The Hippopotamus
Published in Little Review July 1917, then 1919+ and Penguin / Sel Poems.
No recording known.
Undated in ts1. Dated 1917 in Isaacs US 1920 and by TSE in Hayward’s 1925, but dated London, 1918 in Poèmes. Dated 1917, “as far as I can remember”, to Norman Foerster, 15 June 1932, but 1918 by TSE in Morley’s US 1920. Read by TSE at the house of Sibyl Colefax 12 Dec 1917 (letter to his mother, 22 Dec). Profile: Ezra Pound: An Anthology Collected in MCMXXXI (Milan, 1932) gives the date as “1916 or 1917”.
[Poems I 42–44 · Textual History II 347–48]
TSE, reading at Columbia, 28 Apr 1958: “This is a poem which I originally read, I remember, at a poetry reading for the benefit of some Red Cross affair with Sir Edmund Gosse in the chair, and he was profoundly shocked. On the other hand, the late Arnold Bennett liked it better than anything I’d written up to the time of his death, and kept asking me to write ‘another Hippopotamus.’ · · · it’s the only poem of mine which I’ve any reason to suppose that James Joyce ever read. Once when I saw him in Paris he told me that he’d been to the Jardin des Plantes and had paid his respects to my friend The Hippopotamus. I imagine that he may have read this poem. However, it doesn’t seem as shocking to anybody now, I think, as it did all those years ago; I think very few things do remain as shocking”, Columbia U. Forum Fall 1958. For the Red Cross reading, see note to A Cooking Egg 14 and letter to Pound, 31 Oct 1917, in “Improper Rhymes”.
Title In the second number of Fireside: A Weekly Magazine, when he was ten, TSE wrote a version of Lewis Carroll’s “He thought he saw a Banker’s Clerk | Descending from the bus: | He looked again, and found it was | A Hippopotamus” (Sylvie and Bruno ch. V). “Descending from the”, TSE: “Ascending from the”, 26.
Rupert Brooke’s On the Death of Smet-Smet, the Hippopotamus-Goddess appeared in his Poems (1911). TSE’s principal source, however, was Théophile Gautier:
L’hippopotame au large ventre
Habite aux Jungles de Java,
Où grondent, au fond de chaque antre,
Plus de monstres qu’on n’en rêva.
Le boa se déroule et siffle,
Le tigre fait son hurlement,
Le buffle en colère renifle,
Lui dort ou paît tranquillement.
Il ne craint ni kriss ni zagaies,
Il regarde l’homme sans fuir,
Et rit des balles de cipayes
Qui rebondissent sur son cuir.
Je suis comme l’hippopotame:
De ma conviction couvert,
Forte armure que rien n’entame,
Je vais sans peur par le désert.
[The big-bellied hippopotamus lives in the Jungles of Java, where in the depths of each cavern snarl more monsters than are dreamt of: the boa uncoils and hisses, the tiger makes his roar, the buffalo snorts in fury—whereas he sleeps or grazes tranquilly. He fears neither kris nor assegai, looks at a man and stands his ground, smiles at the Sepoy’s shots that bounce off his hide. I am like this hippopotamus: clothed in conviction, strong armour-plate that none can breach, I wander fearless through the desert.]
Pound: “‘The Nineties’ never got even so far as Emaux et Camées, they stopped with Elegies and Albertus. I doubt if they ever took pleasure in L’Hippopotame. At any rate, a good deal of Seine water has flowed seaward since the days of The Rhymers’ Club and France has not remained the France of Dowson and Arthur Symons”, New Freewoman 15 Sept 1913. (The Rhymers’ Club anthologies were published in 1892 and 1894.)
TSE followed the ABAB rhyme-scheme of Gautier’s quatrains only in this poem and Airs of Palestine, No 2. Gautier’s poem and TSE’s were printed side by side in 1929 by Taupin (238–39).
[Poem I 43 · Textual History II 347–48]
“US” epigraph Similiter et omnes revereantur Diaconos, ut mandatum Jesu Christi; et Episcopum, ut Jesum Christum, existentem filium Patris; Presbyteros autem, ut concilium Dei et conjunctionem Apostolorum. Sine his Ecclesia non vocatur; de quibus suadeo vos sic habeo: “In like manner let all men respect the deacons as Jesus Christ, even as they should respect the bishop as being a type of the Father and the presbyters as the council of God and as the college of Apostles. Apart from these there is not even the name of a church. And I am persuaded that ye are so minded as touching these matters”, St. Ignatius to the Trallians 3: 1–2, tr. J. B. Lightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers (1891). Ignatius wrote in Greek. The Latin quoted by TSE is Bishop Ussher’s 17th-century translation (with his for Ussher’s iis, and the final six words added apparently by TSE).
