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18 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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The Fire Sermon
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Preached by Buddha against metaphorical fire (lust and sd) by avoiding worldly life as well as literally to fire worshipers, who attained nirvana.
Also, this section is about Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5: 7), in which Jesus says to light a candle in your heart. So, this section is how to escape from the cheap life of sd. |
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THE river's tent is broken: the last fingers of leaf
Clutch and sink into the wet bank. The wind Crosses the brown land, unheard. The nymphs are departed. |
Isaiah 33:20-21, describing the spiritual protection of Jerusalem. The speaker says its broken. Describing wasteland.
River nymphs are maidens. |
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Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song.
The river bears no empty bottles, sandwich papers, Silk handkerchiefs, cardboard boxes, cigarette ends Or other testimony of summer nights. The nymphs are departed. And their friends, the loitering heirs of city directors; 180 Departed, have left no addresses. By the waters of Leman I sat down and wept... Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my song, Sweet Thames, run softly, for I speak not loud or long. |
This is the refrain from Edmund Spenser's Prothalamion, a wedding song that traces its roots to ancient Greece. It was commissioned by Queen Elizbeth to celebrate the weddings of the daughters of Lord Somerset, Elizabeth and Catherine. About nymphs who see a swan and are struck by its beauty. It may be here because Eliot wants to contrast this song with the later description of Elizabeth's affair.
Silk = contraceptive, cigarette = post-sd, testimony = testic, Loitering heirs comes from John Keats' "La Belle Dame Sans Merci" about a knight who cannot be with his love. So, it's the same idea, breakdown of traditional romance. CIty director = financial sector Lake Geneva = Lake Leman (mistress) Allusion to "By the Waters of Babylon" from Psalm 137. As well as Tempest I, 2, and Rousseau's Confessions, where he walks by Lake Geneva. Also, an allusion to Frazer's Golden Bough, which alludes to this lake in discussions of Adonis and Osiris. |
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But at my back in a cold blast I hear 185
The rattle of the bones, and chuckle spread from ear to ear. |
Corruption of Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress" - carpe diem
Bones - erection |
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A rat crept softly through the vegetation
Dragging its slimy belly on the bank While I was fishing in the dull canal On a winter evening round behind the gashouse 190 Musing upon the king my brother's wreck And on the king my father's death before him. |
Begins with description of the Wasteland. Eliot uses the rat to show how despicable he and the rest of humanity is.
Then, there is an allusion to the Fisher King. So, the idea behind the King of the Wasteland is that he is the keeper of the Holy Grail, and once he loses his fertility, which by the way happens, when he assaults a woman, his entire kingdom goes to ruins. Until Parsifal rescues it. Which appears in a sonnet by Verlaine, in which Parsifal rejects sd, and inspired Wagner's opera Parsifal. Next is an allusion to the Tempest 1, 2 before Ariel's song. |
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But at my back from time to time I hear
The sound of horns and motors, which shall bring Sweeney to Mrs. Porter in the spring. O the moon shone bright on Mrs. Porter And on her daughter 200 They wash their feet in soda water Et, O ces voix d'enfants, chantant dans la coupole! |
Horns and Motors is an allusion to John Day's Parliament of the Bees. In that play, Day satirizes the Brit Parliament, especially through Polypragmus, who is a plush, extravagant bee. Also in that play is an allusion to the story of Actaeon and Diana.
Eliot liked the name Sweeney and made him appear in a lot of poems, like "Sweeney Among the Nightingales," in which Sweeney is a lustful British guy. Mrs. Porter is a brothel worker in Cairo, well known toAustrian soldeiers. So, there was a song named "Red Wing", which the soldiers rewarded into .... So, the degeneration can be seen from the sinners washing J's feet with tears (Luke 7:37) The French means "and oh those children's voice, singing in the dome" - appears in Verlaine's sonnet Parsifal (when Parsifal's feet are washed), and the opera Wagner isnpired by it. It was Wagner's last and featured the Grail, Fischer King, etc. |
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Twit twit twit
Jug jug jug jug jug jug So rudely forc'd. 205 Tereu |
Refers to Philomela's story in Ovid's Metamorphoses. Also refers to Trico's song sung to Campaspe.
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Unreal City
Under the brown fog of a winter noon Mr. Eugenides, the Smyrna merchant Unshaven, with a pocket full of currants |
Unreal City is from Baudelaire's Seven Old Men, and possibly refers to a large European city, probably London or Paris.
Noon has replaced Dawn, showing the passage of time. Eugenides, meaning well-born. Smyrn refers to Turkey. Could he be the Phonecian sailor or Odin mentioned earlier? Currant are seedless berries (infertility), used as an aphrodisiac. HoSe, by nature is, infertile, and is the subject of "Calamus," from Whitman's Leaves of Grass. |
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C.i.f. London: documents at sight,
Asked me in demotic French To luncheon at the Cannon Street Hotel Followed by a weekend at the Metropole. |
C.i.f. means, in this context, carriage and insurance free.
Demotic means slang, colloquial. Cannon Street Hotel and Metropole are both hotel used in hose trysts |
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At the violet hour, when the eyes and back 215
Turn upward from the desk, when the human engine waits Like a taxi throbbing waiting, I Tiresias, though blind, throbbing between two lives, Old man with wrinkled female breasts, can see At the violet hour, the evening hour that strives 220 Homeward, and brings the sailor home from sea, The typist home at teatime, clears her breakfast, lights Her stove, and lays out food in tins. Out of the window perilously spread Her drying combinations touched by the sun's last rays, 225 On the divan are piled (at night her bed) Stockings, slippers, camisoles, and stays. |
Violet hour refers to "nigt time" and is taken from Dante's Purgatorio (Canto 8). Shows progression of time.
