388. THE CHAPEL PERILOUS, a term first used in Thomas Malory, Le Morte d’Arthur (1485) 6.14-15, is where a weeping Hellawes the Sorceress sends Sir Lancelot to retrieve a magical sword and cloth that will heal her brother. Her ulterior motive is to seduce Lancelot, but when he refuses to kiss her upon his return then rides off to heal the wounded soldier, she despairs and kills herself. Compare the story of Queen Dido and Aeneas (note 92).
The chapel itself, meanwhile, is a legend unto itself. See Weston**, From Ritual to Romance 13:
“Students of the Grail romances will remember that in many of the versions the hero--sometimes it is a heroine--meets with a strange and terrifying adventure in a mysterious Chapel, an adventure which, we are given to understand, is fraught with extreme peril to life. The details vary: sometimes there is a Dead Body laid on the altar; sometimes a Black Hand extinguishes the tapers; there are strange and threatening voices, and the general impression is that this is an adventure in which supernatural, and evil, forces are engaged. Such an adventure befalls Gawain on his way to the Grail Castle. He is overtaken by a terrible storm, and coming to a Chapel, standing at a crossways in the middle of a forest, enters for shelter. The altar is bare, with no cloth, or covering, nothing is thereon but a great golden candlestick with a tall taper burning within it. Behind the altar is a window, and as Gawain looks a Hand, black and hideous, comes through the window, and extinguishes the taper, while a voice makes lamentation loud and dire, beneath which the very building rocks. Gawain's horse shies for terror, and the knight, making the sign of the Cross, rides out of the Chapel, to find the storm abated, and the great wind fallen. Thereafter the night was calm and clear.”
389. THE WIND’S HOME: See the “wind under the door” at line 118 and the “unheard” wind at line 175. The chapel in this passage is empty and windowless; likewise the bones, not yet brought to life (see line 186), are dry and harmless. The chapel remains the wind’s home, however, and the scene quickly changes: the door swings, a damp gust brings rain (see lines 394-395) and what was once a dry, sterile thunder (see line 342) will become full of meaning (see line 399 and following).
PUTTING OFF SENSE AND NOTION: Compare the allegorical English chapel of Eliot, Little Gidding (note 0.5):
“...If you came this way,
Taking any route, starting from anywhere,
At any time or at any season,
It would always be the same: you would have to put off
Sense and notion. You are not here to verify,
Instruct yourself, or inform curiosity
Or carry report. You are here to kneel
Where prayer has been valid. And prayer is more
Than an order of words, the conscious occupation
Of the praying mind, or the sound of the voice praying...”
For a list of other church references in The Waste Land, see note 67.
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** see note 0.2