“British” epigraph St. Paul, Colossians 4: 16. Laodicean: OED A, b: “Having the fault for which the Church of Laodicea is reproached in Revelation 3: 15, 16; hence ‘lukewarm, neither cold nor hot’, indifferent in religion, politics etc.” Harvard’s Laodicean Club, c. 1890, elected George Santayana its “Pope” but expired after two meetings.
1–2, 10 hippopotamus | Rests on his belly in the mud · · · compassing: of the Biblical behemoth: “his strength is in his loins and his force is in the navel of his belly · · · He is the chief of the ways of God · · · He lieth under the shady trees, in the covert of the reed, and fens · · · the willows of the brook compass him about”, Job 40: 16–22. OED “behemoth”: “An animal mentioned in the book of Job; probably the hippopotamus”.
1–4 hippopotamus · · · belly in the mud · · · blood: from one of TSE’s contributions to Noctes Binanianæ: “A Monster who escap’d the Flood, | With watery diluted Blood, | And, sacrificing hoof to fin, | Perpetuates pre-diluvial Sin. | Yet ah! might Whales perhaps repent? | And leave their fluid Element? | Prepare the higher life to meet, | And stand at last on legs and feet?” The Whale and the Elephant 19–26. (After the description of behemoth in Job 40, the next chapter describes leviathan, the whale.)
2 Rests on his belly in the mud: Cowper: “He plants his footsteps in the Sea”, Light Shining out of Darkness 3. For Cowper’s quatrain poem see notes to 9 and 23. Paradise Lost I 195–96: Satan “Prone on the flood, extended long and large”. Rests on: 2 Kings 2: 15: “The spirit of Elijah doth rest on Elisha.” 2 Chronicles 14: 11: “O Lord our God; for we rest on thee.”
5 Flesh and blood is weak and frail: Matthew 26: 41: “the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak”.
5–8 Flesh and blood · · · based upon a rock: Matthew 16: 17–18: “flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church” (with “flesh and blood” being singular, as in TSE). Flesh · · · weak and frail · · · based upon a rock: Isaac Watts: “Call’d him the Rock of their abode, | Their high Redeemer and their God · · · He saw their flesh was weak and frail, | He saw temptations still prevail”, Psalm 78 (4th part).
6 Susceptible to nervous shock: medical diction: “susceptibility to the nervous shock”, Dublin Journal 1838.
7 the True Church: Roman Catholics and Protestants each laid claim to this title during the 16th- and 17th-century religious persecutions. Samuel Butler: “he was of that stubborn crew | Of errant saints, whom all men grant | To be the true Church Militant”, Hudibras First Part, I 190–92, quoted in Pound’s ABC of Reading. For “The True Church and the Nineteen Churches” in TSE’s London Letter in Dial May 1921, see note to The Waste Land [III] 264. The Daily Illini 5 June 1953, reporting TSE’s reading the previous day: “‘It is about the Church of England,’ he said drily ‘no one else need be offended.’”
[Poem I 43 · Textual History II 348]
7–8 the True Church can never fail | For it is based upon a rock: John Bramhall: “though the rain descend, and the floods come, and the winds blow and beat upon it, yet it shall never fall to ruin or desolation, because it is builded upon a Rock · · · The Catholic Church can never fail; any Patriarchal Church may apostate and fail”, Answer to the Epistle of M. de la Milletière in Works (1842) I 42–43 (Grover Smith 40). John Bramhall (1927) appears in Sele
cted Essays. TSE: “A good many years later I became a churchwarden, and I often thought of those lines · · · when we were wondering how to keep the church going on the collections, which weren’t quite so good as one would have liked. So one lives and learns”, T. S. Eliot Talks about His Poetry (1958).
8, 12 upon a rock · · · To gather in its dividends: Thomas Hood, on the charge of two shillings to see Poets’ Corner at Westminster Abbey: “The profitable Abbey is | A sacred ’Change for stony stock, | Not that a speculation ’tis— | The profit’s founded on a rock”, An Address to the Very Reverend John Ireland D.D. 25–28.
