The Last Ride Together pure and ethereal.

pure and ethereal. The persona wants to convey the feeling that everything in love
Reference: These lines have been taken from “The Last Ride Together” a poem by feels like blessed.
English poet Robert Browning, first published in his 1855 collection Men and Just the way loving someone with a true heart makes one awake and conscious of
Women. the world, and that passion draws all the wonderful things of nature like clouds,
Context: The Last Ride Together is a ten-stanza poem primarily focused on moon, and starlight to make one feel like they are in heaven, so the lover felt when
themes of love and loss. It takes the form of a monologue by a rejected lover his mistress comes close to him and leans over. He feels a pang of both joy and fear
reflecting on the end of a love affair. The title represents the last time the former as she lies a moment resting her head on his breast. His mistress has given him
couple takes a carriage ride together. Although the narrator does grieve the end of more than he asked for and he is thankful for it. The whole stanza is a calming and
his romance, he wishes to reflect his appreciation for the time they had together soothing one.
and the love he experienced. The poem has an overall bittersweet tone, balancing Then we began to ride. My soul
sadness and optimism.. Smoothed itself out, a long-cramped scroll
Explanation…… Freshening and fluttering in the wind.
I said–Then, dearest, since ’tis so, Past hopes already lay behind.
Since now at length my fate I know, What need to strive with a life awry?
Since nothing all my love avails, Had I said that, had I done this,
Since all, my life seemed meant for,fails, So might I gain, so might I miss.
Since this was written and needs must be– Might she have loved me? just as well
My whole heart rises up to bless She might have hated, who can tell!
Your name in pride and thankfulness! Take back the hope you gave,–I claim Where had I been now if the worst befell?
Only a memory of the same, And here we are riding, she and I.
–And this beside, if you will not blame, The fourth stanza of The Last Ride Together reflects on the poet’s philosophy of life.
Your leave for one more last ride with me. Browning believes that life is ever-changing and that people must not stick to the
The poem opens with a situation where the speaker’s ladylove wants to end their past, but try to move on. As you can see in the very first line of this stanza, the two
relationship. The lover bemoans his state in the lines of the poem. He says that he lovers finally begin on their ride.
now knows his feelings are not replicated by his beloved. All of his love has come to As they ride, the lover feels his soul smooth itself out, meaning that the feelings
nothing. He feels that his life’s purpose has failed. The lover believes that this was that were cramped inside him finally give way to thought. He feels fresh like as he
destined to happen, that it was already written in his fate, that he would never find goes through the wind, like a long cramped scroll fluttering in the wind (again a
love. He knows it was meant to be and nothing could have prevented it from metaphor here!).
happening. The lover feels himself escape from his past hope of being with his mistress. He has
Since all this has turned out the way it has, the rejected lover, blaming it on fate, is got over it. He questions the use of sticking to life’s failures and missed
trying to come to normal with the situation. Here you may have noticed that the opportunities. People often think about what could have happened had they said
lover utters the word ‘Since’ five times in consecutive lines. It seems that though he things differently or done things differently. He argues that he might have cleared
wants to accept his fate rather happily, there is an inner turmoil in his mind. some things but missed some other. He wonders what he would do if she hated
Holding his fate responsible for what has happened, he is actually trying to be him, if the worst had happened to him. So, seeing it as what it is and letting go of
optimistic, as there’s no point in moaning with things beyond your control. the past he sticks to the present moment – the present where they are happy riding
The lover says despite what happened, he has no hard feelings for his mistress. On together.
the contrary, he blesses her with all of his heart. He feels both proud and thankful Fail I alone, in words and deeds?
towards her for being in his life. Now he only asks his beloved to “take back the Why, all men strive and who succeeds?
hope” she gave, meaning to end things once and for ever, so that he wouldn’t keep
We rode; it seemed my spirit flew,
thinking about her. He wants to remember and cherish only the good memories the
Saw other regions, cities new.
two of them made and forget everything else.
As the world rushed by on either side.
Saying this he seeks her permission to go on one last ride with her. Here the word
I thought,–All labour, yet no less
‘more’ in the last line ‘your leave for one more last ride with me’ shows us that the
Bear up beneath their unsuccess.
Look at the end of work, contrast
poet have taken her on such rides in the past. Although the primary meaning of the
The petty done, the undone vast,
word “Ride” is horse riding, it also has sexual connotations.
This present of theirs with the hopeful past!
My mistress bent that brow of hers;
I hoped she would love me; here we ride.
Those deep dark eyes where pride demurs
The philosophical reflection of the poet continues in this stanza. The lover again
When pity would be softening through,
questions if he is the only one who fails. He has seen all men strive for things they
Fixed me a breathing-while or two
desire, but none who succeeded. As they ride on, he feels his spirit elated. The
With life or death in the balance: right!
The blood replenished me again; speaker thinks of the distant regions and cities as they ride on. It shows that he is
lost in his own thoughts. Here, we need to focus more on the line ‘the world rushed
My last thought was at least not vain:
I and my mistress, side by side by on either side’. It may indicate that the world is in a rush, but his status hasn’t
Shall be together, breathe and ride, changed much in spite of the ladylove’s rejection. He is indeed happy.
So, one day more am I deified. The poet argues that everyone ‘labours’ for success, yet most face failures. At the
Who knows but the world may end to-night? end of work, we often see people achieve much less than what they had hoped for.
In the second stanza, the man is waiting for his mistress’ answer. She is shown to The vast undone works contrast sharply with the small done. We see people’s
wear an expression of consideration which is highlighted by the words ‘bent that ordinary present contrasting with their high-flying hopes in the past.
brow’. Her deep dark eyes which are lingering with pride are full of pity for the Thus, the lover justifies his achievement in love. He desired his mistress’ love but
poet. Her expression fixes him for a moment (breathing-while or two) between life has this last ride now. This is not a complete failure; it’s indeed some achievement.
and death as he waits for her answer – metaphorical enough, her acceptance would What hand and brain went ever paired?
mean life to him while her refusal would be like death for the lover. What heart alike conceived and dared?
Then comes the moment of happiness. His beloved has accepted his offer to go on
What act proved all its thought had been?
a last ride together with him. His strength rushes back to him again. So, his last
What will but felt the fleshly screen?
thought at least has not been in vain. He rejoices in his thought of riding side by
We ride and I see her bosom heave.
side with her. The words ‘breathe and ride’ expresses his ecstasy with a certain
There’s many a crown for who can reach.
erotic flavour. He considers himself blessed (defied) to spend another day with his
Ten lines, a statesman’s life in each!
The flag stuck on a heap of bones,
ladylove.
A soldier’s doing! what atones?
Now the lover, showing wild optimism, wishes that the world ends that very night
They scratch his name on the Abbey-stones.
– “Who knows but the world may end tonight?” That would be the only way for
My riding is better, by their leave.
him to stay with his beloved for ever.
Like the past two stanzas of The Last Ride Together, this one also involves the
Hush! if you saw some western cloud
All billowy-bosomed, over-bowed poet’s expression of philosophical ideas. The lover again argues that the hand and
By many benedictions–sun’s brain never went perfectly paired, meaning action and thought are not necessarily
And moon’s and evening-star’s at once– always the same. People think to do something perfect but end up doing the other
And so, you, looking and loving best, way. Likewise the poet says he has never heard of anyone expressing the true
Conscious grew, your passion drew feelings of the heart. He asks, what will or desire ever took the bodily form of
Cloud, sunset, moonrise, star-shine too, reality?
Down on you, near and yet more near, They are riding and the lover can see her mistress’ bosom heave. As you may have
Till flesh must fade for heaven was here!– noticed, here the words are consistent with the implied sensual nature of the
Thus leant she and lingered–joy and fear! poem.
Thus lay she a moment on my breast. The poet then compares his life with that of a statesman and a soldier. A
In the third stanza of The Last Ride Together, the speaker goes on describing how statesman’s life can be summed up in just ten lines. He asks what a soldier’s work
the poet feels when his mistress comes close to him. He compares the way his achieves if not death and sadness. A soldier is remembered only by a flag on his
mistress leans and lingers around him to a cloud. He says that she is like a western grave and a small abbey-stone in his name. Compared to that he who loves is
cloud with a sea waves like pattern – a cloud blessed by the light of the sun, the remembered forever. He therefore says his life as a lover is by far better than
moon and the evening star – all at once. This suggests his desire to make it sound theirs.

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 What does it all mean, poet? Well, ANDREA DEL SARTO
Your brains beat into rhythm, you tell Reference: These lines have been taken from “Andrea Del Sarto” poem by Robert
What we felt only; you expressed Browning was published in the collection, Men and Women. It is written in the
You hold things beautiful the best, form of a dramatic monologue told from the perspective of the Italian Renaissance
And pace them in rhyme so, side by side. painter, Andrea del Sarto.
’Tis something, nay ’tis much: but then, Context: The title identifies the subject of the poem, Andreadel Sarto, a
Have you yourself what’s best for men? distinguished artist of the Florentine School of painting. The poem is written in the
Are you–poor, sick, old ere your time– first person, the speaker being Andrea. Andrea, conversing with his silent wife,
Nearer one whit your own sublime Lucrezia, reflects on his life and art, thereby dramatically revealing his moral and
Than we who never have turned a rhyme? aesthetic failure.
Sing, riding’s a joy! For me, I ride. The poem is a long monologue addressed to Lucrezia, who does not pay attention
Now the lover compares his situation to poets. He poses a question before the
to what he is trying to tell her. Instead, she waits for her lover to show up. Del
poets asking them what all their poems mean. He remarks that the poet’s brain
Sarto probably knows about her affair, although he calls the man her cousin; He
beats into rhythm. The speaker further alleges that the poet merely tells what
even urges her to go to him. In his monologue he particularly talks about his past
people already feel. The poet finds the beauty in things the best and uses them in
achievements and his painting skills: he states that he is the better painter when
poetry, pacing them in rhyme. This is some, or rather, much achievement – a
compared to Michelangelo and Rafael. But in contrast to the Italian masters, he
remarkable trait of the poet. But does the poet apply in his own life all that is best
cannot put anything special in his paintings. Browning insists that being a master in
for men? Rather, the poet grows ‘poor, sick and old’ prematurely. Does he enjoy his
painting not only requires the technical skills, but also the ability to put something
own beautiful findings a bit more than the others like the lover who never wrote a
more into it.
poem (turn’d a rhyme)?
Explanation……
He concludes riding is a joy for him better than the poet’s musing. And so he rides.
But do not let us quarrel any more,
And you, great sculptor–so, you gave
No, my Lucrezia; bear with me for once:
A score of years to Art, her slave,
Sit down and all shall happen as you wish.
And that’s your Venus, whence we turn
You turn your face, but does it bring your heart?
To yonder girl that fords the burn!
I’ll work then for your friend’s friend, never fear,
You acquiesce, and shall I repine?
Treat his own subject after his own way,
What, man of music, you grown grey
Fix his own time, accept too his own price,
With notes and nothing else to say,
And shut the money into this small hand
Is this your sole praise from a friend,
When next it takes mine. Will it? tenderly?
”Greatly his opera’s strains intend,
Oh, I’ll content him,—but to-morrow, Love!
Put in music we know how fashions end!”
The speaker of this poem, Andrea del Sarto, begins the piece by addressing his
I gave my youth; but we ride, in fine.
wife. These two will be the predominant characters that feature in this poem and
This time the focus shifts to a sculptor and a musician. The speaker says that the
many parts of the monologue are clearly spoken to Lucrezia.
sculptor gave twenty (a score) years to art and became art’s slave. The statue the
He asks her at the beginning of the poem if they can just have one moment in
sculptor makes is like Venus, the roman goddess of beauty, art and knowledge to
which they are not fighting or “quarrel[ing].” He hopes that she will listen to him
him. But, to common people like the lover, a mortal girl with flesh and blood holds
for just this once as he has every intention of conceding to her wishes. Lucrezia
more charm than the sculptor’s creation.
turns her face towards the speaker but he does not believe that she is genuine. He
Likewise he says of the music composer that he has spent all his life making notes
asks her if she brought “her heart” to their conversation.
and nothing else. For his music he receives some praise from his friends. His music
Del Sarto tells his wife that he is willing to do what she asked and pay or lend
hits the deck in the opera. But, we have seen how musical trends grow outdated –
money to her “friend’s friend. It is unclear why the friend is in need of money but
how fashions end – making the musician’s success short-lived. The lover considers
he promises to do it “to-morrow.”
his life better than them and is content with the ride.
Who knows what’s fit for us? Had fate I often am much wearier than you think,
Proposed bliss here should sublimate This evening more than usual, and it seems
My being–had I signed the bond– As if—forgive now—should you let me sit
Still one must lead some life beyond, Here by the window with your hand in mine
Have a bliss to die with, dim-descried. And look a half-hour forth on Fiesole,
This foot once planted on the goal, Both of one mind, as married people use,
This glory-garland round my soul, Quietly, quietly the evening through,
Could I descry such? Try and test! I might get up to-morrow to my work
I sink back shuddering from the quest. Cheerful and fresh as ever. Let us try.
