The Poems of T. S. Eliot Volume I
Page 80
Arnold: “Still clutching the inviolable shade · · · silver’d · · · where none pursue
· · · or listen with enchanted ears, | From the dark dingles, to the nightingales”,
The Scholar-Gipsy 211–20.
[II] 98–106 window · · · staring forms | Leaned out, leaning: “leaning out of windows · · · evil houses leaning all together”, Prufrock’s Pervigilium [3, 15]. “Outside the window, leaning in”, Sweeney Among the Nightingales 30. “leaning out of the window”, stage direction, Sweeney Agonistes: Fragment of a Prologue 101.
[II] 100 nightingale: TSE’s Notes refer to “Jug jug jug jug jug jug”, [III] 204. For TSE on Keats’s Ode to a Nightingale, see note to Sweeney Among the Nightingales epigraph. For the Ode on a Grecian Urn, see note to [II] 102.
[II] 100–102 nightingale · · · still · · · still · · · pursues: Arnold: “the nightingale · · · still · · · still · · · Dost thou again peruse · · · thy dumb sister’s shame?” Philomela 1–21 (with “sweet, tranquil Thames”, 10).
[II] 101 inviolable voice: Remy de Gourmont, quoting Ernest Hello: “Le style est l’homme même et l’autre formule, de Hello, le style est inviolable, disent · · · le style est aussi personnel que · · · la voix” [Style is the man himself and the other formula, from Hello, style is inviolable, both say · · · style is as personal as · · · the voice], Du Style ou de l’écriture in La Culture des Idées (1900). Laforgue: “Les Jeunes Filles inviolables et frêles” [the frail inviolable Young Ladies], Dimanches: C’est l’automne 9, quoted in The Varieties of Metaphysical Poetry 214 (Clark Lecture VIII). For Laforgue’s line see note to First Caprice in North Cambridge 1.
156 Pound’s annotation: “too penty”] WLFacs notes: “There is too much of the (iambic) pentameter, too regular a measure.” Pound: “to break the pentameter, that was the first heave”, Canto LXXXI (1949). TSE: “It’s very difficult to write blank verse which is both good poetry and sounds like people talking · · · Therefore I felt it was necessary to find a metric which was as far as possible from the iambic pentameter. That’s what I hammered out for myself in The Family Reunion and have used since. You asked if it was a personal prosody: it may be too personal a prosody · · · it may be that the norm of English versification is iambic pentameter, but that the only way to refresh it from one time to another will be to get away from it in a curve which will gradually return—having freed itself from the stiffness of previous generations. It may mean future verse dramatists will be able to go back to the iambic pentameter as a fresh instrument. And if I have helped in bringing that about I should be very happy, beyond the grave”, A Conversation, recorded in 1958, between T. S. Eliot and Leslie Paul [1964/]1965.
[II] 102 still the world pursues: Hayward: “Cf. Keats, Ode on a Grecian Urn” (referring to “still unravished · · · Sylvan · · · What men or gods are these? What maidens loth? | What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?” 1–9). Lennard 192 discusses TSE’s punctuation variants, brackets or commas (see Textual History).
[II] 103 Jug: OED n. 1: “applied as a common noun to a homely woman · · · or as a term of disparagement”, with King Lear: “Whoop Jugge I love thee”. 2: “As the second element in local names of various small birds, as bank-jug · · · hedge-jug.” Partridge: “female breasts, low Australian: since c. 1920.”
[Poem I 58, 329 · Textual History II 377–78]
158 ear of death: Pericles III i: “The seaman’s whistle | Is as a whisper in the ears of death | Unheard.” Quoted by TSE, with “ear”, as among “the very best lines of Pericles—and the very best lines are very good lines indeed”, Poets’ Borrowings (1928).
[II] 103, 107 ears · · · on the stair: Kipling: “before you ever ’ear us on the stair”, Wilful-Missing, from a quatrain that begins: “Marry again, and we will not say no, | Nor come to barstardise the kids you bear”. (TSE: “What you get married for if you don’t want children?” [II] 164.)
[II] 106–110 Leaned · · · Footsteps shuffled on the stair · · · Under the firelight · · · still: adapted from The Death of the Duchess II 13–22.
