T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land (TWL), lines 185-206
But at my back in a cold blast I hear
See Andrew Marvell, To His Coy Mistress:
For, Lady, you deserve this state
Nor would I love at lower rate.
But at my back I always hear
Time's wingèd chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.
The rattle of the bones, and chuckle spread from ear to ear.
See Ezekiel 37:1-9:
The hand of the LORD was upon me, and carried me out in the spirit of
the LORD, and set me down in the midst of the valley which was full of
bones, And caused me to pass by them round about: and, behold,
there were very many in the open valley; and, lo, they were very dry.
And he said unto me, Son of man, can these bones live? And I
answered, O Lord GOD, thou knowest. Again he said unto me,
Prophesy upon these bones, and say unto them, O ye dry bones, hear
the word of the LORD. Thus saith the Lord GOD unto these bones;
Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and ye shall live: And I will
lay sinews upon you, and will bring up flesh upon you, and cover you
with skin, and put breath in you, and ye shall live; and ye shall know
that I am the LORD. So I prophesied as I was commanded: and as I
prophesied, there was a noise, and behold a shaking, and the bones
came together, bone to his bone. And when I beheld, lo, the sinews
and the flesh came up upon them, and the skin covered them above:
but there was no breath in them. Then said he unto me, Prophesy unto
the wind, prophesy, son of man, and say to the wind, Thus saith the
Lord GOD; Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon
these slain, that they may live.
See also Walt Whitman, Memories of President Lincoln 15:
I saw battle-corpses, myriads of them
And the white skeletons of young men, I saw them.
For more RATTLING BONES, see TWL 22, 116, 195, 316 & 391.
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
Musing upon the king my brother's wreck
And on the king my father's death before him
Eliot's note: Cf. The Tempest, I. ii. See William Shakespeare,
The Tempest 1.2.390-391:
The Tempest 1.2.390-391:
FERDINAND:
...Sitting on a bank
weeping again the king my father's wreck...
See also TWL 424-425 and note at TWL 48.
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
Eliot: Cf. Marvell, To His Coy Mistress.
The sound of horns and motors, which shall bring
Eliot: 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...
In this work by John Day (1641), a "vainglorious reveler" named
Polypragmus the Plush Bee speaks of a mechanical panorama he
wants to build on the ceiling of his hive, depicting the tale of
Actaeon and Diana. See Ovid, Metamorphoses 3:206-312.
After Actaeon the hunter saw the goddess Diana naked, she turned
him into a stag to be hunted and killed by his own dogs. See
also Sophocles, Electra (ca. 400 BC) for the Greek counterpart
with Agamemnon and Artemis. See also Shakespeare,
Cymbeline (see note at TWL 77), in which Iachimo takes pleasure in
seeing an image of Diana bathing on Imogene’s bedchamber walls.
Sweeney to Mrs. Porter in the spring.
Oh, woe is me! I am struck to the heart with a fatal blow.
Sweeney Among the Nightingales then concludes:
The nightingales are singing near
The Convent of the Sacred Heart,
And sang within the bloody wood
When Agamemnon cried aloud
And let their liquid droppings fall
To stain the stiff dishonoured shroud.
For other nightingale songs, see Philomela's cry at TWL 99-103 and
the allusion to “nightbird” prostitutes at TWL 199.
Sweeney is Eliot’s revival of a brutish character he used in
three earlier poems, a counterpart to his more sensitive
three earlier poems, a counterpart to his more sensitive
Prufrock (see note at TWL 165). Here Sweeney takes the place
of Actaeon / Agamemnon, and Diana/Artemis becomes a brothel
madame. Compare Eliot, Sweeney Among the Nightingales
(1918), which opens with a Greek epitaph of the dying
words of Agamemnon, suffering at the hands of his wife and her lover,
as told in Aeschylus, Agamemnon 116 (458 BC, tr. William Watson
Goodwin (1906):
madame. Compare Eliot, Sweeney Among the Nightingales
(1918), which opens with a Greek epitaph of the dying
words of Agamemnon, suffering at the hands of his wife and her lover,
as told in Aeschylus, Agamemnon 116 (458 BC, tr. William Watson
Goodwin (1906):
Oh, woe is me! I am struck to the heart with a fatal blow.
Sweeney Among the Nightingales then concludes:
The nightingales are singing near
The Convent of the Sacred Heart,
And sang within the bloody wood
When Agamemnon cried aloud
And let their liquid droppings fall
To stain the stiff dishonoured shroud.
For other nightingale songs, see Philomela's cry at TWL 99-103 and
the allusion to “nightbird” prostitutes at TWL 199.
O the moon shone bright on Mrs. Porter
And on her daughter
Eliot's note:
I do not know the origin of the ballad from which these lines are taken:
it was reported to me from Sydney, Australia.
For the song's origin, see Thurland Chattaway, Red Wing (1907):
Now the moon shines bright on pretty red-wing
the breeze is sighing
the nightbird’s crying.
Australian soldiers corrupted the song in Gallipoli, Turkey,
where Mrs. Porter was a favorite brothel madame among the
troops; see C. M. Bowra, The Creative Experiment (1949),
and see Ernest Raymond, Tell England: A Study in a Generation
(1922):
Oh the moon shines bright on Mrs Porter
And on her daughter,
A regular snorter;
She has washed her neck in dirty water
She didn’t oughter,
The dirty cat.
Gallipoli is also where Eliot’s friend Jean Verdenal died at war
(see note at TWL 42).
They wash their feet in soda water
See Wagner, Parsifal 3 (1882, tr. Henry Edward Krehbiel, 1920): At
the end of his quest, Parsifal, the chief Grail knight, has his feet
washed in holy water to “be free from stain; from devious wandering’s
dust.” He then continues:
the end of his quest, Parsifal, the chief Grail knight, has his feet
washed in holy water to “be free from stain; from devious wandering’s
dust.” He then continues:
My feet hast thou anointed,—
Anoint my head, thou venerable knight,
That e’en today as king the guild may hail me.”
See also Paul Verlaine, Parsifal (1886; tr. John Gray 1893):
He heals the dying king, he sits upon the throne.”
Et O ces voix d'enfants, chantant dans la coupole!
Eliot's note: "V. Verlaine, Parsifal." Gray's translation:
And oh! the chime of children's voices in the dome.
Compare Walt Whitman, Memories of President Lincoln 6, 14:
With the countless torches lit, with the silent sea of faces
and the unbared heads
...with dirges through the night, with the thousand voices
rising strong and solemn.
CHILDREN’S VOICES also sing out at TWL 385. See
also note at TWL 385, and for other voices see notes
at TWL 321.5, 388 and 400.
Twit twit twit
Jug jug jug jug jug jug
So rudely forc'd.
Tereu
This repeats the nightingale’s song of line 103, again alluding to the
story of Tereus’s rape of Philomela (again, see TWL 99-103).
story of Tereus’s rape of Philomela (again, see TWL 99-103).
No comments:
Post a Comment