Earth being so good, would heaven seem best? To-morrow, how you shall be glad for this!
Andrea del Sarto confesses to her at the beginning of this section, in attempt to
Now, heaven and she are beyond this ride.
keep her full attention, that oftentimes he is much “wearier” than she might think,
This stanza of The Last Ride Together, with some obscurity, implies a kind of
and especially so this evening.
metaphysical reasoning: Achieving everything in this life would leave nothing for
To help remedy this weariness, del Sarto asks that Lucrezia come and sit by him,
the next life. The lover says that it is difficult to know what is best for men. But
with her hand in his, and look out on “Fiesole,” a section of Florence, Italy.
every man should keep something for the other life.
Together there thy will sit “quietly,” and maybe be able to refresh themselves for
If the speaker gets his desires all fulfilled and enjoys supreme bliss in this worldly
the next day.
life, he would not find joy in heaven (Earth being so good, would heaven seem
best?). By having this ride, he feels he has achieved enough and won the garland of
Your soft hand is a woman of itself,
victory for now. His failure in love here means success in the other world. He truly
And mine the man’s bared breast she curls inside.
believes that he would reunite with his mistress again in heaven (Now, heaven and
Don’t count the time lost, neither; you must serve
she are beyond this ride).
For each of the five pictures we require:
And yet–she has not spoke so long! It saves a model. So! keep looking so—
What if heaven be that, fair and strong My serpentining beauty, rounds on rounds!
At life’s best, with our eyes upturned —How could you ever prick those perfect ears,
Whither life’s flower is first discerned, Even to put the pearl there! oh, so sweet—
The speaker is deeply endeared by the feeling of his wife’s hand. He sees it as being
We, fixed so, ever should so abide?
a representation of her entire body that can curl inside his own, a representation of
What if we still ride on, we two
With life for ever old yet new, “the man’s bared breast.”
Changed not in kind but in degree, He is cherishing the way in which his wife appears to him in this moment. He sees
The instant made eternity,– her as being a “serpentining beauty” that will serve him as the model for “five
And heaven just prove that I and she pictures” that he is planning. He says that it will save them money that way and he
Ride, ride together, for ever ride? would rather paint her anyway. She’s so perfect and pristine that he can’t imagine
The poet comes out of his own ruminations and observes his mistress. He notes why she would ever even pierce her ear to wear earrings.
that she has not spoken a word yet. However, her company has been a heavenly My face, my moon, my everybody’s moon,
bliss for him. Man has always looked upwards in search of heaven in the sky. This Which everybody looks on and calls his,
heaven is symbolic of the best man can imagine. So, his riding with his mistress is And, I suppose, is looked on by in turn,
heavenly enough for him on this earth. While she looks—no one’s: very dear, no less.
The lover feels he need not go to heaven if he continues to ride like this with his
You smile? why, there’s my picture ready made,
beloved. He wishes that this very moment could become an eternity so the last ride
There’s what we painters call our harmony!
together can be for ever and ever. That way, this earth would prove to be a heaven
A common greyness silvers everything,—
for him.
All in a twilight, you and I alike
—You, at the point of your first pride in me
(That’s gone you know),—but I, at every point;
My youth, my hope, my art, being all toned down
To yonder sober pleasant Fiesole.

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Andrea del Sarto continues to lavish praise on his wife as he thinks about her image exists in their “vexed beating stuffed and stopped-up brain.” These men are
hanging in the homes of men that have purchased his work. Each of these men look blessed by God but also suffer for his gifts.
on the painting and consider it their’s but she does not belong to any of them. Del Sarto goes back to speaking about himself, using an insult that is often cast his
The speaker seems to believe that Lucrezia is the ideal model for his work as he way. He calls his own hand that of a “craftsman” that does not create with heart,
says that with one smile from her he is able to compose a whole painting. That is all only with skill. His art and his mind are “shut” out of heaven where the other men
the inspiration that he needs. She is what “painters call our harmony!” She is his are readily entering and exiting with the subjects they paint. He can get close to
muse. heaven, but not quite all the way.
He remembers a time when they were both new to one another, when they first The sudden blood of these men! at a word—
met. Initially she was proud of who he was and what he was going to be, but he Praise them, it boils, or blame them, it boils too.
knows that is “gone.” Additionally, he says that back then he had his, I, painting from myself and to myself,
“youth…hope…[and] art” that he was living through. All this has been “toned Know what I do, am unmoved by men’s blame
down” later in life as things did not turn out quite like he expected. Or their praise either. Somebody remarks
There’s the bell clinking from the chapel-top; Morello’s outline there is wrongly traced,
That length of convent-wall across the way His hue mistaken; what of that? or else,
Holds the trees safer, huddled more inside; Rightly traced and well ordered; what of that?
The last monk leaves the garden; days decrease, Speak as they please, what does the mountain care?
And autumn grows, autumn in everything. The speaker has now worked himself into a serious frustration at the state of his
Eh? the whole seems to fall into a shape own artistic ability. He is trying to find flaws in “these men” that are able to tap
As if I saw alike my work and self into divine subject matter. While del Sarto sees himself as being even tempered,
And all that I was born to be and do, “these men” are easy to upset and quick to cast blame on others.
A twilight-piece. Love, we are in God’s hand. Whenever someone comments on his work and critiques his efforts he thinks,
How strange now, looks the life he makes us lead; “what of that?” He doesn’t care if he is criticized for how something is drawn
So free we seem, so fettered fast we are! because he knows his own skill.
From where the two are sitting overlooking Fiesole, he can hear the chiming or Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp,
“clinking” of a bell “from the chapel-top” as well as observe the church and the Or what’s a heaven for? All is silver-grey,
“last monk” leaving the garden for the day. Placid and perfect with my art: the worse!
The speaker then takes a moment here to ponder the way in which “we,” he and I know both what I want and what might gain,
Lucrezia, as well as all of humankind, are in “God’s hand.” Time is passing, giving And yet how profitless to know, to sigh
him the opportunity to look back on his life and see if he was able to accomplish “Had I been two, another and myself,
what he wanted. He recognizes that the life God makes for “us” is both free and “Our head would have o’erlooked the world!” No doubt.
“fettered.” Yonder’s a work now, of that famous youth
I feel he laid the fetter: let it lie! The Urbinate who died five years ago.
This chamber for example—turn your head— (‘Tis copied, George Vasari sent it me.)
All that’s behind us! You don’t understand All this being said, the speaker knows that a man should reach for things that might
Nor care to understand about my art, seem unattainable. He looks at his own work and sees how it is perfectly one thing.
But you can hear at least when people speak: It is “Placid” in a way that bothers him.
And that cartoon, the second from the door Even though he is able to see what he wants to create, he is unable to imbue his art
—It is the thing, Love! so such things should be— with the soul that other’s works have. He knows that if he had been “two” different
Behold Madonna!—I am bold to say. people in one body, himself, and someone with the skill of Michelangelo, he would
The speaker believes that God made a “fetter” for human life and let it do what it have conquered the world of art.
wanted to. At this point in the poem the speaker begins to lament the career that From where the speaker is sitting he references a piece of art across the room. This
he did not quite have. line drags the audience back into the physical room with del Sarto and Lucrezia. The
He believes that all those throughout his life did not truly understand his art. They piece that he is referencing was sent to him by “George Vasari,” the famous Italian
did not care to take the time to truly see it. biographer of artists and their works.
Del Sarto does mention a instance of happiness, that was more than likely Well, I can fancy how he did it all,
reoccurring, as people commented from afar that his “cartoon,” or sketch for a Pouring his soul, with kings and popes to see,
painting, was just “the thing.” Many have felt “Love!” For his work, but just not to Reaching, that heaven might so replenish him,
the extent that he feels he deserves. Above and through his art—for it gives way;
I can do with my pencil what I know, That arm is wrongly put—and there again—
What I see, what at bottom of my heart A fault to pardon in the drawing’s lines,
I wish for, if I ever wish so deep— Its body, so to speak: its soul is right,
Do easily, too—when I say, perfectly, He means right—that, a child may understand.
I do not boast, perhaps: yourself are judge, This particular piece is easy for the speaker to break down. He knows how it was
Who listened to the Legate’s talk last week, painted and how the artist “Pour[ed] his soul” into the art for “kings and popes to
And just as much they used to say in France. see.”
At any rate ’tis easy, all of it! The art may be beautiful in its conception but del Sarto, with his eye for detail, can
The artist knows the skills that he possesses, and he can feel his own ability, coming see that the “arm is wrongly put” and that there are faults in the “drawing’s lines.”
from his heart, that allows him to create anything. It is easy for him to do These details are excused by other viewers as it’s “soul is right.” All may
“perfectly” what others struggle with. understand that, even a child.
He does interject here to say that he does not want to sound like he’s bragging, but Still, what an arm! and I could alter it:
“you,” meaning Lucrezia, know of “my” ability and the ease with which “I” create. But all the play, the insight and the stretch—
No sketches first, no studies, that’s long past: (Out of me, out of me! And wherefore out?
I do what many dream of, all their lives, Had you enjoined them on me, given me soul,
—Dream? strive to do, and agonize to do, We might have risen to Rafael, I and you!
And fail in doing. I could count twenty such Nay, Love, you did give all I asked, I think—
On twice your fingers, and not leave this town, More than I merit, yes, by many times.
Who strive—you don’t know how the others strive But had you—oh, with the same perfect brow,
To paint a little thing like that you smeared And perfect eyes, and more than perfect mouth,
Carelessly passing with your robes afloat,— And the low voice my soul hears, as a bird
Yet do much less, so much less, Someone says, The fowler’s pipe, and follows to the snare —
(I know his name, no matter)—so much less! Had you, with these the same, but brought a mind!
The speaker goes on, allowing himself a few more lines of self indulgence saying Even del Sarto understands that even if the arm is not quite right, it is still
that he has never needed to sketch or study a subject before he draws it. beautiful. He knows that with his skill he could fix it.
He is able to do what many “strive to do, and agonize to do, / And fail in doing.” Once more he bemoans the fact that he was not given the soul to rise above
There are many such men in this town. everyone else. He could have even surpassed “Rafael.” He refers to himself and
Well, less is more, Lucrezia: I am judged. Lucrezia as rising together through the ranks of the art world and that if she with all
There burns a truer light of God in them, of her perfections of physical beauty, only brought with her a mind that might have
In their vexed beating stuffed and stopped-up brain, improved del Sarto’s life. He is casting part of his disappointment in himself onto
Heart, or whate’er else, than goes on to prompt her.
This low-pulsed forthright craftsman’s hand of mine. Some women do so. Had the mouth there urged
Their works drop groundward, but themselves, I know, “God and the glory! never care for gain.
Reach many a time a heaven that’s shut to me, “The present by the future, what is that?
Enter and take their place there sure enough, “Live for fame, side by side with Agnolo!
Though they come back and cannot tell the world. “Rafael is waiting: up to God, all three!”
My works are nearer heaven, but I sit here. I might have done it for you. So it seems:
While these men may envy the ease with which he creates perfect paintings, he Perhaps not. All is as God over-rules.
does not have something that they do. They have in them a true light of God that Beside, incentives come from the soul’s self;
3
 The rest avail not. Why do I need you? For, do you know, Lucrezia, as God lives,
What wife had Rafael, or has Agnolo? Said one day Agnolo, his very self,
Some women, the speaker states, do bring brains with them into their marriages. To Rafael . . . I have known it all these years . . .
Why, he thinks, didn’t his wife? The next lines of the poem are what the speaker (When the young man was flaming out his thoughts
wishes his wife had said to him throughout his life. Upon a palace-wall for Rome to see,
If she had really wanted to help his career and further his art she would have told Too lifted up in heart because of it)
him that he should give all glory to God without caring for “gain.” He should be “Friend, there’s a certain sorry little scrub
attempting to raise himself to the status of “Agnolo,” meaning Michelangelo, or “Goes up and down our Florence, none cares how,
climb up to where “Rafael,” or Raphael, is. “Who, were he set to plan and execute
If she had said this he might have done it for her. Or, he says, maybe it wouldn’t “As you are, pricked on by your popes and kings,
have worked that way because God controls everything. He changes his tone here “Would bring the sweat into that brow of yours!”
and says that it was not her fault for not speaking up to him. Instead, he should Andrea del Sarto continues to speak to his wife, Lucrezia, imploring her to
never have had a wife in the first place, like Michelangelo and Raphael. understand the daily trauma he goes through as he thinks about his place amongst
In this world, who can do a thing, will not; the great artists.
