T.S. Eliot's THE WASTE LAND

*               with ANNOTATIONS 
**              (and other explanations)

                  by Jonathan Vold

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0.1                       THE  WASTE  LAND
0.2                                               by T.S. Eliot

0.3        Nam Sibyllam quidem Cumis ego ipse oculis meis 
          vidi in ampulla pendere, et cum illi pueri dicerent:
          Σἰβυλλα τἱ θἐλεις ; respondebat illa: ἀποθανεἰν θἑλω.'

0.4                                                For Ezra Pound
                                                     il miglior fabbro.


0.5                      I. THE BURIAL OF THE DEAD

1               April is the cruellest month, breeding
2               Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
3               Memory and desire, stirring
4               Dull roots with spring rain.
5               Winter kept us warm, covering
6               Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
7               A little life with dried tubers.
8               Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee
9               With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade,
10             And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten,
11             And drank coffee, and talked for an hour.
12             Bin gar keine Russin, stamm’ aus Litauen, echt deutsch
13             And when we were children, staying at the archduke’s,
14             My cousin’s, he took me out on a sled,
15             And I was frightened. He said, Marie,
16             Marie, hold on tight. And down we went.
17             In the mountains, there you feel free.
18             I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.

19             What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
20             Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,
21             You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
22             A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
23             And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
24             And the dry stone no sound of water. Only
25             There is shadow under this red rock,
26             (Come in under the shadow of this red rock),
27             And I will show you something different from either
28             Your shadow at morning striding behind you
29             Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
30             I will show you fear in a handful of dust.
31                        Frisch weht der Wind
32                        Der Heimat zu
33                        Mein Irisch Kind,
34                        Wo weilest du?
35             'You gave me hyacinths first a year ago;
36             'They called me the hyacinth girl.'
37             —Yet when we came back, late, from the Hyacinth garden,
38             Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not
39             Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither
40             Living nor dead, and I knew nothing,
41             Looking into the heart of light, the silence.
42             Oed’ und leer das Meer.

43             Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyante,
44             Had a bad cold, nevertheless
45             Is known to be the wisest woman in Europe,
46             With a wicked pack of cards. Here, said she,
47             Is your card, the drowned Phoenician Sailor,
48             (Those are pearls that were his eyes. Look!)
49             Here is Belladonna, the Lady of the Rocks,
50             The lady of situations.
51             Here is the man with three staves, and here the Wheel,
52             And here is the one-eyed merchant, and this card,
53             Which is blank, is something he carries on his back,
54             Which I am forbidden to see. I do not find
55             The Hanged Man. Fear death by water.
56             I see crowds of people, walking round in a ring.
57             Thank you. If you see dear Mrs. Equitone,
58             Tell her I bring the horoscope myself:
59             One must be so careful these days.

60             Unreal City,
61             Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,
62             A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,
63             I had not thought death had undone so many.
64             Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled,
65             And each man fixed his eyes before his feet.
66             Flowed up the hill and down King William Street,
67             To where Saint Mary Woolnoth kept the hours
68             With a dead sound on the final stroke of nine.
69             There I saw one I knew, and stopped him, crying 'Stetson!
70             'You who were with me in the ships at Mylae!
71            'That corpse you planted last year in your garden,
72             'Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year?
73             'Or has the sudden frost disturbed its bed?
74             'Oh keep the Dog far hence, that’s friend to men,
75             'Or with his nails he’ll dig it up again!
76            'You! hypocrite lecteur! —mon semblable, —mon frère!'


76.5                     II.  A GAME OF CHESS

77             The Chair she sat in, like a burnished throne,
78             Glowed on the marble, where the glass
79             Held up by standards wrought with fruited vines
80             From which a golden Cupidon peeped out
81             (Another hid his eyes behind his wing)
82             Doubled the flames of sevenbranched candelabra
83             Reflecting light upon the table as
84             The glitter of her jewels rose to meet it,
85             From satin cases poured in rich profusion.
86             In vials of ivory and coloured glass
87             Unstoppered, lurked her strange synthetic perfumes,
88             Unguent, powdered, or liquid — troubled, confused
89             And drowned the sense in odours; stirred by the air
90             That freshened from the window, these ascended
91             In fattening the prolonged candle-flames,
92             Flung their smoke into the laquearia,
93             Stirring the pattern on the coffered ceiling.
94             Huge sea-wood fed with copper
95             Burned green and orange, framed by the coloured stone,
96             In which sad light a carvèd dolphin swam
97             Above the antique mantel was displayed
98             As though a window gave upon the sylvan scene
99             The change of Philomel, by the barbarous king
100           So rudely forced; yet there the nightingale
101           Filled all the desert with inviolable voice
102           And still she cried, and still the world pursues,
103           'Jug Jug' to dirty ears.
104           And other withered stumps of time
105           Were told upon the walls; staring forms
106           Leaned out, leaning, hushing the room enclosed.
107           Footsteps shuffled on the stair.
108           Under the firelight, under the brush, her hair
109           Spread out in fiery points
110           Glowed into words, then would be savagely still.
111           'My nerves are bad to-night.  Yes, bad.  Stay with me.
112           'Speak to me.  Why do you never speak.  Speak.
113               “What are you thinking of? What thinking? What?
114           'I never know what you are thinking.  Think.'

