy trade of life appears most vain,
                  Since rest breeds rest, where all seek pain by pain.
                  Let no harsh flattering bells resound my knell;
                  Strike, thunder, and strike loud, to my farewell!    [Dies]

                  The thunder theme will be picked up in Part V.

          Is known to be the wisest woman in Europe,
          With a wicked pack of cards. Here, said she,

                  See Eliot's note: 

                  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.  

                  For more on the TAROT CARDS, see notes at TWL 208 and 311.5. 
                  See also Eliot's opening credit to Jessie L. Weston, 
                  who compared the Tarot suits and those of our modern deck of cards to 
                  symbols of the Grail legend: 

                  Cup (Chalice, or Goblet)–Hearts.  Lance (Wand, or Sceptre)– Diamonds. 
                  Sword–Spades.  Dish (Circles, or Pentangles, the form varies)–Clubs.

          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.

                  See Arthur Edward Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910): The 
                  Queen of Cups is a “beautiful” woman, or belladonna, who sits at the 
                  water’s edge with rocks at her feet.  Reversed (rotated 180̊ ), she is a 
                  woman not to be trusted, a femme fatale.  Belladonna is also the 
                  scientific term for the poisonous nightshade plant. Visually, this card 
                  aligns with Leonardo da Vinci, Madonna of the Rocks (1486, 
                  a/k/a Lady of the Rocks).   

Tarot Deck: Queen of Cups, William Rider & Sons (1909)

Leonardo da Vinci, Madonna of the Rocks (1486)

          Here is the man with three staves, and here the Wheel,

                  See Waite, Tarot: The Three of Wands shows a “calm, stately 
                  personage, with his back turned, looking from a cliff's edge at ships 
                  passing over the sea.” He has three staves and is called the 
                  “merchant prince.” The Wheel of Fortune card represents cycles of 
                  change, e.g., winter to spring.  The Six of Pentacles shows the one-eyed 
                  profile of a merchant giving coins to those around him.  He 
                  represents gratification and vigilance, and is “one who must not be 
                  relied on.” Compare the Smyrna merchant at TWL 208.

          ...and this card,
          Which is blank, is something he carries on his back,
          Which I am forbidden to see... 

                  The blank card, not part of the Rider-Waite-Smith deck, is an extra card 
                  that says nothing or at least shows nothing that the card reader can see.  
                  This would seem to describe the fraudulent “clairvoyance” of Madame 
                  Sosostris herself, a fortune teller who cries out “Look!” but fails to see 
                  beyond the crowds of people around her (TWL 54-56, 60); contrast 
                  this with Tiresias, who is blind but can see and even perceives and 
                  foresuffers (see TWL 218 and 219, and see TWL 218-248 for what the 
                  merchant carries).

          ...I do not find
          The Hanged Man. Fear death by water.
          I see crowds of people, walking round in a ring.

                  As there is no water in the Hanged Man card, the admonition to 
                  fear death by water appears to introduce a separate card, one that refers 
                  both backward (TWL 47) and forward (TWL 312-321) to the Phoenician 
                  Sailor. This, again, is “your card” (TWL 47); its closest Tarot 
                  correspondence might be the King of Cups, which shows a floating 
                  king holding a scepter and chalise, and of which Waite says, “Beware of 
                  ill will ...and of hypocrisy pretending to help.”

                  See also Waite, Tarot: The HANGED MAN represents life in suspension, 
                  a “seeming martyr.” Eliot’s Hanged God of Frazer (see above) refers to a 
                  description in James Frazer, The Golden Bough, A Study in Magic and 
                  Religion, 3d Ed. (1914)., describing the annual hanging in effigy of Artemis, 
                  the goddess of fertility.  Eliot also associated the hanged man, whom 
                  Madame Sosostris fails to find, with the one who walks beside the disciples 
                  (TWL 360). 

          Thank you. If you see dear Mrs. Equitone,
          Tell her I bring the horoscope myself:
          One must be so careful these days.

                  Mrs. Equitone is, by her name at least, a more even-tempered person than
                  Madame Sosostris; compare Tiresias’s “lovely woman,” who, after her lover 
                  leaves, “smoothes her hair with automatic hand, / And puts a record on the 
                  gramophone” (see TWL 255-256).


from T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land, with annotations (and other explanations)