And who would do it, cannot, I perceive: He imagines a conversation between the two great Renaissance masters, Raphael
Yet the will’s somewhat—somewhat, too, the power— and Michelangelo. He likes to think of Michelangelo saying to Raphael, as he paints
And thus we half-men struggle. At the end, in Rome, that there is another artist that works in “our Florence” and is not
God, I conclude, compensates, punishes. acknowledged. This man, if he were to be given the same commissions that “you,”
‘Tis safer for me, if the award be strict, meaning Raphael, were given, then he would give you serious competition. In an
That I am something underrated here, effort to retain his place as one of the greatest painters of all time, Raphael would
Poor this long while, despised, to speak the truth. have “sweat” on his “brow.”
I dared not, do you know, leave home all day, This is of course a completely imagined conversation that del Sarto thinks up as he
For fear of chancing on the Paris lords. dreams of what he wishes people thought of him.
The best is when they pass and look aside; To Rafael’s!—And indeed the arm is wrong.
But they speak sometimes; I must bear it all. I hardly dare . . . yet, only you to see,
In the world in which they are living, the speaker says that the men who want to do Give the chalk here—quick, thus, the line should go!
something are unable to, and the men who can do it, won’t. This is frustrating to Ay, but the soul! he’s Rafael! rub it out!
him and to all the “half-men” that are only blessed with half the talent they need. Still, all I care for, if he spoke the truth,
He decides that it is safer for him to have been given the life he has as he was not (What he? why, who but Michel Agnolo?
fit for one in which he has to speak with the “Paris lords.” He claims to like it when Do you forget already words like those?)
they ignore him. If really there was such a chance, so lost,—
Well may they speak! That Francis, that first time, Is, whether you’re—not grateful—but more pleased.
And that long festal year at Fontainebleau! Well, let me think so. And you smile indeed!
I surely then could sometimes leave the ground, This hour has been an hour! Another smile?
Put on the glory, Rafael’s daily wear, In a torrent of emotion, contrary to how he portrayed himself previously, del Sarto
In that humane great monarch’s golden look,— turns to the Raphael copy that Vasari gave him and begins to make adjustments. He
One finger in his beard or twisted curl makes lines here and there, hoping to fix the arm, but then backtracks. He does not
Over his mouth’s good mark that made the smile, want to destroy the “soul” of the painting. “He’s Rafael!” Anything that del Sarto
One arm about my shoulder, round my neck, does to the painting will seem trite in comparison.
The jingle of his gold chain in my ear, The speaker, now relaxed again, thinks once more about this imagined opportunity
I painting proudly with his breath on me, to have the same type of commissions that Raphael received. He dreams, if only
All his court round him, seeing with his eyes, “really there was such a chance.” He hopes that if this had been the case, Lucrezia
Such frank French eyes, and such a fire of souls would have be proud of him. Already an hour has passed during this conversation
Profuse, my hand kept plying by those hearts,— and he sees it as being a productive one.
In this stanza the speaker is slightly standing up against those that talk about him If you would sit thus by me every night
unkindly. He is remembering when he worked for the king of France, Francis, and I should work better, do you comprehend?
was at Fontainebleau for a year. I mean that I should earn more, give you more.
It was here that he had confidence and could put on the clothes, or stature of See, it is settled dusk now; there’s a star;
Raphael. This was caused by his closeness with the king. He remembers how Morello’s gone, the watch-lights show the wall,
Francis’ clothes sounded when he walked and how he stood over his shoulder as The cue-owls speak the name we call them by.
the speaker painted. When he had this position he was admired by the French Come from the window, love,—come in, at last,
court and with his paint he could influence them and gain confidence from their Inside the melancholy little house
looks. We built to be so gay with. God is just.
And, best of all, this, this, this face beyond, Andrea del Sarto tells her that if only she would take the time to sit with him every
This in the background, waiting on my work, night, that he would work “better.” He would create better work, but he would
To crown the issue with a last reward! also be able to take better care of her and give her more.
A good time, was it not, my kingly days? The sun has set and it has “settled dusk now.” There is a star in the sky and the
And had you not grown restless… but I know— owls are hooting around them. He tells her to come away from the window and
‘Tis done and past: ’twas right, my instinct said: deeper into their “melancholy little house.”
Too live the life grew, golden and not grey, King Francis may forgive me: oft at nights
And I’m the weak-eyed bat no sun should tempt When I look up from painting, eyes tired out,
Out of the grange whose four walls make his world. The walls become illumined, brick from brick
How could it end in any other way? Distinct, instead of mortar, fierce bright gold,
One more he speaks directly to his wife. He remembers that in those day the best That gold of his I did cement them with!
thing of all was her face waiting for him, approving of his work. He asks her if these Let us but love each other. Must you go?
days were not “kingly,” and says that it is her fault, “had [she] not grown restless…” That Cousin here again? he waits outside?
and made him leave, his future might have been brighter. Must see you—you, and not with me? Those loans?
But, he concedes, what’s “done” is done. At this point in his life he is but a “weak- More gaming debts to pay? you smiled for that?
eyed bat” that cannot be tempted out of his routine and “four walls.” He Well, let smiles buy me! have you more to spend?
despondently concludes this section by saying that it could not have ended any As the speaker is pondering how the king of France now regards him, he is staring
other way. around the room imagining the house transformed into a palace. His day dream is
You called me, and I came home to your heart. interrupted by the appearance of his wife’s “Cousin” who is waiting for her outside.
The triumph was—to reach and stay there; since He does not want her to go, especially since the cousin is demanding money to pay
I reached it ere the triumph, what is lost? off his gambling debts.
Let my hands frame your face in your hair’s gold, He believes that she treated him kindly over the last hour in an attempt to get the
You beautiful Lucrezia that are mine! money that her cousin needs.
“Rafael did this, Andrea painted that; While hand and eye and something of a heart
“The Roman’s is the better when you pray, Are left me, work’s my ware, and what’s it worth?
“But still the other’s Virgin was his wife—” I’ll pay my fancy. Only let me sit
Men will excuse me. I am glad to judge The grey remainder of the evening out,
Both pictures in your presence; clearer grows Idle, you call it, and muse perfectly
My better fortune, I resolve to think. How I could paint, were I but back in France,
It appears as if Lucrezia, bored with their situation in France, had asked him to One picture, just one more—the Virgin’s face,
come home and so he did. Not yours this time! I want you at my side
He reaches his hands up to “frame” her face and golden hair and comforts himself To hear them—that is, Michel Agnolo—
by remembering that she is his. He “resolve[s] to think” that ending up with her, Judge all I do and tell you of its worth.
rather than painting something lasting, was his “better fortune.” Will you? To-morrow, satisfy your friend.

4
Del Sarto feels a new pang of loss as his wife is leaving him that night. He knows GO, 1 for they call you, Shepherd, from the hill;
that he still has his work and “some of a heart,” left but “what,” he asks, is “it Go, Shepherd, and untie the wattled cotes:
worth?” No longer leave thy wistful flock unfed,
He agrees to pay the money but only if he can be let alone to brood through the Nor let thy bawling fellows rack their throats,
rest of the evening. He thinks that if he could only paint one more picture, it would Nor the cropp’d grasses shoot another head. 5
depict the “Virgin’s face,” and not this time modeled after Lucrezia. He wants her But when the fields are still,
there beside him, not in the picture. He wants to prove himself and have her hear And the tired men and dogs all gone to rest,
all the wonderful things that the others will say about him. And only the white sheep are sometimes seen
But this is all tomorrow. For now he tells her she can, “satisfy” her friend. Cross and recross the strips of moon-blanch’d green;
I take the subjects for his corridor, Come, Shepherd, and again renew the quest. 10
Finish the portrait out of hand—there, there, In this opening pastoral scene, the poet urges the shepherd to leave his
And throw him in another thing or two company for now because his fellow companions grazing the sheep in the hills
If he demurs; the whole should prove enough yonder are calling him. Go back to your work, loosen the sheep from their fold;
To pay for this same Cousin’s freak. Beside, do not neglect your flock of sheep; they wish to be fed, so delay not. Nor
What’s better and what’s all I care about, should you let your shepherd companions angrily strain their throats to call you
Get you the thirteen scudi for the ruff! with hoarse throats.Go, right now, delay not and do not let grass blades
Love, does that please you? Ah, but what does he, already nibbled by the sheep grow into shoots (meaning make haste and go).
The Cousin! what does he to please you more? But when the fields become quiet, that is when the working shepherds have
In this stanza it becomes clear that the relationship between the cousin and ceased their activity and left the field; and the shepherds and their watch dogs
Lucrezia might be romantic. The speaker seems to understand this but knows that have become tired andgone from the scene; may be only a few white straying
he cannot do anything to stop her. He gives her the “thirteen scudi” to pass on to sheep are lagging behind their flock and seen crossing recrossing the narrow
the man, or “ruff” as he calls him. plots and when the grass has become colourless (blanched) in the moonlight,
He asks if this amount pleases her and then asks what exactly the “cousin” does to then Shepherd, then at that quiet evening hour, you come again and be my
please her more? He does not expect an answer to this question. companion in the quest (for the long lost legendary scholar gipsy of Oxford
I am grown peaceful as old age to-night. university whose story is written in Glanvill’s book) Poetic language, it will be
I regret little, I would change still less. seen, is not easy to be rendered in prose. The poet is a creator of the language
Since there my past life lies, why alter it? in which writes; he has what is called the “poeticlicense”, that he is allowed to
The very wrong to Francis!—it is true take liberties with the grammar and dictionary meantings of words and use
I took his coin, was tempted and complied, them to convey contextual and universal significance through poetic use of
And built this house and sinned, and all is said. language.
My father and my mother died of want. Here, where the reaper was at work of late,
Well, had I riches of my own? you see In this high field’s dark corner, where he leaves
How one gets rich! Let each one bear his lot. His coat, his basket, and his earthen cruise,
The last section of the poem breaks into one more long stanza. At the end of this And in the sun all morning binds the sheaves,
night as he is looking back on his life he claims to “regret little,” and desire to Then here, at noon, comes back his stores to use; 15
“change still less.” It is hard to believe this assertion as he has spent the entire Here will I sit and wait,
poem talking about how he wishes his life had been different. While to my ear from uplands far away
He does know though that there is no way that he can alter his “past life.” He The bleating of the folded flocks is borne,
declares that the time he spent in France with King Francis was wrong. That he With distant cries of reapers in the corn—
never should have taken “his coin.” He may have been able to amass a bit of All the live murmur of a summer’s day. 20
money off the king’s patronage, but he still was never happy. In these lines, the rural scene is further brought to our larger view as Arnold’s
They were born poor, lived poor, and poor they died: poet i.e. eye pans to a spot in a camera-like motion. “Here, where the reaper
And I have laboured somewhat in my time was at work of late”, “this high fields dark corner” where he has left “His coat,
And not been paid profusely. Some good son basket” and other personal effects” and where he shall return “at noon” It is
Paint my two hundred pictures—let him try! here the poet will sit and wait for his shepherd companion of the opening
No doubt, there’s something strikes a balance. Yes, stanza; from here he will be hearing “The bleating of the folded flocks” of
You loved me quite enough. it seems to-night. sheep, and “distant cries of reapers in the corn” and other sounds and
This must suffice me here. What would one have? “murmurs of a summer’s day.
In heaven, perhaps, new chances, one more chance— Screen’d is 2 this nook o’er the high, half-reap’d field,
Four great walls in the New Jerusalem, And here till sun-down, Shepherd, will I be.
Meted on each side by the angel’s reed, Through the thick corn the scarlet poppies peep,
For Leonard, Rafael, Agnolo and me And round green roots and yellowing stalks I see
To cover—the three first without a wife, Pale blue convolvulus in tendrils creep: 25
While I have mine! So—still they overcome And air-swept lindens yield
Because there’s still Lucrezia,—as I choose. Their scent, and rustle down their perfum’d showers
Again the Cousin’s whistle! Go, my Love. Of bloom on the bent grass where I am laid,
The last section of the poem concludes on a very solemn and self pitying note And bower me from the August sun with shade;
with the speaker relating his own life to that of his parents. They were “born poor, And the eye travels down to Oxford’s towers: 30
lived poor, and poor they died.” The poet continues to build the rural scene with “green roots”, “thick corn”,
The speaker knows that he has “laboured” in his days on the earth and that he has “scarlet poppies”, “perfumed showers” “Of bloom on the bent grass” and sits
not been paid well for it. He questions whether he has been a good son to his himself in a “bower” to find” shade” “from the August sun” What is important
parents and knows that other “good sons” would not have been able to paint the is that here a contrast to the serentity and other worldliness of the pastoral
“two hundred pictures” that he did. scene has been introduced as” the eye travels down to oxford’s towers”.