Tiresias hit snakes, became female, hit snakes, became male 7 years later. Blinded when seeing Aphrodite bathe. Helped Odysseus in the Underworld. Told Oedipus Rex about Jocasta. Died when Thebes was destroyed. Robert Louis Stevenson's poem, Requiem, which is on his grave, describes himself as the sail home from the sea, and is a reference to the poems of Sappho, and how they offended Aphrodite, and how she made them smell bad, and so the men left. |
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I Tiresias, old man with wrinkled dugs
Perceived the scene, and foretold the rest— I too awaited the expected guest. 230 He, the young man carbuncular, arrives, A small house agent's clerk, with one bold stare, One of the low on whom assurance sits As a silk hat on a Bradford millionaire. The time is now propitious, as he guesses, 235 The meal is ended, she is bored and tired, Endeavours to engage her in caresses Which still are unreproved, if undesired. Flushed and decided, he assaults at once; Exploring hands encounter no defence; 240 His vanity requires no response, And makes a welcome of indifference. (And I Tiresias have foresuffered all Enacted on this same divan or bed; I who have sat by Thebes below the wall 245 And walked among the lowest of the dead.) Bestows on final patronising kiss, And gropes his way, finding the stairs unlit... |
Dugs = udders
Carbuncular = sores Silk hat = rich Bradford millionare = new rich because of industry assaults at once = like Tiresias did One bold stare refers to Odin, who sacrificed one eye to drink from Mimir's well, as told in Golden Bough Thebes is infertile due to Oedipus's marrying of Jocasta. |
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She turns and looks a moment in the glass,
Hardly aware of her departed lover; 250 Her brain allows one half-formed thought to pass: 'Well now that's done: and I'm glad it's over.' When lovely woman stoops to folly and Paces about her room again, alone, She smoothes her hair with automatic hand, 255 And puts a record on the gramophone. |
Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield and possible Stoops to Conquer. Its about Lord Thornhill who wants to have a fake marriage with Olivia, the daughter of Vicar.
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'This music crept by me upon the waters'
And along the Strand, up Queen Victoria Street. O City city, I can sometimes hear Beside a public bar in Lower Thames Street, 260 The pleasant whining of a mandoline And a clatter and a chatter from within Where fishmen lounge at noon: where the walls Of Magnus Martyr hold Inexplicable splendour of Ionian white and gold. |
Music crept is an allusion to Tempest (I, 2) before Ariel's Song.
Queen Victoria' Street is the financial district of London. Victoria associated with industrializaiton. Mandolin given to Eliot by his wife. Magnus Martyr is the church on Thames Street made by Wren. Eliot's play "The Rock" was written and included the line "inexplicable splendor" and was written to raise money for the church. |
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The river sweats
Oil and tar The barges drift With the turning tide Red sails 270 Wide To leeward, swing on the heavy spar. The barges wash Drifting logs Down Greenwich reach 275 Past the Isle of Dogs. Weialala leia Wallala leialala |
Parallels the opening of Conrad's Heart of Darkness. Red sials are red canvasses in HOD.
Isle of Dogs is site of both Jack the Ripper and defeat of Spanish Armada. What it used to be and what it is now. Allusion to Rhinemaiden's song in Wagner's Ring Cycle (Rhinegold, Valkyrie, Siegfried, and Gotterdamerung) |
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Elizabeth and Leicester
Beating oars 280 The stern was formed A gilded shell Red and gold The brisk swell Rippled both shores 285 Southwest wind Carried down stream The peal of bells White towers Weialala leia 290 Wallala leialala |
Earl of Liecester is Robert Dudley, and he held a party where Elizabeth was there. Philip's ambassador to England (Alvarez de Quadra) saw them romantically involved, and reported ot the king.
Red and gold refers to Spanish flag. Both shores are Spain and England. Peal of Bells is from John Donne's Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions (17), where he asks "ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee" - no man is an island. White Towers refers to either St. Paul's Cathedral (Wren) or Tower of Babel (Bosch) |
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Trams and dusty trees.
Highbury bore me. Richmond and Kew Undid me. By Richmond I raised my knees Supine on the floor of a narrow canoe.' 295 'My feet are at Moorgate, and my heart Under my feet. After the event He wept. He promised "a new start". I made no comment. What should I resent?' |
Spoken by the first Thames Maiden, it's in the same style as Virgil's epigraph to Aeined and the style is also from Dane's Purgatorio (5), and is spoken by by La Pia: "Born in Sienna, Murdered by husband..."
2nd Rhine daughter begins at Moorgate, which is a gate surrounding the Moorfields, large open space in London. Supine = on back; sexual? Is the line about a husband who betrays his wife or assaults a maiden? |
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'On Margate Sands. 300
I can connect Nothing with nothing. The broken fingernails of dirty hands. My people humble people who expect Nothing.' 305 la la |
Margate Sands is the resort on which Eliot stayed under doctor's orders and finished TWL.
Nothing is from Webster's White Devil (5, 6). When Ludovico ties Flamenio to a pillar, tortures him, and asks for his last thoughts. Dirty hands = man's hands Humble people is from Heart of Darkness. |
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To Carthage then I came
Burning burning burning burning O Lord Thou pluckest me out O Lord Thou pluckest 310 burning |
Augustine's Confessions Book 3 after he comes to Carthage after renounces sd. In contrast to Dido and Aeneas.
Burning refers to Fire Sermon, meaning he wants to be redeemed. Confessions Book 10 asks God to pluck him out. Similar request is repeated in Zachariah 3:1, in which Joshua is described. |
