The Waste Land

by T. S. Eliot

  What bird so sings, yet so does wail?

  O ’tis the ravish’d nightingale.

  e d i t o r ’ s a n n o t a t i o n s t o l i n e s 118 – 17 2

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  Jug, jug, jug, jug, Tereu! She cries,

  And still her woes at midnight rise.

  “Tereu” is the vocative form of Tereus, the ravisher of Philomela, whose cry,

  after she metamorphosed into a nightingale, could be heard as an outcry

  against Tereus. In contrast, “jug jug” was also a crude reference to sexual

  intercourse.

  118 [The wind under the door]: Eliot’s note directs the reader to John Webster’s

  play The Devil’s Law Case, III.ii.148. Contarino has been stabbed, and while undergoing treatment at the hands of two surgeons is stabbed again by the

  villain Romelio, unbeknownst to the surgeons, who have left the room. They

  return, thinking him dead, but he groans, and one surgeon asks the other,

  “Is the wind in that door still?”

  125 [Those are pearls that were his eyes]: See note to line 48.

  128–130 [O O O O . . . So intelligent]: A popular song published in 1912 by Joseph

  W. Stern and Co. and composed for performance at the Ziegfeld Follies, with

  words by Gene Buck and Herman Ruby, music by David Stamper. An adver-

  tisement for the song in Variety (19 July 1912) noted: “If you want a song that can be acted as well as sung send for this big surprise hit.” The “grizzly bear,”

  used as a verb in the song’s lyrics, was a popular dance which loosely mimed

  a bear’s motions. For the song’s lyrics and music, see 96–99.

  137: Eliot’s note refers to the game of chess in Thomas Middleton’s Women Beware Women; see the note to the title of part II.

  139 [demobbed]: A popular contraction of “demobilized,” or released from mili-

  tary service. The earliest OED citation of the term is from a newspaper, the Glasgow Herald of 2 June 1920: “Some young soldiers . . . who had been recently demobbed.” According to Valerie Eliot, in her notes to TWL:AF, Eliot said that this portion of the poem (lines 137–197) was “pure Ellen Kellond,”

  a maid who worked for them occasionally.

  141 [hurry up please it’s time]: A time-honored expression used by bartenders

  to announce the imminent closing of a pub, or public house, in Britain.

  160 [She’s had five already]: The size of the British family had shrunk from an

  average of 5.5 children in the mid-Victorian era to 2.2 between 1924 and

  1929. Systematic practice of birth control had started among the middle

  classes in the 1870s and had spread downward before the First World War.

  Popular interest in birth control surged after the war; Marie Stopes’s book,

  Married Love: A New Contribution to the Solution of Sex Diªculties (London:

  A. C. Fifield, 1918), sold 400,000 copies between 1918 and 1923.

  161 [chemist]: A pharmacist, in American usage.

  166 [gammon]: Smoked ham, in American usage.

  172 [Good night . . . good night]: The last line of part II quotes from Ophelia’s

  mad scene, where she appears distracted by the news that Hamlet has mur-

  dered her father and her sense that he will repudiate his a¤ection for her,

  Hamlet IV.v.72–73. Later Ophelia drowns herself.

  e d i t o r ’ s a n n o t a t i o n s t o f i r e s e r m o n t i t l e

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  The Fire Sermon: The title is taken from a sermon by the great religious teacher

  Siddartha Gautama (ca. 563–483 b.c.), called by his followers the Buddha or

  the Enlightened One. The text was translated and edited by Henry Clarke

  Warren (1854–1899), a Harvard University professor whose Buddhism in

  Translations (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1896) became a standard

  text (the Fire Sermon is found at 151–152), though more recent translators

  would quarrel with his decision to translate “bhikku” as “priest” rather than

  “monk.” (All ellipses are Warren’s.)

  Then the Blessed One, having dwelt in Uruvela as long as he wished,

  proceeded on his wanderings in the direction of Gaya Head, accompa-

  nied by a great congregation of priests, a thousand in number, who had

  all of them aforetime been monks with matted hair. And there in Gaya,

  on Gaya Head, the Blessed One dwelt, together with the thousand

  priests. And there he addressed the priests:

  “All things, O priests, are on fire. And what, O priests, are all these

  things which are on fire?

  “The eye, O priests, is on fire; forms are on fire; eye-consciousness

  is on fire; impressions received by the eye are on fire; and whatever sen-

  sation, pleasant, unpleasant, or indi¤erent, originates in dependence

  on impressions received by the eye, that also is on fire.

  “And with what are these on fire?

  “With the fire of passion, say I, with the fire of hatred, with the fire

  of infatuation; with birth, old age, death, sorrow, lamentation, misery,

  grief, and despair are they on fire.