Once more he turns to Lucrezia and tells her that, yes, “You loved me quite And near me on the grass lies Glanvil’s book—
enough,” tonight. He must be happy with what he has received from her, and from Come, let me read the oft-read tale again,
life itself. He thinks that maybe he will have a new chance at success in heaven, but The story of that Oxford scholar poor
still he will have his wife. When Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Raphael get Of pregnant parts and quick inventive brain,
to heaven, they will not be married, but he will. Who, tir’d of knocking at Preferment’s door, 35
He concludes the poem with this reiteration, and misdirection of blame onto his One summer morn forsook
wife. He tells her afterwards that now she may go as her “Cousin” is whistling at His friends, and went to learn the Gipsy lore,
her. And roam’d the world with that wild brotherhood,
And came, as most men deem’d, to little good,
But came to Oxford and his friends no more. 40
The Scholar-Gipsy The orieginal story of the Scholar Gipsy is to be found in Glanvil’s book entitled
Reference: These lines have been taken from “The Scholar Gipsy” a poem by THE VANITY OF DOGMATIZING, written in the seventeenth century while the
Matthew Arnold, appeared in the 1853 edition of Arnold’s volume of poetry poet Arnold is writing his poem The Scholar Gipsy in the latter part of the
entitled Poems for the first time. nineteenth century or the Victorian Age. This book is lying close to the poet
Context: The Scholar Gipsy is a pastoral elegy, that is, a poem written in right now. The poet had read the story earlier with great interest and he feels is
remberance of things past, recalling and celebrating the memory of a person or like reading the story once again. The story deals with the event of the life of a
some event or some precious thing now lost and which has a rural or natural scholar who was studying at Oxford university. He had talent; he had a good
setting. If the setting in a pastoral elegy is rural, with shepherds, farmers and other inventive or curious brain or mind and creative imagination. But for his special
simple folks playing significant role, the mood is of pervasive sadness. This elegy, kind of interests and skills and talents he could find not much scope within the
written in the grand style and manner recalling that of the Greek classicist, also framework of the university education and system of studies. Perhaps driven
dwells on serious general themes, impersonal and objective in their scope, out by his sense of incompatibility with the Oxford environment, this scholar
treatment and dimension conveying elevatings thoughts on issues of general rather simply lelf the Oxford premises and his Oxford friends on a summer morning.
than of personal import. He now joined the company of gipsies and from them he sought to learn the art
Explanation…… of hypnontism, or thought-reading. He was spotted in the company of these

5
gipsies or wild brotherhood and they thought that this young scholar had And purple orchises with spotted leaves—
ruined his career at Oxford and life in general, even though he had remarkable But none has words she can report of thee. 90
abilities. Whatever be the pejorative view of the world, the fact remains that Scholar Gipsy is fond of secluded places; he was once met by the joyful riders
the Scholar Gipsy never returned to Oxford nor to his friends. of Oxford in a ferry who crossed the narrow river Thames near Bablock-hithe
But once, years after, in the country lanes, (about eleven miles from Oxford); seen by these Oxford ferry joy-riders when
Two scholars whom at college erst he knew the Scholar Gipsy was dipping his fingers in “the cool stream” as the punt (a
Met him, and of his way of life inquir’d. small boat plied by a single person) had just passed him by. They saw him in
Whereat he answer’d, that the Gipsy crew, somewhat sadly dreaming with” a single person) had just passed him by. They
His mates, had arts to rule as they desir’d 45 saw him in some what sadly dreaming with “a heap of flowers” perhaps
The workings of men’s brains; gathered from the nearby” Wychwood bowers” and his “eyes” gazing the
And they can bind them to what thoughts they will: “moonlit steam”. And lo! now you are gone! As they landed on the banks, they
‘And I,’ he said, ‘the secret of their art, could see you no more. Then, there were the young married girls, who had
When fully learn’d, will to the world impart: come from distant homes to dance in “the Fyfield elm in May”, the spring time;
But it needs heaven-sent 3 moments for this skill.’ 50 they too had seen the scholar gipsy as the dusk desceneded on the fields. He
But, as the story goes, two of his class-fellows from the college whom he knew was roaming and crossing over a “stile into a public way.”
him chanced to meet him in a village street and questioned him about his gipsy And, above Godstow Bridge, when hay-time’s here
ways and life of wandering. “Wherat he answer’d, that the gipsy-crew” knew In June, and many a scythe in sunshine flames,
skills of such powers that they could control the minds of men, or in other Men who through those wide fields of breezy grass
words, could hypnotize other people and through this mesmerism they could Where black-wing’d swallows haunt the glittering Thames,
make ordinary men do anything they wanted. The Scholar Gipsy disclosed to To bathe in the abandon’d lasher pass, 95
these companions, class-fellows from his college that he wanted to learn” the Have often pass’d thee near
secret of their art” of reading others’ thoughts and “workings of men’s brains” Sitting upon the river bank o’ergrown:
and “When fully lean’d, will to the world impart” but this art is not learnt the Mark’d thy outlandish garb, thy figure spare,
way students/ scholars learn in colleges and universities by putting in so many Thy dark vague eyes, and soft abstracted air;
hours of study and books and writing exams and getting marks from But, when they came from bathing, thou wert gone. 100
teachers/examiners. It needs heaven’s blessings, god-sent moments of But none of the maidens could tell if he had spoken and said anything! And during
illumination, some “heaven sent moments” for grasping and gaining “this skill. when men are busy cutting “breezy grass in the hot sun with a scythe that
This said, he left them, and return’d no more, flashes in the sunshine like “flames”, when the summer swallows “black-win-
But rumours hung about the country side ged” hover over the river Thames. You have been seen there when the
That the lost Scholar long was seen to stray, labouring men had come to “bathe in the abandon’d lasher pass”. They passed
Seen by rare glimpses, pensive and tongue-tied, by you when they came over “Godstow Bridge”. They have seen you sitting by
In hat of antique shape, and cloak of grey, 55 the river bank recognizing you by your “outlandish garb”, that is, strange dress;
The same the Gipsies wore. by your lean and weakened body; and they have seen you “dark vague eyes”
Shepherds had met him on the Hurst in spring; and withdrawn looks. But when they came back from “bathing”, lo! you were
At some lone alehouse in the Berkshire moors, “gone.
On the warm ingle bench, the smock-frock’d boors At some lone homestead in the Cumner hills,
Had found him seated at their entering, 60 Where at her open door the housewife darns,
After this exchange, the Scholar-Gipsy once again departed from his mates and Thou hast been seen, or hanging on a gate
never came back. Stories keep doing the rounds that the scholar-Gipsy was To watch the threshers in the mossy barns.
seen here or thre, silent and sad wearing an odd type of hat that used to be Children, who early range these slopes and late 105
worn by people of long gone times; great outer garment of the kind gipsies For cresses from the rills,
wear; and he was seen they say over Hurst Hillock under forest cover, in Have known thee watching, all an April day,
“Berkshire” fields near Oxford; he was some times spotted by country people; The springing pastures and the feeding kine;
peasants and boorish clowns or vagabonds saw him sitting some “warm-ingle And mark’d thee, when the stars come out and shine,
bench” or in “loan ale houses. Through the long dewy grass move slow away. 110
But, mid their drink and clatter, he would fly: In Autumn, on the skirts of Bagley wood,
And I myself seem half to know thy looks, Where most the Gipsies by the turf-edg’d way
And put the shepherds, Wanderer, on thy trace; Pitch their smok’d tents, and every bush you see
And boys who in lone wheatfields scare the rooks With scarlet patches tagg’d and shreds of grey,
I ask if thou hast pass’d their quiet place; 65 Above the forest ground call’d Thessaly— 115
Or in my boat I lie The blackbird picking food
Moor’d to the cool bank in the summer heats, Sees thee, nor stops his meal, nor fears at all;
Mid wide grass meadows which the sunshine fills, So often has he known thee past him stray
And watch the warm green-muffled Cumner hills, Rapt, twirling in thy hand a wither’d spray,
And wonder if thou haunt’st their shy retreats. 70 And waiting for the spark from Heaven to fall. 120
It is in these lines 61-70, that the poet makes his “quest clear to the reader and And once, in winter, on the causeway chill
gives out an imaginative vision of the Scholar Gipsy whom he is searching with Where home through flooded fields foot-travellers go,
the help of shepherds in this Oxford country side. the scholar - gipsy shunned Have I not pass’d thee on the wooden bridge
noisy places, and disappeared” mid their drink and clatter” and the poet Wrapt in thy cloak and battling with the snow,
imagines and recalls scholar gipsy’s face or “looks” and have been describing Thy face towards Hinksey and its wintry ridge? 125
his features to the shepherds so they recognised him when hey find him. And thou hast climb’d the hill
These shepherds and boys who scare the birds from eating the crops in the And gain’d the white brow of the Cumner range,
fields too fields too the poet sets on a search for the scholar gipsy and the poet Turn’d once to watch, while thick the snowflakes fall,
at times asks them if the scholar gipsy had passed by the silent places or when The line of festal light in Christ-Church hall—
the poet lies in a floating boat on the cool banks in “summer heats”, “amid Then sought thy straw in some sequester’d grange. 130
grass meadows” nestling in the” sunshine” or when he watches the “warm, Thus, the Scholar Gipsy, roams and haunts the count tryside near Oxfordshire,
green-muffled Cumner hills”, the poet wonders if the Scholar Gipsy has been has been seen by housewives busy with their chores in their households,
to these quiet “retreats” rarely visited by others. So the poet’s quest for scholar “hanging on a gate”; seen by children in “The springing pastures” and even
gipsy continues. “when the stars come out and shine” in the “dewy grass” or in the autumn, on
For most, I know, thou lov’st retired ground. the outskirts of Bagley Wood where other gipsies visiting the area pitch their
Thee, at the ferry, Oxford riders blithe, tents. Even the birds who are not frightened of the Gipsy Scholar have seen him
Returning home on summer nights, have met in all weathers and in all places in this countryside. The poet imagines the at
Crossing the stripling Thames at Bab-lock-hithe, one time Gipsy Scholar was seen with a twig clutch in his hand and waiting for
Trailing in the cool stream thy fingers wet, 75 a heavenly divine light to “fall” for self-fulfilment and self-realization, perhaps
As the slow punt swings round: his aim of learning hypnotism by Heavenly Grace still unrealized. Even in the
And leaning backwards in a pensive dream, snowy winter the Scholar Gipsy has been roaming over the Oxford countryside;
And fostering in thy lap a heap of flowers sometimes on he highway or “the causeway” that is used by travelers to reach
Pluck’d in shy fields and distant Wychwood 4 bowers, their homes through “flooded fields” on foot. The poet is not sure if he too has
And thine eyes resting on the moonlit stream: 80 seen the Scholar Gipsy or perhaps only imagined that he has seen him “Wrapt
And then they land, and thou art seen no more. in thy cloak” and thudding through” the snow “going toward Hinksey”, a village
Maidens who from the distant hamlets come near Oxford along “its wintry ridge” and climbing the hill there reaching the
To dance around the Fyfield elm in May, snow-covered top of “Cumner range”, once the Gipsy Scholar was seen moving
Oft through the darkening fields have seen thee roam, towards the “ChristChurch” hall, walking in the “thick” snowflakes” to observe
Or cross a stile into the public way. 85
the lights on the occasion of feast and festival and, then looking for a bed to
Oft thou hast given them store straw in the nearby secluded farmhouse- “some sequestered grange”.
Of flowers—the frail-leaf’d, white anemone—
Dark bluebells drench’d with dews of summer eves—

6
 But what—I dream! Two hundred years are flown And each half lives a hundred different lives;
Since first thy story ran through Oxford halls, Who wait like thee, but not, like thee, in hope. 170
And the grave Glanvil did the tale inscribe
That thou wert wander’d from the studious walls Thou waitest for the spark from Heaven: and we,
To learn strange arts, and join a Gipsy tribe: 135 Vague 5 half-believers of our casual creeds,
And thou from earth art gone Who never deeply felt, nor clearly will’d,
Long since, and in some quiet churchyard laid; Whose insight never has borne fruit in deeds,
Some country nook, where o’er thy unknown grave Whose weak 6 resolves never have been fulfill’d; 175
Tall grasses and white flowering nettles wave— For whom each year we see
Under a dark red-fruited yew-tree’s shade. 140 Breeds new beginnings, disappointments new;
Who hesitate and falter life away,
—No, no, thou hast not felt the lapse of hours. And lose to-morrow the ground won to-day—
For what wears out the life of mortal men? Ah, do not we, Wanderer, await it too? 180
’Tis that from change to change their being rolls:
’Tis that repeated shocks, again, again, Yes, we await it, but it still delays,
Exhaust the energy of strongest souls, 145 And 7 then we suffer; and amongst us One,
And numb the elastic powers. Who most has suffer’d, takes dejectedly
Till having us’d our nerves with bliss and teen, His seat upon the intellectual throne;
And tir’d upon a thousand schemes our wit, And all his store of sad experience he 185
To the just-pausing Genius we remit Lays bare of wretched days;
Our worn-out life, and are—what we have been. 150 Tells us his misery’s birth and growth and signs,
And how the dying spark of hope was fed,
Thou hast not liv’d, why should’st thou perish, so? And how the breast was sooth’d, and how the head,
Thou hadst one aim, one business, one desire: And all his hourly varied anodynes. 190
Else wert thou long since number’d with the dead—
Else hadst thou spent, like other men, thy fire. This for our wisest: and we others pine,
The generations of thy peers are fled, 155 And wish the long unhappy dream would end,
And we ourselves shall go; And waive all claim to bliss, and try to bear,
But thou possessest an immortal lot, With close-lipp’d Patience for our only friend,
And we imagine thee exempt from age Sad Patience, too near neighbour to Despair: 195
And living as thou liv’st on Glanvil’s page, But none has hope like thine.
