176. SWEET THAMES, RUN SOFTLY: Eliot*: “V. Spenser, Prothalamion.” See Edmund Spenser, Prothalamion (literally, "before the nuptial chamber") (1596), a double wedding poem attended by river nymphs collecting flowers for the brides:
“Calm was the day, and through the trembling air
Sweet breathing Zephyrus did softly play,
Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song...”
Compare note 36, where Zephyrus the wind plays a bit too hard with the Hyacinth Prince, and see note 293 for the different theme of the Thames-daughter nymphs. The wedding is over now, the nymphs and their friends have emphatically departed (lines 175, 179, 181, and see note 250); the season has turned to autumn and summer’s last remnants have either floated away or sunk into the banks. As an unheard wind blows (see note 389), the poet turns plaintively to the river (lines 176, 183 and 184). See note 434 for how these triad observations and pleas will eventually evolve.
182. WEEPING: See Psalm* 137:1:
“By the waters of Babylon, there we sat down, yea we wept
...How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?”
Lac Leman is Lake Geneva, Switzerland, site of Lausanne where Eliot was treated in 1922 for mental exhaustion. See also note 300. Compare the lament of a Geneva-conceived monster in Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus (1818):
“I was a poor, helpless, miserable wretch; I knew, and could distinguish nothing; but, feeling pain invade me on all sides, I sat down and wept.”
For another Geneva scene, see Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Confessions 4 (1782), tr. Angela Scholar (2000):
“The sight of Lake Geneva and its admirable shores has always held a particular charm for me... I abandoned myself, as I walked ...to thoughts of the sweetest melancholy. ...I was moved to tenderness, I sighed, I wept like a child. How many times, stopping to weep at my leisure, did I not, perched on a boulder, smile to see my tears mingling with the waters.”
For similar mixed emotions, see Dante, Purgatorio 26.142, at note 428: “I am Arnaut, who weep and singing go,” and see Oliver Goldsmith, The Vicar of Wakefield, at note 253: “Her mother ...felt a pleasing distress, and wept.” See also Shakespeare*, The Tempest 1.2.390, with Prince Ferdinand “sitting on a bank, weeping,” and see Eliot’s variation to this at line 191.
See also St. Augustine weeping before his conversion, at note 365.
Biblically, see Isaiah* 38:1 (alluded to at line 426), where King Hezekiah weeps after being told to “Set thine house in order” because he is about to die. See also Matthew* 26:75 (note 393), where Peter “wept bitterly” after the cock crowed; and John* 11:35 (note 298), where Jesus wept after Lazarus died.
For contrast, consider Boredom's eye filled with an unwanted tear in Baudelaire, Au Lecteur (note 76).
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* see note 0.1