162 Pound’s annotation “Il cherchait des sentiments pour les accommoder a son vocabulaire.”] WLFacs notes: Henry-D. Davray, reviewing Georgian Poetry 1916–1917: “ces jeunes gens sont maîtres dans l’art d’écrire avant d’avoir vécu. Aussi cherchent-ils des sentiments pour les accommoder à leur vocabulaire et non des mots pour exprimer leur passion et leurs idées” [these young people are masters of the art of writing before they have lived. Therefore they search for feelings to accommodate to their vocabulary and not for words to express their passion and their ideas], Mercure de France 16 Apr 1918.
[II] 108–110 under the brush, her hair · · · then would be savagely still: for The Duchess of Malfi III ii, see Valerie Eliot’s note to The Death of the Duchess II 54–58.
[II] 110 Glowed into words: Inf. XXVI 85–90:
fiamma antica
cominciò a crollarsi mormorando,
pur come quella cui vento affatica.
Indi la cima qua e là menando,
come fosse la lingua che parlasse,
gittò voce di fuori
[the ancient flame began to shake itself, murmuring, just like a flame that struggles with the wind. Then carrying to and fro the top, as if it were the tongue that spake, threw forth a voice].
Again, XXVII 58–60 (immediately preceding the lines that form the epigraph to The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock):
Poscia che il foco alquanto ebbe rugghiato
al modo suo, l’aguta punta mosse
di qua, di là, e poi diè cotal fiato
[After the flame had roared awhile as usual, it moved the sharp point to and fro, and then gave forth this breath] (Melchiori).
[II] 111–38] To E. M. Stephenson, 27 May 1942: “Your first paragraph is quite right about the sex of the speakers and the attribution of the lines, but as for your second paragraph, the intention is rather to leave open the possibility of a variety of literal interpretations suiting the reader’s imagination. The reference to Women beware Women, however, is no more than a statement of fact and contains no innuendo. It means simply that the general notion of a dialogue over the chessboard is taken from a scene in that play” (see [II] 137). For arrangement of the dialogue on the page, see Textual History note to [II] 117–28.
[Poem I 58–59, 329 · Textual History II 378]
[II] 111 nerves: specifically sexual implication is present in an advertisement for “The Sexual Question by [A. H.] Forel · · · Europe’s foremost nerve specialist”, Little Review Nov 1915. TSE to his mother, 31 Oct 1920: “I have simply not had the time to do a single piece of work, and when one has in mind a great many things that one wants to do, that irritates the nerves more and more.” To Ottoline Morrell, 30 Nov 1921, from Lausanne, where he was under the care of Dr. Vittoz: “I never did believe in ‘nerves’, at least for myself !” Yet on [26? Jan 1922] he wrote to Pound about the “nerves monologue” in The Waste Land. To George Bell, 18 July 1932: “We hope that my absence for a time may have the effect of strengthening her nerves (and nerve).” See The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock 105 and note. Paul von Boeckmann: “The great war has taught us how frail the nervous system is · · · Shell Shock, it was proved, does not injure the nerve fibres in themselves. The effect is entirely mental”, Nerve Exhaustion: How We Become Shell-Shocked in Every-Day Life in Popular Science Nov 1921.
[II] 111–28 nerves · · · “What is that noise?” · · · “What is that noise now? What is the wind doing?” · · · “Are you alive, or not?” · · · O O O O: Edward Lear:
E: · · · Is it neuralgia, headache or remorse? · · ·
E: Why did I take the lodgings I have got,
Where all I don’t want is:—all I want not?
J: Last week I called aloud, O! O! O! O! · · ·
Why must I suffer in this wind and gloom! · · ·
How can I write with noises such as those?
&nbs
p; Growling Eclogue 2, 27–29, 60, 71
166–69, 181 Pound’s annotations: “photography? photo”] WLFacs notes: “Implying too realistic a reproduction of an actual conversation.” “F. M.” reviewing Virginia Woolf in the Criterion: “Mr. Bloom is real: he might almost be called · · · ‘photographic’—a dreadful word”, “Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown” (1925). TSE: “The more definite the religious and ethical principles, the more freely the drama can move towards what is now called photography. The more fluid, the more chaotic the religious and ethical beliefs, the more the drama must tend in the direction of liturgy”, A Dialogue on Dramatic Poetry (1928).