9 hippo: the close of The Waste Land III quotes St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo (now Annaba, Algeria). In 393, the Synod of Hippo approved a Christian biblical canon. feeble steps may err: “Thy staff supports my feeble steps, | Thy rod directs my doubtful way”, Psalm 23 in Psalms Carefully Suited to the Christian Worship in the United States of America (1831). Cowper: “Judge not the Lord by feeble sense · · · Blind unbelief is sure to err”, Light Shining out of Darkness 13, 21 (see note to 23). Pope: “To Err is Humane; to Forgive, Divine”, An Essay on Criticism I 525 (Sloane 313).
11–12 Church · · · dividends: “Seeing that you destroy the thing you should preserve, | That you ignore the thing you should destroy | As building and destruction find their only | Justification in the dividends | On which the whole creation seems to move”, draft ts of The Rock (Bodleian). (Tennyson: “One God, one law, one element, | And one far-off divine event, | To which the whole creation moves”, In Memoriam final lines.)
12 gather in its dividends: Leviticus 25: 20: “gather in our increase.”
13 ’potamus: The Birth of the Hippopotamus, Sung with great applause by La Mère Hippopotama in the Zoological Gardens, Regent’s Park: “Dat it am born in London and not Paris I am grateful, | Ob little sucking ’potamus dey’d soon ha’ made a plateful”, Punch 4 Mar 1871. OED cites the abbreviation “hippo” from the following year. Archibald Bower: “Hilarius Bishop of Poitiers supposes the Sirmian Confession of Faith to have been drawn up by Osius and Potamus · · · Potamus was Bishop of Lisbone, and a most fanatical stickler for the Orthodox Party”, The History of the Popes (1749) I 152.
13–15 reach · · · peach: Marvell: “The nectarine, and curious peach, | Into my hands themselves do reach”, The Garden 37–38 (TSE: “the True Church need never stir | To gather”, 11–12).
15 pomegranate: revered in itself and in representation, throughout the Old Testament; “fruits of” because pomegranate = apple of many seeds.
16 Refresh · · · from over sea: “At this exclusive feast. From over sea”, A Fable for Feasters 28 (Rick DeVilliers, personal communication).
[Poem I 43 · Textual History II 348]
18, 22 inflexions hoarse and odd · · · at night he hunts: J. G. Wood’s Illustrated Natural History described the hippopotamus making “a loud and very peculiar snorting noise” and quoted a description of it emerging “to graze by the serene light of the moon”.
19, 29 But every week we hear rejoice · · · Blood of the Lamb shall wash him clean: Revelation 12: 11: “And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb.” TSE: “Cleansed and rejoiced”, Airs of Palestine, No. 2 35, similarly hymnal.
21–24 hippopotamus · · · sleep · · · God works · · · sleep: Macaulay: “I have seen the hippopotamus, both asleep and awake; and I can assure you that, awake or asleep, he is the ugliest of the works of God”, Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay by G. O. Trevelyan (1876) I 254–55.
23 God works in a mysterious way: Cowper: “God moves in a mysterious way, | His wonders to perform”, Light Shining out of Darkness 1–2.
24 The Church can sleep and feed at once: Hamlet IV iv: “What is a man | If his chief good and market of his time | Be but to sleep and feed? A beast, no more” (Shawn Worthington, personal communication). Tennyson: “Battening upon huge seaworms in his sleep”, The Kraken 12 (TSE in 1919: “feed and sleep”).
26 savannas: OED “savannah” 3: “U.S. A tract of low-lying damp or marshy ground.”
27–28 And quiring angels round him sing | The praise of God, in loud hosannas: The Merchant of Venice V i: “Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins”. Rowland Hill: “with ceaseless praise | To him their loud hosannas raise”, included in The American Hymn and Tune Book (1860) (Christine Meyer, MLN Apr 1951).
29–32 the Lamb · · · saints · · · harp of gold: Revelation 5: 8: “The four beasts · · · fell down before the Lamb, having every one of them harps, and golden vials · · · which are the prayers of saints” (Jeffrey Gutierrez, personal communication).
29, 33 Blood of the Lamb shall wash him clean · · · He shall be washed as white as snow: Revelation 7: 14: “These are they which · · · washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” Psalm 51: 7: “Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.” TSE to Richard Aldington, 23 Apr 1928: “the Anglican translation was PURGE whereas the Papists say SPRINKLE (with hyssop).” The latter is the Douay–Rheims version. white as snow: Isaiah 1: 18: “though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow”.
