T. S. Eliot the Poems, Volume 2
Page 26
To Geoffrey Faber, 2 Oct 1937:
I am writing in haste to prevent you from spending any more time over the problem which, as it now appears, I presented prematurely. I hope that you have not begun to write your full report, questioning, if not wholly disproving, the ascription to Mr. GAY. Because meanwhile a new copy of the Poem has turned up in the British Museum, this time entitled simply ‘A Fable’. It was found by a research student from Nigeria, between the leaves of Vol. III of The Complete Works of Harold J. Laski. It is identical in dedication and in every other respect, including paper and ink, except that after the lines
The Elephant, of beasts alive,
Is quite the most Conservative,
we have a couplet which does not occur in the first version, viz.:
(Of beasts conservative, the most
Have perish’d, like The Morning Post);
Which appears to give us an approximate date for the Poem. Doesn’t it? or does it not?
[Textual History II 240]
Title The Whale and the Elephant: A Fable: Gay’s octosyllabic Fables all concern animals, and include Fable X. The Elephant and the Bookseller.
Dedication Dr. Morley: to Henry Eliot, 19 Oct 1929: “I got into the firm a very able American named Morley, a brother of Christopher Morley, to supply a business sense which I felt was wanting; who shares my room with me, and whom, fortunately, I find sympathetic. He was a Rhodes Scholar from Baltimore, and was and is still the London representative of the Century Company. While congenial to everybody, he supplies an element of push and initiative, as well as of caution, which was very much needed in this rather close correct Oxford atmosphere of Faber & Faber.”
“Mr. Morley has the art of interrupting himself, and seldom has an author succeeded in cramming so many irrelevancies into so few pages”, F. V. Morley’s “My One Contribution to Chess” (1947), jacket copy by TSE. Morley had invented a way to play with more than 64 squares.
1 The Elephant at forty-nine: “Mr. E., at this time, aged 49”, Hayward marginalium, copy 1.
2 Cannot be caught with hook and line: Job 41: 1, of the whale: “Canst thou draw out leviathan with an hook?”
5 The Whale: “Mr. M[orley]”, Hayward marginalium, copy 1.
7–8 alive · · · Conservative: W. S. Gilbert: “How Nature always does contrive | That every boy and every gal, | That’s born into the world alive, | Is either a little Liberal, | Or else a little Conservative!”, Iolanthe act II. (For a little Socialist, Harold Laski, see TSE to Geoffrey Faber, 2 Oct 1937, quoted above.)
10 Morning Post: “A famous newsheet later incorporated with ye ‘Daily Telegraph’”, Hayward marginalium, copy 1. Before this take-over in 1937, the Morning Post had become notorious for anti-Semitism, its editor having written the introduction to The Cause of World Unrest (“The Protocols of the Elders of Zion”) in 1920.
15–16 Mercurial mind · · · tide and wind: for TSE’s tilting at the London Mercury and Land and Water, see the list of journals in the headnote to Airs of Palestine, No. 2. He never wrote for either, but first wrote for Time and Tide in 1935.
20 With watery diluted Blood: J. G. Wood: “the object of breathing is to oxygenize the blood · · · The most natural way to supply this want in the whale would be to give it much more lungs · · · But if this were the case, the animal would be seriously inconvenienced by such an amount of air, which would make it too buoyant · · · But there must be a reservoir somewhere, and, therefore, instead of a reservoir of air to arterialize the blood, there is a reservoir of blood already arterialized”, The Boy’s Own Book of Natural History. See first two notes to The Hippopotamus for “mud · · · blood” and for the behemoth.
23–24 repent? | And leave their fluid Element: Marlowe: “That Faustus may repent and save his soul! · · · O soul be changed to into little water-drops, | And fall into the ocean”, Dr. Faustus sc. XVI (with “repent” a dozen times in the play).
27 fatted calves · · · welcome: Luke 15: 20: “his father · · · fell on his neck, and kissed him · · · bring hither the fatted calf”.