[Poem I 59, 329 · Textual History II 378–83]
[II] 111, 145 nerves · · · Lil: to Lilian Donaghy, wife of the Irish poet Lyle Donaghy, 12 Aug 1931: “You will, I hope, excuse me for writing · · · as if I knew you, but it is only because I happen to have more knowledge of this type of nervous illness than most people. Such cases are very difficult to handle, because they rarely want to stay in a sanatorium voluntarily, and no one wants to go so far as certification · · · All the symptoms you describe are known to me. I am quite certain that people in such a state ought not, as much for their own sakes as for that of others, to be with their family and friends. The manifestations of mania are always more pronounced with the persons they know best than with others · · · Professional outsiders are the only people to deal with such cases, and the only people whose nerves can stand the strain of dealing with them.” 18 Nov: “While I am very sorry that he connects me in any way with his supposed persecution I know enough about these matters not to be in the least surprised · · · It is true that there was a passage about a woman named Lil in the poem you mention, but apart from that slight coincidence it has not the slightest bearing whatever, and there is not any mention of epilepsy anywhere in the poem. Your husband is of course mistaken in thinking that the text he saw recently is in any way altered from the original, and it could easily be shown that the whole thing was composed long before I knew him or anything about him; but reasoning is merely a waste of time.”
[II] 112 Why do you never speak. : printed with a question-mark in the Criterion and frequently since, but the earliest typings (in WLFacs) had a stop, as had the earliest book edition (B) and all Faber editions in TSE’s lifetime (except Mardersteig), as also TSE’s transcription in Valerie’s Own Book. There has never been a question mark in [II] 150, “Oh is there, she said.” (For “violated punctuation”, see note to [I] 26–27.) Vivien Eliot to Mary Hutchinson, 27 Sept 1928, of TSE: “he never says anything and one cannot get him to speak” (Seymour-Jones 300).
[II] 112–113, 126 Why do you never speak. Speak. | “What are you thinking of? · · · Is there nothing in your head?”: Conrad: “‘Why don’t you speak? · · · What does it mean? · · · What’s going on in that head of yours? What are you plotting against me there so hard that you can’t say a word?’” The End of the Tether VIII (see note on The Hollow Men section-title epigraph). Huxley: “Heart-rending question of women—never answered: | ‘Tell me, tell me, what are you thinking of?’” Sympathy 5–6 in Leda (1920) (Hands). Conrad Aiken: “What are you thinking?” The Jig of Forslin (1916) I vii. For TSE’s “Have you nothing else to say?”, see headnote to Sweeney Agonistes, 10. PREMIÈRE IN AMERICA: ENTER AN OLD GENTLEMAN.
[II] 114 know what you are thinking: “he sees knows what you are thinking”, Skimbleshanks: The Railway Cat 25 variant. thinking. Think: for George MacDonald, “think—think”, see note to [V] 335–36, 352.
[II] 115–16 rats’ alley | Where the dead men lost their bones: TSE’s Notes refer to “Rattled by the rat’s foot only”, [III] 195. Rats Alley was a trench in the Somme sector, taken over from the French by the British in 1916 (Peter Chasseaud, personal communication).
[II] 117–20 “What is that noise?” · · · the door · · · Nothing: in John Rodker’s Fear, a dramatic sketch in Pound’s Catholic Anthology, Pierrot and Columbine play chess but are driven to distraction by footsteps on the stairs beyond the door, then by a tap at the door, but repeatedly when they open the door they find “Nothing!” As they search the house: “Sometimes a third pair of feet seem to be echoing them · · · Two pairs of feet · · · and after them · · · a third” (TSE: part title, A Game of Chess; “Who is the third who walks always beside you?” [V] 359) (Moody 2007 280).
[II] 117–23 “What is that noise?” | The wind under the door · · · Nothing again nothing · · · “Do | You know nothing · · · Do you remember | “Nothing?”: three plays by Webster probably contributed. TSE’s Notes refer to The Devil’s Law Case III ii:
FIRST SURGEON: Did he not groan?
SECOND SURGEON: Is the wind in that door still?
OED “door” 6b: “is the wind in (at) that door? = is the wind in that quarter?, is that the tendency of affairs?” (The Devil’s Law Case is not in the Mermaid vol. of Webster and Tourneur.) F. L. Lucas’s ed. of Webster emphasises that “there is certainly no banshee-like wailing of the wind in any literal door”, and in On a Recent Piece of Criticism (1938), TSE described his own “adaptation of a phrase of Webster which Webster uses with quite a different meaning”.
[Poem I 59, 329 · Textual History II 378–81]
The Duchess of Malfi IV ii:
DUCHESS: What hideous noise was that?
CARIOLA: ’Tis the wild consort
Of madmen, lady · · ·
DUCHESS: · · · nothing but noise and folly
Can keep me in my right wits; whereas reaso
And silence make me stark mad · · ·
DUCHESS: This is a prison?