115           I think we are in rats' alley
116           Where the dead men lost their bones.

117           'What is that noise?'

118                                         The wind under the door.
119           'What is that noise now?  What is the wind doing?'
120                                         Nothing again nothing.
121                                                                       'Do
122           'You know nothing?  Do you see nothing?  Do you remember
123           'Nothing?'

124                I remember
125           Those are pearls that were his eyes.
126           'Are you alive, or not? Is there nothing in your head?'

127                                                                            But
128           O O O O that Shakespeherian Rag—
129           It's so elegant
130           So intelligent

131           'What shall I do now?  What shall I do?
132           'I shall rush out as I am, and walk the street
133           'With my hair down, so.  What shall we do tomorrow?
134           'What shall we ever do?'
135                                                 The hot water at ten.
136           And if it rains, a closed car at four.
137           And we shall play a game of chess,
138           Pressing lidless eyes and waiting for a knock upon the door.

139           When Lil's husband got demobbed, I said —
140           I didn't mince my words, I said to her myself,
141           HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
142           Now Albert's coming back, make yourself a bit smart.
143           He'll want to know what you done with that money he gave you
144           To get herself some teeth.  He did, I was there.
145           You have them all out, Lil, and get a nice set,
146           He said, I swear, I can't bear to look at you.
147           And no more can't I, I said, and think of poor Albert,
148           He's been in the army for four years, he wants a good time,
149           And if you don't give it him, there's others will, I said.
150           Oh is there, she said.  Something o' that, I said.
151           Then I'll know who to thank, she said, and give me a straight look.
152           HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
153           If you don't like it you can get on with it, I said.
154           Others can pick and choose if you can't.
155           But if Albert makes off, it won't be for a lack of telling.
156           You ought to be ashamed, I said, to look so antique.
157           (And her only thirty-one.)
158           I can't help it, she said, pulling a long face,
159           It's them pills I took, to bring it off, she said.
160           (She's had five already, and nearly died of young George.)
161           The chemist said it would be all right, but I've never been the same.
162           You are a proper fool, I said.
163           Well, if Albert won't leave you alone, there it is, I said,
164           What you get married for if you don't want children?
165           HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
166           Well, that Sunday Albert was home, they had a hot gammon,
167           And they asked me in to dinner, to get the beauty of it hot —
168           HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME 
169           HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
170           Goonight Bill.  Goonight Lou.  Goonight May.  Goonight.
171           Ta ta.  Goonight.  Goonight.
172           Good night, ladies, good night, sweet ladies, good night, good night.


172.5                   III.  THE FIRE SERMON

173           The river's tent is broken; the last fingers of leaf
174           Clutch and sink into the wet bank.  The wind
175           Crosses the brown land, unheard.  The nymphs are departed.
176           Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song.
177           The river bears no empty bottles, sandwich papers,
178           Silk handkerchiefs, cardboard boxes, cigarette ends
179           Or other testimony of summer nights.  The nymphs are departed.
180           And their friends, the loitering heirs of City directors;
181           Departed, have left no addresses.
182           By the waters of Leman I sat down and wept . . .
183           Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my song,
184           Sweet Thames, run softly, for I speak not loud or long.
185           But at my back in a cold blast I hear
186           The rattle of the bones, and chuckle spread from ear to ear.

187           A rat crept softly through the vegetation
188           Dragging its slimy belly on the bank
189           While I was fishing in the dull canal
190           On a winter evening round behind the gashouse
191           Musing upon the king my brother's wreck
192           And on the king my father's death before him
193           White bodies naked on the low damp ground
194           And bones cast in a little low dry garret,
195           Rattled by the rat's foot only, year to year.
196           But at my back from time to time I hear
197           The sound of horns and motors, which shall bring
198           Sweeney to Mrs. Porter in the spring.
199           O the moon shone bright on Mrs. Porter
200           And on her daughter
201           They wash their feet in soda water
202           Et O ces voix d'enfants, chantant dans la coupole!