————
Not included in the present edition: For Doctor Thomas Eliot and Fable XIV: The Whale, the Elephant, the Coot, and the Spider both by Frank Morley, Expostulary Epistle of a Coot to a Self-Styled Whale and a Soi-Disant Elephant by Geoffrey Faber, A Refutation: To the Lethargic Doctor and the Ingenious Master Freyburg by Frank Morley, and Thoughts of a Briton on his Country’s Subjugation to America by Geoffrey Faber.
[Textual History II 240]
Ode to a Roman Coot
By the author of
“The Fantasy of Fonthill: or Betjeman’s Folly”
and
“John Foster’s Aunt.”
My head aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of White Horse I had drunk,
Or else had fuddled my too sensitive brains
With Menninger, or some equivalent bunk.
5
’Tis not through envy of thy happy lot
But being too goofy in thy goofiness,
That thou, light-headed zany of the trees,
In some melodious plot
Of Frognal, or of villas numberless,
10
Sing’st of cetaceans in pot-bellied ease.
For most, I know, thou lov’st retired ground.
Thee, with uncertain and tumultuous feet,
Quite trustworthy observers oft have seen
Crossing the stripling High near Oriel Street,
15
Distraught, or in a deep somnambular swound,
Or idly strumming on a mandoline,
With hair dishevelled and with throat unbound,
Turning thy steps to greet
(By some instinctive act centripetal)
20
The line of festal drunks in All Souls’ Hall.
Thou wast not born for death, immortal Coot!
No dwindling populations tread thee down.
No transitory Wardens give the boot
To Oxford’s biding bursar, bird and clown.
[Textual History II 241]
25
Thee have we seen at dawn on Hampstead Heath,
Forever panting and in cotton pants,
Forever biting upon rubber fruit,
Forever singing, although short of breath,
The self-same song, from Galloway to Hants,
30
The song of England’s transatlantic doom:
The same that oft-times hath
Charmed the loud roisterers in the common room
And mazed th’attendants in the Turkish Bath.
Yet, William, we receive but what we give;
35
And in our life alone does Nature live:
And what must be his life who can confuse
The Whale and Elephant, two divers species?
And overlooking all the obvious clues,
Conclusions draw, most libellous and vicious?
40
And in one breath abuse
Cetacean coothlessness and elephantine beauty?
Such nature can be nothing else than cooty.
Look homeward, angel! not so far as France;
Look neither to the jungle where the dance
45
Of Kala Nag is hid from human eyes,
Nor seek thou to surprise
The horrid whale who lies
Curl’d on the Bottome of the monstrous world.
The parody of Keats’s Ode to a Nightingale is closest to the original in 1–10 and 21–22.
Title Roman Coot: for Geoffrey Faber (the Coot) as the Roman censor Fabricius, see note to Lines Addressed to Geoffrey Faber 13.
[Textual History II 241]
Note on the Author] This appeared first in one of the typescripts for Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, see Textual History of Mungojerrie and Rumpelteazer. Betjeman’s Folly: “A choice wit of the period, a lover of architectural fantasy�
�, Hayward marginalium against “Betjeman”, copy 1. John Betjeman worked for the Architectural Review 1930–35, then as editor of the Shell Guides, and probably visited William Beckford’s Gothick abbey in Wiltshire with John Piper. John Foster’s Aunt: “A pseudo-aunt, housekeeper in the Temple of that famous figure Mr. Foster”, Hayward marginalium against “John Foster”. TSE makes play with Dickens’s magazine Once a Week in a spoof report to Geoffrey and Enid Faber, 12 Feb 1939, headed “THE AUTOLYCAN INTELLIGENCER | Once a Week | For Private Circulation Only | edited by | John Foster’s Aunt”. The pseudonym “Autolycus” headed the gossip column which John Hayward contributed to the Sunday Times (in The Winter’s Tale IV ii, Autolycus speaks of himself as “a snapper-up of unconsidered trifles”). John Foster also figures in “SPOTLIGHT ON 22, BINA GARDENS: THROWN BY JOHN FOSTER” (1938), for which see note to Sweeney Erect 40.