34 By all the martyr’d virgins kist: Song of Solomon 1: 2–3: “Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth · · · therefore do the virgins love thee.”
36 Wrapt in the old miasmal mist: Harriet Monroe on the death of Rupert Brooke (Poetry June 1915): “Homeric heroes whom some god wrapped in golden mist” (“gold”, 32). Edward Lear: “plenty of money, | Wrapped up in a five pound note”, The Owl and the Pussycat 3–4 (see note to A Cooking Egg 15–16). miasmal: OED: “Containing miasmatic effluvia or germs”, quoting Elizabeth Barrett Browning “We respond with our miasmal fog” (Aurora Leigh VII 300) and TSE’s line.
[Poem I 43–44 · Textual History II 348]
Dans le Restaurant
Published in Little Review Sept 1918, then AraVP, US 1920+.
No recording known.
Undated in ts1. Dated 1916 by TSE in Hayward’s 1925 but 1918 by TSE in Morley’s US 1920. Dated London, 1917 in Poèmes, and assigned to 1917 by Rainey 198.
The close of the poem was translated by TSE as the close of the original draft of Part IV of The Waste Land, before Pound reduced Part IV to the ten lines about Phlebas. Against 25–31 in Thayer’s AraVP, TSE wrote, “See Waste Land Part IV”.
[In the Restaurant]
[The ravaged-looking waiter, with nothing to do but rub his hands and lean over my shoulder, says: “In my country now it will be the rainy season. Wind, hot sun—and rain: what we call beggars’ washday.” (Garrulous, slobbery, big-bottomed—I pray you desist from blathering into my soup.) “The wet willow trees, and the buds on the brambles—it’s there in a downpour that one takes shelter. I was seven years old, she younger. She was all wet, I gave her some primroses.” The stains on his waistcoat now number thirty-eight. “I was tickling her, to make her laugh. I felt a moment of power and frenzy.” An old lecher, then, even at that age … “But Monsieur, it was in vain. There comes this big dog, touching us up. I was scared, I left her midway. It’s a pity.” Enough! I say—you old goat! Go scrub the wrinkles off your face; take my fork and give your scalp a good scrape. How dare you presume to have had experiences like mine. Here’s ten sous, take them—for the washroom. Phlebas the Phoenician, this fortnight drowned, forgot the cry of gulls and the Cornish sea swell, and the profits and losses, and the cargo of tin: a current under sea carried him far out, back through the stages of his former life. It is a hard fate, you will agree. And yet he was once handsome, and very tall.]
Translation by Pound. ts (Beinecke): green carbon on two leaves, in Pound’s eccentric typing, emended in pencil (c. 1917). Published by Gallup in Yale Lib Gazette Jan 1976, then by A. Walton Litz in Essays for Richard Ellmann: Omnium Gatherum ed. Susan Dick et al. (1989), where dashes are substituted for many of Pound’s floating commas. Misattributed to TSE, Seymour-Jones 34. Probable turned lines in Pound’s ts are here individually number
ed.
The waiter idle and dilapidated
With nothing to do but scratch and lean over my shoulder
Says:
In my country the rain is colder
5
And the sun hotter and the ground more desicated
and desacrated
Voluminous and spuminous with a leguminous
and cannimaculated vest-front and pantfront
[Poem I 45–46 · Textual History II 349–50]
and a graveyperpulchafied yesterdays napkin in a loop
10
over his elbow
(I hope he will not sputter into the soup)
Down in a ditch under the willow trees
Where you go to get out of the rain
I tried in vain,
15
I mean I was interrupted
She was all wet with the deluge and her calico skirt
stuck to her buttocks and belley,
I put my hand up and she giggled,
You old cut-up,
20
“At the age of eight, sir, what can one do?”
she was younger
Besides I’d no sooner got started than a big
poodle
Came sniffing about and scared me pealess,
25
Your head is not flealess
now at any rate, go scrape the cheese off your pate
and dig the slush out of your crowsfeet
take sixpence and get washed, God damn
what a fate
30
You crapulous vapulous relic, you ambulating offence
To have had an experience
so nearly parallel, with, …
Go away!
The Poems of T. S. Eliot Volume I Page 60