139. THE MAID’S STORY: See F&T*: This story was said to be related to the Eliots by their maid at the end of the war. To be demobbed, or demobilized, is to be discharged from military service.
141. TIME’S WINGED CHARIOT: “Hurry up please its time” reflects a common last call in English pubs. See also the witches before their boiling cauldron in Shakespeare*, Macbeth 4.1.3:
“Harpier, cries:—‘’Tis time, ‘tis time.”
The cauldron over the fire is later alluded to at lines 307 and 308.
The present “time” line repeats at lines 141, 152, 165, 168 and 169; this also follows the five counterpart repetitions of a less frantic mantra in Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (note 0.4):
“There will be time.”
Compare the bartender’s reminders, and the concurrent advice being given to Lil, to the urgent “carpe diem” call of Andrew Marvell, To His Coy Mistress (1681):
“Had we but world enough and time”
The mistress’s lover begins to wish they had time but quickly concludes that they don’t. See Eliot, Andrew Marvel (Times Literary Supplement, 03/31/1921), finding in Marvel’s Coy Mistress: “an alliance of wit and seriousness (by which the seriousness is intensified).”
See below for Marvell’s full poem. Coy Mistress allusions also appear at lines 185, 196 and 235. See especially note 197, for a modern variation to these lines:
“But at my back I always hear
Time's winged chariot hurrying near.”
For some counterpace to Coy, compare the similar bar setting of line 260 and the poet’s unexpected appreciation for the music sometimes heard “beside a public bar.”
THE SEASONAL CYCLE: In response to the mistress’s master, and to the bartender, the wicked sisters of Macbeth, Lil’s advisor and Mr. Prufrock, see Ecclesiastes* 3:1-8:
“To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.”
The seasonal cycle of Ecclesiastes is central to many of Eliot’s allusions. See note 0.2 for the many references to renewal and note 0.3 for the consideration of ephemerality. For more specific references to the seasons, see notes 1 (Chaucer’s spring), 71 (the season of sowing and sprouting) 185 (the rattling bones of winter), 219 (the dry season of Gerontion), 253 (an unseasonal warmth) 276 (the strictures of the lenten season) and 311.5 (the seasonal wheel).
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* see note 0.1
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TO HIS COY MISTRESS, by Andrew Marvell
Had we but world enough, and time,
This coyness, lady, were no crime.
We would sit down and think which way
To walk, and pass our long love's day;
Thou by the Indian Ganges' side
Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide
Of Humber would complain. I would
Love you ten years before the Flood;
And you should, if you please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews.
My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires, and more slow.
An hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze;
Two hundred to adore each breast,
But thirty thousand to the rest;
An age at least to every part,
And the last age should show your heart.
For, lady, you deserve this state,
Nor would I love at lower rate.
But at my back I always hear
Time's winged chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.
Thy beauty shall no more be found,
Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
My echoing song; then worms shall try
That long preserv'd virginity,
And your quaint honour turn to dust,
And into ashes all my lust.
The grave's a fine and private place,
But none I think do there embrace.
Now therefore, while the youthful hue
Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
And while thy willing soul transpires
At every pore with instant fires,
Now let us sport us while we may;
And now, like am'rous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour,
Than languish in his slow-chapp'd power.
Let us roll all our strength, and all
Our sweetness, up into one ball;
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Thorough the iron gates of life.
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.