  “The ear is on fire; sounds are on fire; . . . the nose is on fire; odors

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  e d i t o r ’ s a n n o t a t i o n s t o l i n e 17 6

  are on fire; . . . the tongue is on fire; tastes are on fire; . . . the body is on

  fire; things tangible are on fire; . . . the mind is on fire; ideas are on fire;

  . . . mind-consciousness is on fire; impressions received by the mind

  are on fire; and whatever sensation, pleasant, unpleasant, or indi¤erent,

  originates in dependence on impressions received by the mind, that

  also is on fire.

  “And with what are these on fire?

  “With the fire of passion, say I, with the fire of hatred, with the fire

  of infatuation; with old age, death, sorrow, lamentation, misery, grief

  and despair are they on fire.

  “Perceiving this, O priests, the learned and noble disciple conceives

  an aversion for the eye, conceives an aversion for forms, conceives an

  aversion for eye-consciousness, conceives an aversion for the impres-

  sions received by the eye; and whatever sensation, pleasant, unpleasant,

  or indi¤erent, originates in dependence on impressions received by

  the eye, for that he also conceives an aversion. Conceives an aversion for

  the ear, conceives an aversion for sounds, . . . conceives an aversion

  for the nose, conceives an aversion for odors, . . . conceives an aver-

  sion for the tongue, conceives an aversion for tastes, . . . conceives an

  aversion for the body, conceives an aversion for things, tangible, . . .

  conceives an aversion for the mind, conceives an aversion for ideas,

  conceives an aversion for mind-consciousness, conceives an aversion

  for the impressions received by the mind; and whatever sensation,

  pleasant, unpleasant, or indi¤erent, originates in dependence on im-

  pressions received by the mind, for this also he conceives an aversion.

  And in conceiving this aversion, he becomes divested of passion, and

  by the absence of passion he becomes free, and when he is free he

  becomes aware that he is free; and he knows that rebirth is exhausted,

  that he has lived the holy life, that he has done what it behooved him

  to do, and that he is no more for this world.”

  Now while this exposition was being delivered, the minds of the

  thousand priests became free from attachment and delivered from

  the depravit
ies.

  176 [Sweet Thames . . . my song]: Eliot’s note cites the refrain to the “Pro-

  thalamion” (1596) by Edmund Spenser (1552–1599), a poem which cele-

  brated the ideal of marriage to commemorate the wedding of the two

  daughters of the Earl of Worcester. The first two stanzas (of ten in the

  poem) read:

  Calme was the day, and through the trembling ayre,

  Sweete breathing Zephyrus did softly play

  A gentle spirit, that lightly did delay

  Hot Titans beames, which then did glyster fayre:

  When I whom sullein care,

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  Through discontent of my long fruitlesse stay

  In Princes Court, and expectation vayne

  Of idle hopes, which still doe fly away,

  Like empty shaddowes, did aºict my brayne,

  Walkt forth to ease my payne

  Along the shoare of siluer streaming Themmes,

  Whose rutty Bancke, the which his River hemmes

  Was paynted all with variable flowers,

  And all the meades adornd with daintie gemmes,

  Fit to decke maydens bowres,

  And crown their Paramours,

  Against the Brydale day, which is not long:

  Sweet Themmes run softly, till I end my Song.

  There, in a Meadow, by the Riuers side,

  A Flocke of Nymphes I chaunced to espy,

  All louely Daughters of the Flood thereby,

  With goodly greenish locks all loose vntyde,

  As each had bene a Bryde,

  And each one had a little wicker basket,

  Made of fine twigs entrayled curiously,

  In which they gathered flowers to fill their flasket:

  And with fine Fingers, cropt full feateously

  The tender stalks on hye.

  Of euery sort, which in that Meadow grew,

  They gathered some; the Violet pallid blew,

  The little Dazie, that at euening closes,

  The virgin Lillie, and the Primrose trew,

  With store of vermeil Roses,

  To decke their Bridegromes posies,

  Against the Brydale day, which was not long:

  Sweet Themmes run softly, till I end my Song.

  182 [By the waters of Leman . . . ]: Eliot is adapting the first verse of Psalm 137: 1 By the rivers of Babylon, there sat we down, yea, we wept, when we

  remembered Zion.

  2 We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof.

  3 For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song;

  and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the

  songs of Zion.

  4 How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?

  In the Biblical passage, the ancient Hebrews are lamenting their exile in

  Babylon and remembering the lost city of Jerusalem. Eliot has substituted

  the word “Leman” for Babylon, which is the French name for the Lake of

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  e d i t o r ’ s a n n o t a t i o n s t o l i n e 18 5

  Geneva, where he spent several weeks from 28 November 1921 to 1 January

  1922, ostensibly resting his nerves and also writing parts IV and V of The

  Waste Land. As Eliot was also aware, “leman” is an archaic term, used still by Elizabethan and Jacobean poets, designating an illicit mistress.