1–10] Keats, Ode to a Nightingale 1–10.
My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:
’Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,
But being too happy in thine happiness—
That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees,
In some melodious plot
Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
Singest of summer in full-throated ease.
2 White Horse: “A whisky whose vile flavour could be recognized by a man blindfold”, Hayward marginalium, copy 1.
4 Menninger: Harcourt Brace published Man Against Himself by the American psychiatrist Karl Menninger in 1938. TSE’s spelling is here emended. Hayward put an asterisk beside “Meninger” but without a note, copy 1.
6 goofy · · · goofiness: see note to the third title of Whan Cam ye fra the Kirk.
9 Frognal: “In the North of London, the seat of Mr. F.”, Hayward marginalium, copy 1. Hayward contributed Frognal: A Pindarick Ode to the volume.
9 variant loonies numberless: Geoffrey Faber’s ts has a side-note: “Can the Poet be thinking of Mr. Unwin? See Kelly’s Guide to Hampstead.” Sex and Culture (1934) by the social anthropologist J. D. Unwin was regarded by Aldous Huxley as “a work of the highest importance”. TSE met Unwin in 1936.
11–12 For most, I know, thou lov’st retired ground. | Thee: Arnold, The Scholar-Gipsy 71–72.
12 tumultuous feet: Yeats: “hiding their tossing manes and their tumultuous feet”, Michael Robartes bids his Beloved be at Peace 12.
14 Crossing the stripling High near Oriel Street: Arnold: “Crossing the stripling Thames at Bab-lock-hithe”, The Scholar-Gipsy 74. “In Oxford, where Mr. F. passed his week-ends”, Hayward marginalium, copy 1.
16 idly strumming on a mandoline: “The pleasant whining of a mandoline”, The Waste Land [III] 261.
19 centripetal: with stress on second syllable.
20 The line of festal drunks in All Souls’ Hall: Arnold: “The line of festal light in Christ-Church hall”, The Scholar-Gipsy 129.
21–24, 29–33] Keats, Ode to a Nightingale 61–64:
[Textual History II 241]
Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
No hungry generations tread thee down;
The voice I hear this passing night was heard
In ancient days by emperor and clown:
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home
She stood in tears amid the alien corn;
The same that oft-times hath
Charmed magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.
26–28] Keats: Ode on a Grecian Urn 24, 26–27: “For ever piping songs for ever new · · · For ever warm and still to be enjoyed, | For ever panting, and for ever young.”
29 Hants: Hampshire.
30 The song of England’s transatlantic doom: Geoffrey Faber’s poem Thoughts of a Briton on his Country’s Subjugation to America appears immediately before this in Noctes.
32 the common room: All Souls, having no undergraduates, has only a (Senior) Common Room; other colleges have a Junior Common Room too.
33 Turkish Bath: “Mr. F. was much addicted to this luxury”, Hayward marginalium, copy 1. TSE to John Hayward, 20 Feb 1943:
The brotherless Eumenides
Freeze in such Turkish baths as these.
Marvell: “The brotherless Heliades | Melt in such Amber Tears as these”, The Nymph Complaining for the death of her Faun 99–100 (John Haffenden, personal communication). For the Eumenides, see headnote to Sweeney Agonistes.
34 William: the tss have a side-note: “At this point the unknown poet himself seems to have become fuddled, and imagined that he was addressing the late Wm. Wordsworth.”
34–35 we receive · · · Nature live: Coleridge: “O Lady! we receive but what we give, | And in our life alone does nature live”, Dejection 47–48.
43 not so far as France: Arnold: “the French coast · · · the cliffs of England”, Dover Beach 3–4.