Because thou hadst—what we, alas, have not! 160 Thou through the fields and through the woods dost stray,
In these lines mark a very definite and significant transition. Till now, the poet Roaming the country side, a truant boy,
was narrating and largely describing the scene of Oxford Scholar Gipsy’s haunts Nursing thy project in unclouded joy,
and wanderings in the Oxford-Berkshire countryside. Now he turns to the And every doubt long blown by time away. 200
theme of life and death, of mortality and immortality, of ambitions of this In these lines, the poet continues with themes, delving deeper in the causes
world and quest for self-realization and spiritual discovery of the self and of increasing preponderance of “divided aims”, “doubts” “divisions” and
countrasts the Scholar Gipsy with the ordinary mortals of his times, the general sceptism and materialism prevailing in Arnold’s own Victorian times
Victorian times. Back to the world of reality, the poet suddenly realizes that he and why he considers Scholar Gipsy as freed from these worldly ills. The first
was only dreaming. As it was two hundred years ago that Glanvill wrote the reason why he considers Scholar Gipsy has escaped the fate of the ordinary
story of Scholar Gipsy and a legend was born in Oxford’s halls of Learning, that people who live in Victorian times of doubt and faithlessness is that “early did
“you”, the Gipsy Scholar had left the university premises (“studious walls”) and leave the world”, that is, “early” in terms of the time of history as well as time
had chosen “to learn strange arts”, instead of the classics and liberal arts at the of individual being. The Scholar Gipsy, in the first lace lived in times when the
university, and joined a “gipsy-tribe” and, in fact, not only” you”, (the Gipsy world still was not devoid of Faith, and then, because he gave up the world in
Scholar) has left university but has left the world altogether and are dead and early youth when his “powers”, energy, and idealism had not been wasted
gone, and may be buried in some churchyard, in “Some country-nook” or upon or “diverted” to the world of dulling routine and “not spent on other
“unknown” corner “grave” where now tall grass grows and thorny wild flower things”, when he was still “free from the sick “fatigue” and “languid doubt”
plants and “dark, redfruited yew tree”, a tree associated with human death. that baffle and confuse us all. So, it was a “life unlike to ours”, who vacillate
But, then, the Scholar Gipsy was no ordinary mortal or human being. He was aimlessly and “strive” without knowing the object of our striving, and live
not bound by the limitations of time. He did not experience the passage of time piecemeal lives, “a hundred different lives”, who also wait like you but without
and “the lapse of hours” like other men who are born, live and act in life for a hope. (Hope, Faith and Charity are regarded three guiding directives of
certain span and then die for ver. “Mortal men” go from one “change” to Christian life, and hope here has to be understood as an ally of Faith, or the
another change because, everything and everyone in this time-world changes other Face of Faith). You ‘waitest” for heavenly bliss, godly illumination, “the
excepting the “law of change”. Time wears the life of mortals, under “repeated spark from heaven !”, because of your unshakable faith but we are only “half-
shocks” and even the sturdiest among human beings finally give way to believers” and have “casual creeds”, and our consciousness has not been
decline, lose their energy and “powers” after exhausting them on our translated into actions, or we say one thing and act quite the opposite or
“thousand schemes” that one thinks up and pursues. And, at the end of it all, differently, our vague resolutions have remained unfulfilled because we are
we have to submit – “remit”- to the directives of the Angel of Life, “the passing not clear in our resolves; on every step we falter, in every triumph there is
Genius” who watches our performance only briefly and nothing remains but disappointment, full of hesitations as we are, and lose our ground after every
our “past” or “what we have been” which does not amount to much, actually. gain. So, this is our waiting; so different from yours who is continuing your
But the Gipsy Scholar has not lived like an ordinary mortal, therefore, he will quest without dithering from steady, single-minded course and direction once
not have the fate of an ordinary mortal. He will not die:” Thou has not lived, chosen and decided. Even the wisest amongst us who have been recognized for
why shouldst thou perish”. Now the poet explains how Gipsy Scholar’s life was their intellectual achievements (reference is perhaps to Tennyson who was
different and why he will not be destroyed by time. And, here, in fact, the poet made the Poet Laureate, though the reference could also be made to
Arnold finds scope for his favorite and oft-indulged moral comment on his own Wordsworth who late in life was made the Poet Laureate of England), and
times, the Victorian times. Compared to ordinary men who go from one “seated upon the intellectual throne “this wise man is still full of dejection and
scheme of life to another, who keep changing their norms and values and even is pour his heart laying bare his sad and unhappy experience with and of the
give up theior aims and ideals to lead a cosy and comfortable life of world, of his “wretched days” of life. From his works all we can gather is the
compromise with the worldly reality, the Scholar Gipsy” hadst one aim, one tale of his misery, his loss of inspiration or “the dying spark of hope” and how
business, one desire”. Had this not been so, “thou long since number’d with the he blamed and overcame his aches and pains of his life and how and what
dead” or counted among the dead like the contemporaries of the Scholar different medicines or painkillers he had swallow to relieves his pains and
Gipsy, and even like us who will also pass into oblivion. But, you are stresses of life. (Reference could be to Goethe, Wordsworth and Tennyson). If
indestructible, “immortal” always living in our imagination, never growing or this is the story of our wisest man of the times, then what about us, ordinary
declining, “exempt from age” as “thou liv’st on Glanvill’s page”, or people? We only ply our lives in sorrow and pain, nourishing “unhappy
immortalized in Glanvill’s book and because you had what we do not have. It is dreams,” and forfeit our “claim to bliss” and seek “Sad patience” which is only
interesting to remind here about the meaning of “word” in Sanskrit, AKSHARA, next to being in the grip of “despair”. But none of us, the wisest and, the most
that is beyond destruction. Thus, the immortality of the word has been simple-minded among us, has “hope like thine”, because real hope is to go on
bestowed upon the Scholar Gipsy, by the writer Glanvill and the Scholar Gipsy struggling on the strength of faith that striving is its own reward, Faith should
shall live as long as Times shall last. be the other name of Hope. So you are still roaming, retaining your youth and
For early didst thou leave the world, with powers you still are the same “truant boy” who ran away from the Oxford studies still
Fresh, undiverted to the world without, “Nursing thy project” in clarity of mind or “unclouded joy” and if you had any
Firm to their mark, not spent on other things; doubt it has been “long blown by time away”. (Compare Keat’s Ode to
Free from the sick fatigue, the languid doubt, Nightingale “Thou was not born for death” and “Ode to Grecian Urn:“A thing of
Which much to have tried, in much been baffled, brings. 165 beauty is joy forever)
O Life unlike to ours! O born in days when wits were fresh and clear,
Who fluctuate idly without term or scope, And life ran gaily as the sparkling Thames;
Of whom each strives, nor knows for what he strives, Before this strange disease of modern life,

7
 With its sick hurry, its divided aims, mind and deprive him of his joyful bliss and immortality. Don’t accept our greetings
Its heads o’ertax’d, its palsied hearts, was rife— 205 even; don’t be taken in by our “speech and smiles”. Here, in the last stanza, the
Fly hence, our contact fear! poet introduces a long simile in the Homeric style. It somewhat distracts the reader
Still fly, plunge deeper in the bowering wood! from the themes and the mood till now built by the poet but, then, Arnold is too
Averse, as Dido did with gesture stern much a classicist. He wraps up the poem with a classical simile of the trading
From her false friend’s approach in Hades turn, sailors. Once the Tyrian or phooenician traders saw from some distance a Greek
Wave us away, and keep thy solitude. 210 ships, loaded with luxury goods, emerging from the high waters as the sun was
In In these lines Arnold, addressing the legendary scholar gipsy of the poem says rising. That was in the Aegaean sea and the “merry Grecian coaster” was carrying
that it was good that he was born in an age different from Arnold’s own age, ”amber grapes, and Chian wine” and other luxury goods. The phoenician sailors
that is the Victorian Age. In the earlier times when Scholar Gipsy was alive and who are respected for their serious trading business, set the sails and took to the
left Oxfor by choice people were not assailecd by doubts and were not in the sea, deeper and deeper toward the Mediterrarean and then on to the Atlantic
grip of despair. Science, materialism, democracy and reasoning which have beyond Syrtes and Sicily. The idea was to give the Grecian ship the widest possible
weakened and debilitated the culture of the Victorians were not powerful berth. And, there entering upon the Spanish waters, the Tyrian traders dropped
forces as they are in Arnold’s times. Life was carefree, free from doubt and their anchor and unloaded their boat on the Spanish shore, far away from the
skepticism, free from too much hurry and tension of life. It flowed like the Grecian sailors ! The Gipsy Scholar too should give the Victorians and the
sweet and soft Thames flows with its limpid waters. People then did not have materialist world same treatment, just keep himself away, far away from them!
divided aims and too many schemes and pursuits to get ahe ahead in life or
amass wealth and creature comforts. Their sensibilities were not disfunctional l Dover Beach
like ours, The scholar gipsy was not miserable as he lived in an age of Faith and Reference: These lines have been taken from “Dover Beach” a poem by Matthew
Hope and Charity. Arnold urges the scholar gipsy most vehemently that he Arnold, got published only in 1867 in the first edition of his New Poems.
should keep away from the Victorians and Victorian times infected as they are Context: The poet observes the sea intimately which he finds on that night “calm”
with this disease of modern times. He should fly away from the corrupt and and “The tide is full” as the moon scatters its light on the waters of the Brtish
sick society of Arnold’s times. Channel. A slow game of hide and seek between the waters of the sea and
gleaming light from the moon is going on as the steep rock on the English side of
Still nursing the unconquerable hope, the Channel watch and witness the scene all bathed in the moonlight and the
Still clutching the inviolable shade, glimmering shine makes them look bigger or “vast” as reflected “in the tranquil
With a free onward impulse brushing through, bay”.
By night, the silver’d branches of the glade—
Explanation……
Far on the forest skirts, where none pursue, 215
The sea is calm tonight.
On some mild pastoral slope
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Emerge, and resting on the moonlit pales,
Upon the straits; on the French coast the light
Freshen thy flowers, as in former years,
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
With dew, or listen with enchanted ears,
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
From the dark dingles, to the nightingales. 220
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Only, from the long line of spray
But fly our paths, our feverish contact fly!
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,
For strong the infection of our mental strife,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Which, though it gives no bliss, yet spoils for rest;
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
And we should win thee from thy own fair life,
At their return, up the high strand,
Like us distracted, and like us unblest. 225
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
Soon, soon thy cheer would die,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
Thy hopes grow timorous, and unfix’d thy powers,
The eternal note of sadness in.
And thy clear aims be cross and shifting made:
The poem begins with a serene description of the sea by the speaker who stood on
And then thy glad perennial youth would fade,
the coast to enjoy the captivating beauty of the sea. A mood of sensory awareness
Fade, and grow old at last, and die like ours. 230
is created as the landscape composed of the tranquil sea, moonlight and the strait
The poet wishes the Scholar Gipsy keep to his solitude which will help him keep
gives a picture that is constituted of balance, stability, and harmony. The strait
his hope unextinguished - “nursing the unconquerable hope” – in the company
refers to the Strait of Dover between the English Channel and the North sea. The
of nature, he will be able to cling to his hope just as he has been seen
light that ‘gleams and is gone’ in the literal sense, brings into picture a light that’s
“clutching the invoilable ohade” with energy flowing through his being as he
flickering on the French coast. Metaphorically, however, the light is regarded as the
negotiates the wild spaces of the forest, on 1the outer ring of the forest in the
fluctuating faith in God and religion. The Weighty Rallentando with which a series
open area (glade) where no one follows him. May be, if need be, the poet ask
of affirmations occur in the first sentence, however, signifies that God’s dignity
the Gipsy Scholar to come to a sloping fields, on the moonlit fence, just to
cannot be destroyed by the loss of faith. Moonlight creates a sense of melancholy,
freshen up his flowrish the dew as did in the former times (when he was alive
meditation, and despair. The natural scene is amalgamated with a sense of spiritual
and roamed in the company of the gipsy) just to freshen up his flowers in the
security established by the words calm, full, fair and tranquil. The cliffs of England,
company of the gipsies) or perhaps listen to the nightingale sing in the valleys.
composed of an eroding limestone, chalk, makes it look bright and huge. The
But never cross your path with ours, and never come in contact with our hectic
concept of eroding furthers the theme of the weakening of faith of human beings.