203           Twit twit twit
204           Jug jug jug jug jug jug
205           So rudely forc'd.
206           Tereu

207           Unreal City
208           Under the brown fog of a winter noon
209           Mr. Eugenides, the Smyrna merchant
210           Unshaven, with a pocket full of currants
211           C.i.f. London: documents at sight,
212           Asked me in demotic French
213           To luncheon at the Cannon Street Hotel 
214           Followed by a weekend at the Metropole.

215           At the violet hour, when the eyes and back
216           Turn upward from the desk, when the human engine waits
217           Like a taxi throbbing waiting,
218           I Tiresias, though blind, throbbing between two lives,
219           Old man with wrinkled female breasts, can see
220           At the violet hour, the evening hour that strives
221           Homeward, and brings the sailor home from sea,
222           The typist home at teatime, clears her breakfast, lights
223           Her stove, and lays out food in tins.
224           Out of the window perilously spread
225           Her drying combinations touched by the sun's last rays,
226           On the divan are piled (at night her bed)
227           Stockings, slippers, camisoles, and stays.
228           I Tiresias, old man with wrinkled dugs
229           Perceived the scene, and foretold the rest —
230           I too awaited the expected guest.
231           He, the young man carbuncular, arrives,
232           A small house agent's clerk, with one bold stare,
233           One of the low on whom assurance sits
234           As a silk hat on a Bradford millionaire.
235           The time is now propitious, as he guesses, 
236           The meal is ended, she is bored and tired,
237           Endeavours to engage her in caresses
238           Which are still unreproved, if undesired.
239           Flushed and decided, he assaults at once;
240           Exploring hands encounter no defence; 
241           His vanity requires no response,
242           And makes a welcome of indifference.
243           (And I Tiresias have foresuffered all
244           Enacted on this same divan or bed;
245           I who have sat by Thebes below the wall
246           And walked among the lowest of the dead.)
247           Bestows one final patronising kiss,
248           And gropes his way, finding the stairs unlit . . .

249           She turns and looks a moment in the glass,
250           Hardly aware of her departed lover;
251           Her brain allows one half-formed thought to pass:
252           'Well now that's done: and I'm glad it's over.'
253           When lovely woman stoops to folly and
254           Paces about her room again, alone,
255           She smoothes her hair with automatic hand,
256           And puts a record on the gramophone.

257           'This music crept by me upon the waters'
258           And along the Strand, up Queen Victoria Street.
259           O City city, I can sometimes hear
260           Beside a public bar in Lower Thames Street,
261           The pleasant whining of a mandoline
262           And a clatter and a chatter from within
263           Where fishmen lounge at noon: where the walls
264           Of Magnus Martyr hold
265           Inexplicable splendour of Ionian white and gold.

266                     The river sweats
267                     Oil and tar
268                    The barges drift
269                    With the turning tide
270                    Red sails
271                     Wide
272                    To leeward, swing on the heavy spar.
273                    The barges wash
274                    Drifting logs
275                    Down Greenwich reach
276                    Past the Isle of Dogs.
277                                        Weialala leia
278                                        Wallala leialala

279                    Elizabeth and Leicester
280                Beating oars
281                    The stern was formed
282                    A gilded shell
283                Red and gold
284                    The brisk swell
285                    Rippled both shores
286                Southwest wind
287                     Carried down stream
288                    The peal of bells
289                White towers
290                                       Weialala leia
291                                        Wallala leialala

292                'Trams and dusty trees.
293                Highbury bore me.  Richmond and Kew
294                Undid me. By Richmond I raised my knees
295                Supine on the floor of a narrow canoe.'

296                'My feet are at Moorgate and my heart
297                Under my feet.  After the event
298                He wept.  He promised "a new start."
299                I made no comment.  What should I resent?'

300                'On Margate Sands.
301                I can connect
302                Nothing with nothing.
303                The broken fingernails of dirty hands.
304                My people humble people who expect
305                Nothing.'
306                                    la la

307                To Carthage then I came

308                  Burning   burning   burning   burning 
309                O Lord Thou pluckest me out
310                O Lord Thou pluckest

311                burning


311.5                  IV. DEATH BY WATER

312           Phlebas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead,
313           Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep sea swell
314           And the profit and loss.
315                                  A current under sea
316           Picked his bones in whispers.  As he rose and fell
317           He passed the stages of his age and youth
318           Entering the whirlpool.
319                                  Gentile or Jew
320           O you who turn the wheel and look windward,
321           Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you.