43–48 Look homeward, angel! · · · The horrid whale who lies | Curl’d on the Bottome of the monstrous world: Lycidas 157–67:
Where thou perhaps under the whelming tide
Visit’st the bottom of the monstrous world · · ·
Look homeward angel now, and melt with ruth.
And, O ye dolphins, waft the hapless youth.
Weep no more, woeful shepherds weep no more,
For Lycidas your sorrow is not dead,
Sunk though he be beneath the watery floor.
(See note to Mr. Apollinax 11–15 for TSE and the submarine world.) The final parodic entry in TSE’s Whalebones from the Cetacean Anthology (?1937; see “Other Verses”) reads “Are thy bones hurried where the horrid Whale | Visit’st the Bottome of the monstrous world?—MILTON.” Phyllis Bottome (whose name was stressed on the second syllable) had submitted a manuscript about Ezra Pound to TSE for the Criterion in 1936, and her book The Mortal Storm was published by Faber in 1937.
[Textual History II 241]
44–45 the dance | Of Kala Nag is hid from human eyes: in Kipling’s tale Toomai of the Elephants in The Jungle Book, the old elephant Kala Nag takes the boy Toomai to watch the elephants dance, as no human has before.
————
Not included in the present edition: A Fig for a Foolish One or Faber in a Firkin by John Hayward and Fragment of a Soliloquy by Geoffrey Faber.
————
The next contribution, by Geoffrey Faber, was again directed towards TSE:
By Special Request
Nobody knows how I feel about you
(As sung by Layton and Johnstone.)
Nobody knows how I feel about you
Everybody knows what you’ve done to me.
It seems only yesterday the skies were so blue
And now to-day life’s just a stormy sea.
Yesterday my heart was so full of poetry,
And now there ain’t nothin’ for me to say or to do.
Everybody knows what you’ve done to me,
Nobody knows how I feel about you.
I’m glad that I ain’t an elephant in the Zoo.
I guess you’d hand me up a sawdust bun.
I’m glad I ain’t a whale to be harpooned by you.
I’m glad I ain’t got your ideas of fun.
You’se the sort that likes to get folks on the run,
You’se the sort that gives the last twist to the screw
But how could you do the things that you’ve done,
When I hadn’t done nothin’ to you?
Somewhere up above, if the good book’s true,
Somebody’s gwine to wipe away the tears.
Honey, that ain’t just what’s coming to you.
You’se gwine to pay up some of your arrears.
Maybe when I’m climbin’ up the golden stairs,
>
You’ll be down below an’ you’ll be feelin’ blue,
An’ I wouldn’t be surprised if a tinglin’ in you ears
Told you what the angels thought about you.
Hayward’s proof corrections were not followed (see end of Noctes Binanianæ section for Textual History). They were presumably intended to make the poem more “barbaric” to suit TSE’s rejoinder. Turner Layton and Clarence “Tandy” Johnstone were a popular duo of the 1920s and 1930s.
[Textual History II 241]
Three Sonnets
To Geoffrey Cust Faber Esqre., as a reply to a ballad entitled “Nobody knows how I feel about you.”
GEOFFREY! who once did walk the earth like Jove,
Who on his brow and shoulders once did drape
The Victor’s laurels and the prophet’s Cape,
Ruling the world below, the sky above;
5
With monsters of the sea and jungle strove,
Triumphant, as a God in human shape
Sustained by juice of juniper and grape,
Respected by the Trade in Bath and Hove,
Now takes to crooning like a Harlem coon,
10
A blackface Ruth amid the alien corn
Upon the cob; and in degenerate verse
Which still declines from bad to worse and worse
Like Lucifer he falls: from dewy morn
To noon: still falling through the afternoon.
CUST! whose loud martial oaths did once proclaim
Thee the most virile of the Brownlow clan,
Captain or Colonel—but more than man,
Gallant protector of th’oppressèd dame,