“feverish” world. Because, pollution of our minds is overwhelming; it gives no
The speaker calls his companion to join him in experiencing the delight that nature
bliss or joy but it will spoil your peace of mind and serenity and rendery our
is. It is a tender appeal to pause and participate as Arnold seeks companionship.
being and life like ours, full of tension, “distraction”, devoid of joy overflowing
The poet could anticipate the shift in human ideology from the Christian tradition
with consciousness or bliss and you will lose your rejoicing self. Your faith and
to the impersonal world of Darwin and other scientists.
hope will become timid and weak and our powers will be lost and our clear and
A beautiful image is evoked as the beach drenched with water drops and blanched
fixed aim will falter and our eternal joyful youth – “glad perennial youth”
with the bright moonlight makes the sand look white. The jarring roar of the
would decline and you will then also like us grow old and finally, like us, die.
pebbles caused by the ebb and flow of the sea creates a striking contrast to the
Then fly our greetings, fly our speech and smiles! pleasant atmosphere described in the first few lines. It produces a depressing,
—As some grave Tyrian trader, from the sea, tragic and undulating appeal. The continuous and endless movements of the waves
Descried at sunrise an emerging prow bring in a deep sense of melancholy- an “eternal note of sadness” in human life.
Lifting the cool-hair’d creepers stealthily, Sophocles long ago
The fringes of a southward-facing brow 235 Heard it on the Ægean, and it brought
Among the Aegean isles; Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
And saw the merry Grecian coaster come, Of human misery; we
Freighted with amber grapes, and Chian wine, Find also in the sound a thought,
Green bursting figs, and tunnies steep’d in brine; Hearing it by this distant northern sea.
And knew the intruders on his ancient home, 240 It is an allusion to the famous tragic poet Sophocles. The despondent and
monotonous sound of the waves reminds him of the despair with which Sophocles
The young light-hearted Masters of the waves; observed the misery and suffering of human beings in life as he heard the
And snatch’d his rudder, and shook out more sail, melancholic sound of the waves of the Aegean Sea. The poet too finds himself
And day and night held on indignantly deeply affected by the tragic aspect of the sea and of human fate. Nobody is free
O’er the blue Midland waters with the gale, from the eternal sufferings that human beings find themselves in. The disordered
Betwixt the Syrtes and soft Sicily, 245 rise and fall of human misery is symbolic to the ebb and flow of the sea waves. The
To where the Atlantic raves sea is an archetypal image invested with the sentiment of divine dignity.
Outside the Western Straits, and unbent sails
There, where down cloudy cliffs, through sheets of foam, The Sea of Faith
Shy traffickers, the dark Iberians come; Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore
And on the beach undid his corded bales. 250 Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
The poet continues his good counsel to the Scholar Gipsy warning him against But now I only hear
coming in contact with the poet’s world, or the Victorians who will ruin his peace of Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
8
 Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear Next, he mentions the windfalls from chestnut trees: having fallen on the ground
And naked shingles of the world. they break open, revealing the reddish brown nut within, looking like fresh fire-
These lines from Dover Beach should not be understood in literal sense because coal. He goes on to mention the finches with their multi-coloured wings.
they have deep symboilic meanings. Arnold invests the Sea with Historical and When he says: “Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls”, he means chestnuts that have fallen
cultural significance. He and his wife, on a honeymoon trip to Dover Beach, a sea down from the tree and which look like burning coals. This vision of Nature flowing
resort on the English channel which divides England (an island) with the rest of from within with radiant colours and life is characteristic of Hopkins in the time of
Europe and France which is across the English Channel appear to be watching the his spiritual formation. Finches’ wing means the wings of a bird that has multi-
scene of the ebbb and flow of the sea in the moonlit night. The sea here is in full coloured wings.
tide. The sight reminds Arnold, the poet, of Faith. Faith that once its earlier times Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;
was also full like the present Sea in the moonlit night. This North Sea in the poem And áll trades, their gear and tackle and trim.
loses its physical dimension and becomes a symbol of Faith pulsated in the hearts In these lines the poet says that but there dappled things created by man, too.
and minds of men like this North Sea in full tide. In other words once in ancient Man divides land into small plots or fields, some being used as folds on enclosures
times, people had Faith, Hope and Charity or the verities of life that governed their for sheep, others lying “fallow” for a time as meadowland, and yet others being
lives. They had fervour and spiritual grace and fulfilment. But the scene is now ploughed to raise crops. Then there are different kinds of industry, with their neat
changing to the present times when people have lost that kind of Faith and are and well-maintained equipment and apparatus.
driven by forces of time, forces of science, forces fo materialism and industrialism.
The people now are full of doubt, depression and distractions and they are not All things counter, original, spáre, strange;
calm and serene. They have become skeptics, or doubting Thomases, or agnostics Whatever is fickle, frecklèd (who knows how?)
or godless. Just as the tide of the Sea ebbs away or recedes, leaving the shore dry With swíft, slów; sweet, sóur; adázzle, dím;
so also the Sea of Faith has now receded leaving the hearts of men dried. Now only In these lines, the poet sums up the general qualities he admires in such dappled
the naked pebbles are strewn on the shore. Arnold who did not have much faith in things. He admires the co-existence of contrary things: he admires their uniqueness
the claims of material prosperity, demcractic expansion and scientific progress here and originality, their rarity which makes them precious, and their oddness which
is in a sombre mood to be contrasted with the occasion of honeymoon that is differentiates each from the others. He likes their very fickleness (that is, their
usually joyful. irregularity in duration), and their freckled or speckled appearance (which implies
an irregularity in pattern). At the same time he asks the metaphysical question:
Ah, love, let us be true “Who knows how?” He means to say that nobody can explain the reason why these
To one another! for the world, which seems things are “freckled”. Some things are swift, others slow; some are sweet, others
To lie before us like a land of dreams, sour; some are exceptionally bright, others lustreless. But nobody knows why such
So various, so beautiful, so new, contrasts exist.
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light, He fathers-forth whose beauty is pást change:
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain; Práise hím.
And we are here as on a darkling plain The poet says that all these things have their origin in God. His beauty is changeless
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, and eternal. Let us praise God who created all dappled things.
Where ignorant armies clash by night. The Poet admits that he has no idea how the world came to be filled with "dappled
The final paragraph opens with an expression of intense despair and sorrow pent things." He can offer no explanation but can only describe and admire. Some
up in the mind of the speaker. Love is invoked as the ultimate solace with a sense religious thinkers would say that nature must be beautiful because it was created
of a certain consolation. According to the poet, in a world that has been tormented by God. Hopkins says that God is praise-worthy because He created such a
by deception, lies, and gloom, love is the ultimate truth. The world seems to be like mysterious and beautiful world. Perhaps there is not a huge distinction between
a deceptive land of dreams which culminates in hopelessness and pain. The reality the two views, except one of attitude. Hopkins seems to have an appreciation of
is contrasted to the appearance and illusion we trust life to be. Life is a cacophony natural diversity for its own sake, in all things great and small, and regardless of
of turmoil in which human beings are swallowed by the ‘darkling plain’ where there their relation to human ends.
is no joy, no love, no faith, no certainty, no harmony and no help. Lovers in their
common suffering require the comfort of constancy as we, as human beings, are Carrion Comfort
more often brought together more by sorrow than by happiness. A kind of Reference: These lines have been taken from “Carrion Comfort” a poem by Gerard
darkness surrounds human destiny as they clash with each other on vague alarms Manley Hopkins,.
with a sense of primitivism and savagery. And the clash is as endless as time and Context: “Carrion Comfort” is a dark poem with a very unpleasant undertone and
tide. Humanity has lost its substance and spirit as they indulge in meaningless acts expresses melancholy, like many of Hopkins major works. The poem is a rejection
of battles and wars, spreading only despair and hopelessness. of despair and represents the poet’s anger towards the almighty for bestowing the
No mere words can express the sheer brilliance with which the Victorian despair on the beings who have been loving and faithful towards him.
poet writes. In capturing the essence of Arnold’s poetry, we need to delve a lot
Explanation……
deeper. However, coming to an end, if you guys liked this article or if you have Not, I'll not, carrion comfort, Despair, not feast on thee;
something to add then do not hesitate to post your views in the comments section. Not untwist — slack they may be — these last strands of man
Stay tuned for more. We wish all the best to all our ICSE and ISC students and In me ór, most weary, cry I can no more. I can;
expect them to perform well on their board exams. Can something, hope, wish day come, not choose not to be.
Hopkins, regarding his fits of depression, decides not to give in to them. He calls his
Pied Beauty deep depression by the capitalized name “Despair,” and he speaks to it. He
Reference: These lines have been taken from “Pied Beauty” a curtal sonnet by describes Despair as “carrion comfort,” saying he will not let his mind concentrate
Gerard Manley Hopkins, got published only in 1918 though written in 1877. on despair, which would be like trying to nourish his soul/mind on foul and
Context: In the poem, the author expresses his gratitude in God for making all the decaying flesh. That, he does not feel, would be a true and lasting comfort — only
beautiful things that we now see in this world and how we should all “praise him”. the inferior comfort of surrender.
The poem focuses on things in nature that have distinct patterning and unusual Further, Hopkins says, he will not untwist the slack last threads of man in himself.
design and compares and contrasts differences or similarities. By that he means he will not take away the last few strands of manly strength he
Explanation…… has in him, even though the thread made from those few strands that remain is
Glory be to God for dappled things— “slack,” is loose and seems weak. So Hopkins is saying he will not give up what little
In the opening line of the poem, Hopkins plays his homage to God for having strength he has left, he will not give in to despair. His comparison of strength to
created “dappled things “in this world. These dappled things are an evidence of frayed thread is based upon the making of thread and yarn and rope by twisting
God’s glory. The poet takes pleasure in the “pied beauty” of Nature – its dappled many strands of fiber together to make the thread or rope strong. But Hopkins says
and variegated appearance. Here the meaning of “dappled things” refers to the he has only a few strands left in his frayed thread, and he will not let those untwist
multi-coloured and spotted things; mottled thing. Actually the word “pied” in the and give up what strength is left to him.
title consists of the same meaning. He adds,
ór, most weary, cry I can no more. I can;
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow; Can something, hope, wish day come, not choose not to be.
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim; Not only will Hopkins not give up his last strands of strength, but he also refuses,
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches' wings; when most wearied, most exhausted by depression, to just give up and cry “I can
In these lines the poet then proceeds to give us examples of Nature’s pied beauty. no more” — I am unable to struggle further. On the contrary, he says, “I can.” He
He first mentions the “skies of couple colour” which he compares to a brindled cow can do something: he can hope, he can wish to the day to come, not only the literal
or a cow on which the brown colour is mixed with streaks of another colour. Then day, but also day used as a metaphor for the light of peace and release as opposed
he mentions the trout swimming around with their rose-coloured skin spotted with to the dark night of his anguished depression. And, very importantly, Hopkins has
black. the option of NOT choosing “not to be.” He is saying he is still free and strong
The meaning of “skies of couple-colour” is the double-coloured sky; the sky when enough to say he will not choose suicide.
it looks double-coloured, while the meaning of “as a brinded cow” means a double- In what follows, we shall see that Hopkins tends to combine his notion of Despair
coloured cow. Here “Brinded” means “streaked”. The comparision of the sky with a with his notion of God. This is a view of his deity similar to that in parts of the “Old
streaked cow is rather odd. When the poet says “For rose-moles all in stipple”, he Testament,” the Hebrew Scriptures, in which, as in the Book of Job, God can not
means the rose coloured markings spotted with black, while trout refers to a kind only help humans, but can also afflict them terribly with suffering and pain.
of fish.

9
 But ah, but O thou terrible, why wouldst thou rude on me see that it is upon this biblical story of a wrestling match with God by night that
Thy wring-world right foot rock? lay a lionlimb against me? scan Hopkins has based his poem. He is saying that “Just as Jacob wrestled with God by
With darksome devouring eyes my bruisèd bones? and fan, night and endured until day, and was blessed, so in my dark struggle with despair I
O in turns of tempest, me heaped there; me frantic to avoid thee and flee? will not give in, because I have really been wrestling with God, and he will bless
Hopkin speaks to Despair/God, whom he visualizes as a terrible, huge lion-beast. me.”