321.5                  V.  WHAT THE THUNDER SAID

322           After the torchlight red on sweaty faces
323           After the frosty silence in the gardens
324           After the agony in stony places
325           The shouting and the crying
326           Prison and palace and reverberation
327           Of thunder of spring over distant mountains
328           He who was living is now dead
329           We who were living are now dying
330           With a little patience

331           Here is no water but only rock
332           Rock and no water and the sandy road
333           The road winding above among the mountains
334           Which are mountains of rock without water
335           If there were water we should stop and drink
336           Amongst the rock one cannot stop or think
337           Sweat is dry and feet are in the sand
338           If there were only water amongst the rock
339           Dead mountain mouth of carious teeth that cannot spit
340           Here one can neither stand not lie nor sit
341           There is not even silence in the mountains
342           But dry sterile thunder without rain
343           There is not even solitude in the mountains
344           But red sullen faces sneer and snarl
345           From doors of mudcracked houses
346            If there were water

347                And no rock
348                If there were rock
349                And also water
350                And water
351                A spring
352                A pool among the rock
353                If there were the sound of water only
354                Not the cicada
355                And dry grass singing
356                But sound of water over a rock
357                Where the hermit-thrush sings in the pine trees
358                Drop drop drip drop drop drop drop
359                But there is no water

360           Who is the third who walks always beside you?

361           When I count, there are only you and I together
362           But when I look ahead up the white road
363           There is always another one walking beside you
364           Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded
365           I do not know whether a man or a woman
366           — But who is that on the other side of you?

367           What is that sound high in the air
368           Murmur of maternal lamentation
369           Who are those hooded hordes swarming
370           Over endless plains, stumbling in cracked earth
371           Ringed by the flat horizon only
372           What is the city over the mountains
373           Cracks and reforms and bursts in the violet air
374           Falling towers
375           Jerusalem Athens Alexandria
376           Vienna London
377           Unreal

378           A woman drew her long black hair out tight
379           And fiddled whisper music on those strings
380           And bats with baby faces in the violet light
381           Whistled, and beat their wings
382           And crawled head downward down a blackened wall
383           And upside down in air were towers
384           Tolling reminiscent bells, that kept the hours
385           And voices singing out of empty cisterns and exhausted wells.

386           In this decayed hole among the mountains
387           In the faint moonlight, the grass is singing
388           Over the tumbled graves, about the chapel
389           There is the empty chapel, only the wind's home.
390           It has no windows, and the door swings,
391           Dry bones can harm no one.
392           Only a cock stood on the rooftree
393           Co co rico    co co rico
394           In a flash of lightning.  Then a damp gust
395           Bringing rain

396           Ganga was sunken, and the limp leaves
397           Waited for rain, while the black clouds
398           Gathered far distant, over Himavant.
399           The jungle crouched, humped in silence.
400           Then spoke the thunder
401           DA
402           Datta: what have we given?
403           My friend, blood shaking my heart
404           The awful daring of a moment's surrender
405           Which an age of prudence can never retract
406           By this, and this only, we have existed
407           Which is not to be found in our obituaries
408           Or in memories draped by the beneficent spider
409           Or under seals broken by the lean solicitor
410           In our empty rooms
411           DA
412           Dayadhvam: I have heard the key
413           Turn in the door once and turn once only
414           We think of the key, each in his prison
415           Thinking of the key, each confirms a prison
416           Only at nightfall, aethereal rumours
417           Revive for a moment a broken Coriolanus
418           DA
419           Damyata: The boat responded
420           Gaily, to the hand expert with sail and oar
421           The sea was calm, your heart would have responded
422           Gaily, when invited, beating obedient
423           To controlling hands

424                                                                     I sat upon the shore 

425           Fishing, with the arid plain behind me
426           Shall I at least set my lands in order?

427           London Bridge is falling down falling down falling down
428           Poi s'ascose nel foco che gli affina
429           Quando fiam ceu chelidon — O swallow swallow
430           Le Prince d'Aquitaine à la tour abolie
431           These fragments I have shored against my ruins
432           Why then Ile fit you.  Hieronymo's mad againe.
433           Datta.  Dayadhvam.  Damyata.
434                     Shantih    shantih    shantih