  185 [But at my back . . . ]: An adaptation which virtually reverses the original sense of lines 21–22 of “To His Coy Mistress” by Andrew Marvell (1621–1678):

  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.

  10

  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.

  20

  But at my back I always hear

  Time’s wingèd 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-preserved virginity,

  And your quaint honor turn to dust,

  And into ashes all my lust:

  30

  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 amorous birds of prey,

  e d i t o r ’ s a n n o t a t i o n s t o l i n e s 19 2 – 19 7

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  Rather at once our time devour

  Than languish in his slow-chapped power.

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  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.

  192 [And on the king my father’s death]: Eliot’s note directs the reader to The Tempest, I.ii.388–393; Ferdinand, musing by himself on the shore where he has

  been shipwrecked, hears a song by one of the spirits of the air and asks:

  Where should this music be? I’ th’ air or th’ earth?

  It sounds no more; and sure it waits upon

  Some god o’ th’ island. Sitting on a bank,

  Weeping again the king my father’s wrack

  This music crept by me upon the waters,

  Allaying both their fury and my passion

  With its sweet air.

  196 [But at my back . . . ]: See note to line 185.

  197 [The sound of horns and motors]: Eliot’s note directs the reader to a poem by

  John Day (1574–1640?), The Parliament of Bees (1641). Day was a playwright

  for the theater proprietor and manager Philip Henslowe; he collaborated on

  plays with Thomas Dekker and Henry Chettle, and also wrote two plays of

  his own, The Isle of Gulls (1606) and Humour Out of Breath (1608). The Parliament of Bees is a series of pastoral eclogues about “the doings, the births, the wars, the wooings” of bees. It is divided into twelve chapters or “Characters,” each dramatizing a bee or insect that represents a human type. Char-

  acter III is devoted to “Thraso or Polypragmus, the Plush Bee,” who is “A

  mere vainglorious reveller, / Who scorns his equals, grinds the poor.” He is

  perturbed that the sun “strives to outshine us” and proposes to build a hive

  which will outdo the sun’s. The ceiling will be “gilt / And interseamed with

  pearl,” and there will be artificial clouds, and a mechanical sun and moon:

  Overhead

  A roof of woods and forests I’ll have spread,

  Trees growing downwards, full of fallow-deer;

 
; When of the sudden, listening, you shall hear

  A noise of horns and hunting, which shall bring

  Actaeon to Diana in the spring,

  Where all shall see her naked skin; and there

  Actaeon’s hounds shall their own master tear,

  An emblem of his folly that will keep

  Hounds to devour and eat him up asleep.

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  e d i t o r ’ s a n n o t a t i o n s t o l i n e s 19 8 – 19 9

  All this I’ll do that men with praise may crown

  My fame for turning the world upside-down.

  The text is taken from “The Parliament of Bees,” ed. Arthur Symons, in

  Nero and Other Plays, ed. Herbert P. Horne, Havelock Ellis, Arthur Symons,

  and A. Wilson Verity (London: T. Fisher Unwin; New York: Charles Scrib-

  ner’s Sons, 1904), 227. For the myth of Actaeon and Diana, see the next note.

  198 [Sweeney to Mrs. Porter . . . ]: Sweeney figures in two earlier poems by Eliot,

  “Sweeney Erect” and “Sweeney Among the Nightingales.” In the first, the

  protagonist disturbs a brothel when he draws out a razor in order to shave

  but is thought by others to be planning some act of violence. In the second

  he is in a brothel again, the object of ribald teasing by nightingales, and it

  has been speculated that his unnamed “host” is Mrs. Porter. Here in The

  Waste Land, Sweeney is approaching Mrs. Porter just as Actaeon approaches

  Diana in the myth recapitulated by John Day (see the preceding note): Ac-

  taeon was torn apart by his own hunting dogs for gazing at Diana, goddess

  of chastity as well as the hunt, while she was bathing. (Freudian interpre-

  tations of this myth see it as expressing a fear of castration.) The most

  celebrated version of the Diana and Actaeon myth is given in Ovid’s Meta-

  morphoses, III, 198–252.

  199 [O the moon shone bright]: Contemporary American critics noted that this

  line echoes an anonymous, popular ballad known as “Red Wing”:

  There once lived an Indian maid,

  A shy little prairie maid,

  Who sang a lay, a love song gay,

  As on the plain she’d while away the day;

  She loved a warrior bold,

  This shy little maid of old,

  But brave and gay he rode one day

  To the battlefield far away.

  CHORUS:

  Now the moon shines bright on pretty Red Wing,

  The breezes sighing, the night birds crying,

  For afar ’neath his star her brave is sleeping