Hopkins asks why God would rudely place and push his world-shaking (“wring- Of course Hopkins is just being poetic here, and it is difficult to say to what extent
world”) right foot upon him, like the huge, heavy, clawed paw of a lion. And why this “kissing the hand that holds the rod” maneuver really brought any comfort to
would God/Despair look at Hopkins’ bruised body (“bones”) with “darksome him. But no doubt in his fits of depression he was willing to grasp at anything.
devouring eyes,” as though he would eat him up? And why would he “fan” (blow
against) Hopkins mental pains like windy storms (“turns of tempest”), while
Hopkins lies (heaped) there, frantic to avoid those mental pains, and wishing to Among School Children
flee, to escape them? Reference: These lines have been taken from “Among School Children” a poem by
There are subtle biblical hints in the background here. The “Lion” image calls to W.B . Yeats, this is a part of his collection of poems, The Tower,
mind Jesus, one of whose titles is “Lion of Judah.” And Hopkins probably had, in the published in 1928.
back of his mind, as it is in the Catholic Douai version of the Bible. Context: In “Among School Children,” Yeats works through feelings of desire
Christians traditionally considered that a prophecy of the suffering of Jesus, and associated with Maud Gonne. The poem takes place in a schoolroom where Yeats
Hopkins likely had it in mind in regard to his own sufferings. But paradoxically, I establishes a dichotomy between the youthfulness of schoolchildren and his own
suspect that also in the background of Hopkins’ “lion” metaphor is biblical. aged, dreamy mindset.
Given his pain, we should not be surprised if Hopkins was feeling both good and
evil oppressing him. God was generally considered one who ultimately brought Explanation……
both good and evil to humans. I walk through the long schoolroom questioning;
Now Hopkins tries to religiously justify his anguish, his own deep depression, to A kind old nun in a white hood replies;
himself. Why does God make him suffer the pains of depression? The children learn to cipher and to sing,
To study reading-books and history,
Why? That my chaff might fly; my grain lie, sheer and clear. To cut and sew, be neat in everything
Nay in all that toil, that coil, since (seems) I kissed the rod, In the best modern way—the children’s eyes
Hand rather, my heart lo! lapped strength, stole joy, would laugh, chéer. In momentary wonder stare upon
About Hopkin’s justification of his own sufferings here by telling himself He suffers A sixty-year-old smiling public man.
That my chaff might fly; my grain lie, sheer and clear. This stanza describes the poet’s visit to a progressive Convent School at Waterford
He is saying that God makes him suffer so that he may be cleaned and purified, just for children between the ages of four to seven years. He visited the school in 1926
as one beats the chaff (seed coverings, etc.) away from stalks of grain after it is as a member of a government committee appointed to investigate the state of Irish
harvested, so that the grain might be “sheer and clear.” Hopkins is using “sheer” education. It was in that capacity that Yeats paid a visit to this school run by the
here in its sense of “pure, unadulterated.” He says God is whipping him with the nuns on the Montessori Method of teaching.
pains of depression just as grain is beaten in threshing, to clean and purify it. The poet says that it was a long visit in which he went the whole length of school,
And what effect does that justification of his own despair have on Hopkins? He from one classroom to another classroom asking all sorts of questions. Going along
says, with him was a kind old nun, in a white hooded dress and providing answers to his
Nay in all that toil, that coil, since (seems) I kissed the rod, questions. In the school Yeats finds the children (all girls in the age-group of 4 to 7
Hand rather, my heart lo! lapped strength, stole joy, would laugh, chéer. years) learning to solve arithmetical problems, to sing, to cut and sew. The students
it means: are also made to read books and histories. They are required to be neat and clean
“No, in all that toil, in all that ‘coil’ [meaning here ‘disturbance/worry/trouble], it in doing everything. The girls are told to do everything in the “best modern way”,
seems that since I ‘kissed the rod,’ or rather the hand holding that rod, see, my which refers to the Montessori Method of teaching which has been recently
heart [mind] has drunk strength [like an animal lapping liquid], has ‘stolen’ [here he introduced in this particular school. There is a surprise in the eyes of the girl-
means ‘cleverly taken’] joy, and would laugh and cheer. students who are gazing with surprise in their eyes at a sixty-year old smiling public
Hopkins is referring to an old expression, to “kiss the hand that holds the rod,” in man (officer).
other words, to be grateful for the punishment that is used to correct one’s I dream of a Ledaean body, bent
behavior. It comes from the days when children would be beaten with a wooden Above a sinking fire, a tale that she
rod, like a willow switch or a stick, when they had “been bad.” “Spare the rod and Told of a harsh reproof, or trivial event
spoil the child” is another old expression from the time when children were That changed some childish day to tragedy—
physically whipped (a time which is not past in some places). Told, and it seemed that our two natures blent
Hopkins is saying, then, that he has changed his attitude toward his depression, Into a sphere from youthful sympathy,
that instead of raging against it or giving up entirely to despair and killing himself, Or else, to alter Plato’s parable,
he has since decided to regard his depression as a purifying punishment from God, Into the yolk and white of the one shell.
a suffering that is actually beneficial to him because it cleanses him, and so he In the stanza, the poet’s thoughts go back to Maud Gonne who was once graceful
metaphorically kisses the hand of God that punishes him (“holds the rod.”) — he is and beautiful like Leda who later became the mother of Helen for whom a ten-year
grateful for his own suffering. War, Trojan War was fought, which is the theme of Homer’s epic Iliad. But Maud
Quite honestly, I doubt that Hopkins really was grateful for his deep sufferings, but Gonne, whom Yeats loved and wanted to marry, has grown old as the poet is a
he had converted to Catholicism and was a Jesuit, and no doubt felt he had no sixty-year old man now. The poet reveals those youthful days when he and she
choice but to either accept his pain as the good will of God, or else to give up and used to have intimate talks. He remembered an incident of her student days which
end his life. So this is Hopkins trying to talk himself into believing that his suffering she told him once. She had been snubbed by a teacher and the snubbing had made
is ultimately good for him, and a sign of God’s love. her miserable: “trivial event that changed some childish day to tragedy.” On
Hopkins tells us that with his attitude changed, he now “would cheer.” And so he learning of this incident, the poet had deeply sympathized with her. Due to their
asks whom he would cheer (or who he would cheer, for those of you who prefer mutual sympathies, their two natures had mingled together. It seemed that he and
getting rid of the old “whom” form): he had become united in a single body or, to change this mode of expression, they
had become united, though retaining their separate identities like the yolk and
Cheer whom though? the hero whose heaven-handling flung me, fóot tród white of an egg.
Me? or me that fought him? O which one? is it each one? That night, that year And thinking of that fit of grief or rage
Of now done darkness I wretch lay wrestling with (my God!) my God. I look upon one child or t’other there
Who does he cheer then? Does he cheer the “hero” (meaning God) whose divine And wonder if she stood so at that age—
actions (“heaven-handling) threw Hopkins down into despair — God, whose foot For even daughters of the swan can share
metaphorically stepped upon, trampled Hopkins? Or does Hopkins cheer himself, Something of every paddler’s heritage—
the “me” that fought against Despair/God? Which one is it? Is it each, both of And had that colour upon cheek or hair,
them? He implies by the last line that he cheers everything together — God, who And thereupon my heart is driven wild:
gave him suffering, Hopkins himself, who refuses to give in to his deep despair, and She stands before me as a living child.
everything that happened on that night, or rather that year of his anguish that is The above lines of the third stanza bring the poet back from his world of
now over (now done darkness), that night when Hopkins (“I wretch”) lay on his bed imagination and past memories to the classroom of the school where he was a
metaphorically wrestling with despair, with his God. visitor. Keeping still in his mind the fit of grief or anger which Maud Gonne felt at
You will note that Hopkins uses repetition for effect, speaking of the time when he, the snubbing by the teacher, the poet now looks upon the faces of children in the
in his wretchedness, lay wrestling with (my God!) my God. classroom one by one. He does so in order to find out if Maud Gonne might have
The “my God!” in parentheses is to be taken as an exclamation of wonder and awe looked like any of these girls at the same age. For his attempt at doing so, the poet
over the fact that in fighting against the suffering of his depression, Hopkins has advances the logic that even the superior ladies like Helen (or Maud) have much in
come to the realization, “My God! I have been wrestling with my God!” So the common with the children of ordinary mortals like the paddlers. Helen was born of
meaning of the first “My God!” is like saying “Good grief!” or “Wow!” — “Wow! I the union of Leda and the Swan (the swan being really Zeus in the guise of a swan
was wrestling with God!” bird). The poet is wonder-struck to imagine that one of the little girls standing
This notion of wrestling with God comes from the story of the patriarch Jacob in before him in the classroom is no other than Maud Gonne as she much had been in
Genesis. In that story, a man comes to Jacob by night and wrestles with him. When her school days.
morning comes, the man asks to be released, but Jacob will not release him until
the man blesses him. Jacob realizes that the man is actually God. Knowing that, we

10
 by mothers are those of living human beings subject to all the excitements and
Her present image floats into the mind— agitations of life. But the images made of marble or bronze also break the hearts of
Did Quattrocento finger fashion it heir worshippers. Sons break the hearts of their mothers by growing aged and
Hollow of cheek as though it drank the wind weak. In this case, it is the change from childhood to old age that breaks hearts. But
And took a mess of shadows for its meat? the stone images break hearts or cause grief and pain to their worshippers because
And I though never of Ledaean kind of a lack of change. The stone images have, after all, no life in them, and the
Had pretty plumage once—enough of that, expressions of their faces are fixed and unchanging. Here the poet addresses the
Better to smile on all that smile, and show images of all kinds of lovers, pious nuns and affectionate mothers to say that all
There is a comfortable kind of old scarecrow. these images represent divine glory. These presences (or images) are regarded by
The stanza four portrays Maud Gonne though, in the earlier stanza, Maud Gonne the poet as self-created mockers of human sentiment.
was imagined by the poet as a little girl standing before him in the school just as Labour is blossoming or dancing where
she must have been in her school days. The body is not bruised to pleasure soul,
The very next moment in the fourth stanza the poet thinks of Maud Gonne as she Nor beauty born out of its own despair,
must be now, in her old age. As the poet visualizes the aged Maud Gonne now, he Nor blear-eyed wisdom out of midnight oil.
thinks of her hollow cheeks. Now she appears so thin that he thinks that she O chestnut tree, great rooted blossomer,
probably lives on the food of winds and shadows. Her appearance in her old age Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole?
reminds him of the portrait of an old woman by some fifteenth-century Italian O body swayed to music, O brightening glance,
painter who had painted her old-age portrait with hollow cheeks. Then the poet How can we know the dancer from the dance?
refers to himself and says that he never possessed the beauty of Leda, but there In this concluding stanza, the poet says that labor turns meaningful when the
certainly was a time when he was young and considered handsome. But now, his opposites are fused into an organity. The opposites are the changing images such as
good looks and youth are no more. However, there is no reason why he should not young girls and young boys and the unchanging images are such as the stone
smile at all those who meet him with a smile. He says he may have the looks of a statues. Both, ‘change’ and ‘lack of change’ mock and torment humanity.
scarecrow, but he must pretend to be comfortable and cheerful. ‘Blossoming’ (flowering) and ‘dancing’ can be seen only in terms of the total
What youthful mother, a shape upon her lap organism. The chestnut tree is neither the leaf, nor the blossom, nor the trunk; it is
Honey of generation had betrayed, the combination of all these. The essence of the chestnut, the “great-rooted
And that must sleep, shriek, struggle to escape blossomer’, is not to be found in any single part of it, its essence is to be found in
As recollection or the drug decide, the trees as a whole. Similarly, we cannot separate the dancing movements of a
Would think her son, did she but see that shape human body from the dancer. The dancer and her dancing movements are not
With sixty or more winters on its head, separable.
A compensation for the pang of his birth,
Or the uncertainty of his setting forth? A Dialogue of Self and Soul
In the earlier stanza, the poet has shown how Maud Gonne and he himself looked Reference: These lines have been taken from “A Dialogue of self and Soul” a poem
in the old age. She has been visualized as an old woman with hollow cheeks looking by W.B.Yeats. written 1927and was first published in the volume The Winding Stair
like a painting of a hollow-cheeked woman painted by a fifteenth-century Italian and Other Poems.
painter. He may have been looking like a scarecrow, wearing loose and worn out Context: The poem was written when Yeats was ill and suffering from a nervous
clothes but smiling. breakdown. He feared that he might die. Yeats recovered from his illness and the
But in this stanza, the poet goes back to the child from an old lady. In the poem is considered to be a celebration of return to life. “a choice of rebirth rather
beginning, the poet gives a picture of a little child behaving in its natural childish than deliverance form birth”. The emphasis is on acceptance of life and love and
manner, sleeping, shrieking or struggling to escape. The poet then proceeds to the theme is developed through a dramatic dialogue between the self and the soul.
paint the picture of the same creature as he would be in his old age with sixty or The soul eventually loses the debate and the life force emerges triumphant in spite
more winters on his head. There is a terrible contrast between the sweet angelic of the bitterness and failures it faces.
child and the old scarecrow. If a young mother were to visualize her little child as
Explanation……
he would be at the age sixty or more, she would begin to wonder whether it was
My Soul. I summon to the winding ancient stair;
worthwhile for her to have undergone all the pain of giving birth to him or all the
Set all your mind upon the steep ascent,
uncertainty of that birth. Thus here the poet dwells upon the curse of old age and Upon the broken, crumbling battlement,
ugly transformation that it brings about to the appearance of a human body. The Upon the breathless starlit air,
contrast between the child and old man has been beautifully done. The child is Upon the star that marks the hidden pole;
supposed to have descended from the kingdom of souls after drinking the draught Fix every wandering thought upon
of oblivion. The same child at sixty or more would look like a scarecrow. That quarter where all thought is done:
Plato thought nature but a spume that plays Who can distinguish darkness from the soul?
