<---BACK TO THE POEM
128. HAMLET’S LAST WORDS: See Shakespeare*, Hamlet 5.2.342-349 (Folio ed., 1623):
“O, I die, Horatio.
The potent poison quite o’ercrows my spirit,
I cannot live to hear the news from England,
But I do prophesy th'election lights
On Fortinbras: he has my dying voice.
So tell him with th’occurrents more and less
Which have solicited – The rest is silence.
O, o, o, o.”
In the earlier Quarto editions, Hamlet’s words end with “silence” (compare line 434, ending this poem with “Shantih shantih shantih”). See also line 172 for an allusion to Ophelia’s farewell words ("Good night, ladies, good night, sweet ladies, good night, good night"), from Shakespeare, Hamlet * 4.5.70-73.
130. RAGTIME: See Gene Buck & Herman Ruby, The Zeigfield Follies, That Shakespearean Rag (1912):
“That Shakespearian rag-- Most intelligent, very elegant,...”
Clive Bell, coining the term “ragtime literature,” had recently criticized Eliot and others for “flout[ing] traditional rhythms and sequences and grammar and logic” and following the less than serious trend of jazz performers. See Bell, Since Cezanne: Plus De Jazz (1922). Eliot was talented, Bell premised, but “...[his] agonizing labours seem to have been eased somewhat by the comfortable ministrations of a black and grinning muse.” If anything, though, Eliot's "comfortable" passages are dissonant and uneasy. Socialites talk of their day plans (lines 131-138) in a snippet conspicuously placed between the emptiness of a domestic difference (lines 111-126) and the gossipy ramble of a soldier’s return to the homefront (lines 139-171). These bits are interspersed with brief notes of mortality, a “ministration” based on Hamlet’s fading breaths (line 128) and a string of pub farewells that echo Ophelia’s morbid goodbyes (line 172). There will be more songs in the poem’s next section, and they will become less oblique, but this is, for now, as musical as it gets.
SHAKESPEARE VS. DANTE: In the midst of this Shakespearean “rag,” we are reminded of Dante’s continuing role as escort throughout this poem. Eliot would later pose a comparison of the counterparts in Eliot, Dante: II. The Purgatorio and the Paradiso (1929):
“...Gradually we come to admit that Shakespeare understands a greater extent and variety of human life than Dante; but that Dante understands deeper degrees of degradation and higher degrees of exaltation. And a further wisdom is reached when we see clearly that this indicates the equality of the two men.”
(For a similar, if tangential, take, see Frank Budgen, James Joyce and the Making of Ulysses, 1934: “...When the question, often put, ‘If on a desert island what one book?’ was again raised, Joyce said: ‘I should hesitate between Dante and Shakespeare but not for long. The Englishman is richer...’” But see Joyce's recapitulation in Richard Ellman, James Joyce (1959): “‘I love Dante almost as much as the Bible. He is my spiritual food, the rest is ballast.’”)
For the record, these annotations have more references to Shakespeare* (45 different passages) than the Bible* (35 passages) or Dante *(22 passages) or any other source. The next most frequently turned to sources are Virgil* (9 passages), Whitman† (9 passages), Ovid* (7 passages), Conrad*** (7 passages) and Augustine (7 passages; see note 307).
_________________________________________
*see note 0.1 ***see note 0.3 †see note 2
NEXT NOTE--->
