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87. STRANGE PERFUMES, which are “stirred by the air” (line 89), establish the atmosphere of this section, full of meaningful words made empty in their presentation. See note 76.5. For the “vials of ivory” (line 86), compare the ivory pieces standing between the chess players at note 137.
92. THE LACQUEARIA: Eliot*: “Laquearia. V. Aeneid, I. 726:
‘dependent lychni laquearibus aureis incensi, et noctem flammis
funalia vincunt.’”
See Virgil*, Aeneid 1.726-727, where laquearibus, a paneled ceiling, is translated as “gilded roofs”:
“From gilded roofs depending lamps display
Nocturnal beams, that emulate the day.”
DIDO AND AENEAS: This passage is from Virgil’s telling of the tragic romance of Carthigian Queen Dido and Aeneas from Troy; see also line 307 and notes 12, 34, 70, 231 and 307. For the full story, see Virgil*, Aeneid Books 1 and 4. After leaving a besieged Troy, Aeneas, in search of a new homeland, came to Carthage, home of Juno, goddess of marriage. To welcome him, Dido, the Queen of Carthage, had prepared a lavish banquet. With the intervention of Venus, Aeneas’s mother, and Cupid, his brother, Dido became smitten with Aeneas. This would prove fateful for both Dido and Carthage. Dido fell in love with Aeneas, and for a time they would even live together, but Aeneas would never marry her and would leave Carthage without her, ultimately finding his own place as the founder of Rome. Dido, left behind, would kill herself, and eventually Carthage would be defeated and destroyed by the Romans in the Battle of Mylae (see note 70).
Compare Dido’s feast with the royal engagement efforts for the granddaughter of Catherine the Great, wisest woman in Europe (note 45). See also the failed efforts of Hellawes the Sorceress to seduce Sir Lancelot (note 388).
DYSFUNCTIONAL COUPLES populate, or dispopulate, the poem beyond Dido and Aeneas. See lines 111-126 (empty talkers) and 139-172 (Lil & Albert), and notes 34 (Isolde & King Mark), (Adolf and Alexandra), 99 (Tereus & Procne), 128 (Hamlet & Ophelia) 145 (Lilith & Adam), 198 (Agamemnon & Clytemnestra), 279 (Lord Robert Dudley & Amy Robsart), 293 (Pia de Tolemei) 365 (the traveling bones wife), 388 (Hellawes and Lancelot) and 408 (howling wives, men on death beds). For more blissful rivers, see notes 165 (a lustfully-paced courtship), 176 (a double marriage) and 291 (wedding bells).
ELIOT’S MARRIAGE was especially disfunctional. His wife, Vivienne Haigh-Wood, was perpetually troubled from 1915 until her death in 1947. They separated in 1932 and were permanently estranged in 1938 when she was committed to a mental hospital. See the preface to Letters*, quoting T.S. Eliot:
“To her, the marriage brought no happiness. To me, it brought
the state of mind out of which came The Waste Land.”
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*see note 0.1
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