CARIOLA: What think you of, madam?
DUCHESS: Of nothing · · ·
DUCHESS: What noise is that?
“The case of John Webster, and in particular The Duchess of Malfy, will provide
an interesting example of a very great literary and dramatic genius directed
toward chaos”, Four Elizabethan Dramatists (1924).
The White Devil V vi (the exchange having begun “What noise is that?”):
LODOVICO: What dost think on?
FLAMINEO: Nothing; of nothing: leave thy idle questions.
I am i’ the way to study a long silence:
To prate were idle. I remember nothing.
There’s nothing of so infinite vexation
As man’s own thoughts.
LODOVICO: O thou glorious strumpet!
After I. B. Cauthen Jr discussed the last (MLN Nov 1958), TSE replied, 29 Aug 1962, to an enquiry from him: “I also have no doubt that the page from Webster’s play was at the back of my mind” (Yeats Eliot Review Spring 1978). Othello IV iii, DESDEMONA: “Hark! who’s that knocks?” | EMILIA: “It is the wind.” (See note to The Death of the Duchess 20–21, 36.)
Hamlet III ii, OPHELIA: “I think nothing, my lord” (Grover Smith 81). III iv, HAMLET: “Do you see nothing there?” QUEEN: “Nothing at all; yet all that is I see.” HAMLET: “Nor did you nothing hear?” QUEEN: “No, nothing but ourselves” (Peter Milward in Milward and Tetsue Anzai (eds.), Poetry and Drama in the Age of Shakespeare, 1982).
173 Pound’s annotation: “Beddoes”] WLFacs notes:
Thomas Lovell Beddoes (1803–49). The line recalled Death’s Jest-Book to Pound, but in his Notes Eliot refers to “Is the wind in that door still?” from The Devil’s Law-Case by John Webster. Some years later, Eliot admitted that the source was of no significance, as his adaptation of the phrase gave it a different meaning.
Curious, is it not, that Mr. Eliot
has not given more time to Mr. Beddoes
(T. L.) prince of morticians
Pound, Canto LXXX
For Beddoes see note to [II] 131, 159–60 and note to Whispers of Immortality 4, “lipless grin”.
[Poem I 59, 329 · Textual History II 379–81]
175–76 Carrying | Away the little light dead people: WLFacs notes:
An allusion to Paolo and Francesca, who are in the second circle
of Hell, which contains the souls of the lustful: “volontieri | parlerei a que’duo, che insieme vanno, | e paion s’ al vento esser leggieri” [Willingly would I speak with those two that go together, and seem so light upon the wind], Inf. V 73–75. In his misery, the protagonist of “A Game of Chess” remembers the moment of ecstasy in the hyacinth garden; Francesca recounting her sad story to Dante, says: “Nessun maggior dolore, | che ricordarsi de tempo felice | nella miseria …” [There is no greater pain than to recall a happy time in wretchedness], Inf. V 121–23.
TSE: “My life is light, waiting for the death wind”, A Song for Simeon 4. “O light folk blown by a breath of wind out of the memory of these places”, Anabasis I xv variant. (Perse: “o gens de peu poids dans la mémoire de ces lieux”.) Laforgue’s Hamlet, tr. Symons: “the little people of History · · · lighting the dirty lamp”, Symons 105 (see note to Animula 5). little: when he boxed this word and wrote “Blot on Scutchen”, Pound may have been pointing to its repetition from [II] 109, where he had deleted it. For TSE on over-use of “little”, see note to Burbank with a Baedeker: Bleistein with a Cigar 1–2. Pound’s “Blot on Scutchen” was probably a cliché (from heraldry), not a reference to Browning’s tragedy A Blot in the ’Scutcheon (1843).
[II] 121–23 “Do | “You know nothing · · · see nothing · · · remember | “Nothing?”: Hawthorne: “so he saw nothing, heard nothing, knew nothing”, The Scarlet Letter ch. XXII.
[II] 125 Those are pearls that were his eyes: TSE’s Notes refer to “my eyes failed”, [I] 39 and “(Those are pearls that were his eyes. Look!)”, [I] 48.
180 The hyacinth garden. Those are pearls that were his eyes, yes!: Pound put a box around “yes!” and wrote “Penelope J.J.” WLFacs notes: “Molly Bloom’s soliloquy in the Penelope episode of Ulysses begins and ends with ‘Yes’, described gaily by Joyce as ‘the most positive word in the human language’.”