Upon a ghostly paradigm of things; In this stanza the poet’s soul invites the poet’s self to ascend the winding ancient
Solider Aristotle played the taws stair of ascesticism. The ascent to the top of the tower is steep and difficult but it is
Upon the bottom of a king of kings; rewarding . The self should set its mind on the breathless starlit air and upon the
World-famous golden-thighed Pythagoras star that marks the hidden pole. It should then concentrate its thoughts upon that
Fingered upon a fiddle-stick or strings quarter wherer all human thoughts is destroyed. The soul in this quarter is
What a star sang and careless Muses heard: indistinguishable from the darkness.
Old clothes upon old sticks to scare a bird.
The Soul calls the reader to the tower of learning where “the star,” the most distant
In the above lines of stanza six, the poet emphasizes the destructive ravages of
part of our universe, “marks the hidden pole.” The soul seems to be talking about
time. The poet has already dealt with the loss of a woman’s beauty that in old has
the contemplation of eternity. On the other hand, the poem itself seems to imply
been imagined with hollow cheeks. He also has dwelt upon a little child growing in
that the soul’s goal is so vague as to be virtually unknowable. “Thought,” as
course of time, into an aged man, a transition which would fill any mother’s heart
represented by the tower, cannot distinguish “darkness from the soul.”
with dismay and despair.
My Self. The consecrated blade upon my knees
Here the poet proceeds to speak of some great philosophers of the world. He
Is Sato's ancient blade, still as it was,
begins with Plato’s view of nature with reference to his theory of ghostly forms. Still razor-keen, still like a looking-glass
Then he talks about Aristotle’s Cosmology. A king of kings is Aristotle’s Prime Unspotted by the centuries;
Mover or God, the taws or marbles would be the concentric spheres, which That flowering, silken, old embroidery, torn
constituted the world and to which the Prime Mover was believed to give impetus From some court-lady's dress and round
or movements. The reference is playful and ironic and also exact in saying that the The wooden scabbard bound and wound,
taws or celestial spheres were placed against the bottom of the Prime Mover since Can, tattered, still protect, faded adorn.
he has turned away from all Nature and wholly engaged in eternal thought about In this stanza the poet’s self responds to the soul by pointing to the sacred sword
Himself. The poet then proceeds to refer to philosopher Pythagoras who believed on its knees. The sword presented to the self by Sato is sill sharp and spotless, even
in the music of the spheres. Briefly put, Plato located reality in unnatural ghostly though it is centuries old. Its wooden scabbard is covered by a silk cloth which is
forms; Aristotle located it in Nature, and Pythagoras discovered it in art. But what richly embroidered with flowers. This cloth must have been torn from some
is the net result in each case? In his old age, each one of these philosophers became fashionable court-lady’s dress. Though it is faded and tattered, it is capable of
a scarecrow. Thus this stanza emphasizes the destructive ravages of time. protecting and adorning the swords.
Both nuns and mothers worship images, My Soul. Why should the imagination of a man
But those the candles light are not as those Long past his prime remember things that are
That animate a mother’s reveries, Emblematical of love and war?
But keep a marble or a bronze repose. Think of ancestral night that can,
And yet they too break hearts—O Presences If but imagination scorn the earth
That passion, piety or affection knows, And intellect its wandering
And that all heavenly glory symbolise— To this and that and t'other thing,
O self-born mockers of man’s enterprise; Deliver from the crime of death and birth.
The seventh stanza of the poem establishes similarity between nuns and mothers, The soul argues that since the self is no longer young and “long past his prime”, the
as both break hearts. Nuns worship the images of saints, Virgin Mary and Christ. latter should not remember things regarding love and war. The self should
Mothers worship their children. The images in a church are marble or bronze contemplate on ancestral night (ascenticism) that alone can relieve it from the
images which wear an expression of peace and tranquility. The images worshipped incressant cycle of death and birth. For his, the self would have to scorn the life and
11
activities on earth and discipline its intellect from wandering among earthly our job? How can we escape the hurtful image that malicious acquaintances project
thoughts. onto us at different times of life?
In This stanza, Japanese Swords wrapped in silk seem to be symbols of war and I am content to live it all again
love. The sword can stand for the blood that has been spilled, while the dress And yet again, if it be life to pitch
seems to have been given to the samurai out of love. The sword also seems to Into the frog-spawn of a blind man's ditch,
represent self-discovery, “a looking glass,” where man discovers his penchant for A blind man battering blind men;
violence. The silken embroidery represents art, one thing many romanticists felt Or into that most fecund ditch of all,
transcended time. The folly that man does
Soul argues that these are foolish symbols, and that if imagination would just Or must suffer, if he woos
“scorn the earth” (perhaps, instead, contemplate how many angels can dance on A proud woman not kindred of his soul.
the head of a pin or meditate on its navel) and intellect would quit wandering from In this stanza, the self declares that he is content to live it all again, even if living
topic to topic, then together they could deliver us from the “crime of death and involves diving into a ditch where frogs breed. No doubt, the self has committed
birth,” suggesting a Buddhist-like escape from the cycle of eternal rebirth. the worst folly of loving a proud woman, who was not sympathetic to him, and he
My Self. Montashigi, third of his family, fashioned it has suffered considerably, he is determined to live all over once more.
Five hundred years ago, about it lie The power of the poem, of course, also comes from the power of the description,
Flowers from I know not what embroidery not the mere intellectual argument. Lines like ... if it be life to pitch/ Into the frog-
Heart's purple-and all these I set spawn of a blind man's ditch, / A blind man battering blind men” are the kinds of
For emblems of the day against the tower lines that can stay with you for years. Equally amazing is how these lines can be
Emblematical of the night, transformed into the optimistic lines that the poem ends with: “We must laugh and
And claim as by a soldier's right we must sing, / We are blest by everything, / Everything we look upon is blest.”
A charter to commit the crime once more. Yeats must have been blessed by the blarney stone to compose lines this
In this stanza, the self tells the soul that the sword lying on his knees was fashioned magnificent.
by Montashigi some 500 years ago. The embroidered purple coloured flowers I am content to follow to its source
which cover the sword are symbolic of day and life while the tower, to which the Every event in action, or in thought;
soul is inviting them, represents night and death. The self while rejecting the tower, Measure the lot to forgive myself the lot!
claims that he has a right to chose the sword and commit the crime of death and When such as I cast out remorse
birth once more. So great a sweetness flows into the breast
Self sets purple flowers the color of the heart and the sword, with its implied blood, We must laugh and we must sing,
against the darkness that the tower represents. Passion, in and of itself, Yeats We are blest by everything,
seems to suggest can make life meaningful. We shouldn’t try to avoid life and Everything we look upon is blest.
death; we should live it passionately. In this stanza, the self is prepared to follow every event in action or in thought to
My Soul. Such fullness in that quarter overflows its source. His life has been full of sorrow but he is ready to forget his sufferings and
And falls into the basin of the mind live once again. The self knows that once he casts out his sorrow, he would be
That man is stricken deaf and dumb and blind, flooded with a “sweetness”. This sweetness would provide him wisdom and an
For intellect no longer knows Is from the Ought, or Knower from the insight. Artists who experience this insight must laugh and sing as they consider
Known— themselves blessed and everything they look upon is blessed.
That is to say, ascends to Heaven; we can conclude from this poem that a person has matured,self-actualization is
Only the dead can be forgiven; obtained. For example, in this poem Yeats says " I am content to follow to its
But when I think of that my tongue's a stone. source every event in action or in though; measure the lot; forgive myself the lot!"
In this stanza, the soul replies that contemplation of the “ancestral night” brings
many rewards. Man’s mind is blessed with a fullness or plentitude, the senses are Byzantium
everwhelmed with wisdom. The intellect no longer separates or distinguishes ‘is’ Reference: These lines have been taken from “Byzantium” a poem by W.B.Yeats.
from ‘ought’, ‘knower’ From ‘known’ and realizes that all are one. In fact it ascends Context: Yeats’ “Byzantium’ is a companion-piece to “Sailing to Byzantium.”
to heaven. However, it is only the dead who are forgiven and who can attain this Byzantium reminds one of the Hellenistic city of Byzantium renowned for its
condition. Thee very thought of such wisdom makes the soul speechless, as if its architectural splendour. city of Byzantium stands as the backdrop to all its violent
tongue had become a stone. contrasts, the poet indulges in the exploration of death and the wisdom of the past.
Soul finally argues that when intellect and imagination are focused on philosophy The mosaics depict the spiritual experience stabilised by the knowledge and
that intellect no longer knows Is from Ought or Knower from Known and that is like technique of the artist that ignite the flame of artistic creation.
ascending to Heaven. It’s obvious that Yeats is a Romantic and believes in the Explanation……
power of intuition, not rational arguments. The Emperor’s drunken soldiery are abed;
Night resonance recedes, night-walkers’ song
My Self. A living man is blind and drinks his drop. After great cathedral gong;
What matter if the ditches are impure? A starlit or a moonlit dome disdains
What matter if I live it all once more? All that man is,
Endure that toil of growing up; All mere complexities,
The ignominy of boyhood; the distress The fury and the mire of human veins.
Of boyhood changing into man; At night in the city of Byzantium, “The unpurged images of day recede.” The
The unfinished man and his pain drunken soldiers of the Emperor are asleep, and the song of night-walkers fades
Brought face to face with his own clumsiness; after the great cathedral gong. The “starlit” or “moonlit dome,” the speaker says,
In this stanza, the self admits that a living man is blind to the reality but lives his life disdains all that is human.
to the fullest. Life is as impure as a ditch full of stagnant water. The self is aware As with “Sailing to Byzantium,” the first stanza deals with the animate world that is
that the process of growing up is labourious, boyhood is full of ignominy’ the phase being left behind for an eternal world of fixity. The images here are ‘unpurged.’ The
of change from boyhood to manhood brings distress’ and an unfinished man has to emperor’s drunken men driven by instinct are abed. The cathedral ’gong’ sends the
face humiliation for his own clumsiness, but the self still accepts life and reasserts impulsive nightwalkers out of the scene. A starlit/moonlit dome disparages all that
his right to live. man stands for. The dome is a minuscule metaphor for the larger Byzantium that is
Part II of the poem is spoken entirely by the Self. Luckily. It is a celebration of life a contrast to man with its enduring nature. Man on the other hand is a paradox.
itself, though a rather strange celebration, no doubt, by some people’s standards. The poet uses the oxymoron “mere complexities” to define him, echoing the
No matter how miserable our life has been, the narrator argues, if we follow it to contradictory traits he encompasses. He embodies conflicting emotions: “The fury
its source, measure the lot, and forgive ourselves for our mistakes, we will and the mire of human veins.” The last two lines in the first stanza marks the poet’s
transcend those mistakes and become “blest.” entry into Byzantium as he encounters a shade that is Shade more than man, more
The finished man among his enemies? Image than a shade;
How in the name of Heaven can he escape The speaker hails this “superhuman” image, calling it “death-in-life and life-in-
That defiling and disfigured shape death.” A golden bird sits on a golden tree, which the speaker says is a “miracle”; it
The mirror of malicious eyes sings aloud, and scorns the “common bird or petal / And all complexities of mire or
Casts upon his eyes until at last blood.”
He thinks that shape must be his shape? For Hades’ bobbin bound in mummy-cloth
And what's the good of an escape May unwind the winding path;
If honour find him in the wintry blast? A mouth that has no moisture and no breath
In this stanza, speaker tells the finished man has a number of enemies whose
Breathless mouths may summon;
malicious eyes are like distorting mirrors. They disfigure his shape till he begins to
I hail the superhuman;
feel that the distorted shape is his real figure. The malicious eyes surround him I call it death-in-life and life-in-death.
from all sides but defence of honour and an escape from this calumny would be no
The shade comes across as a walking mummy .This image is twice purged from the
good either. An escape would be possible only through self annihilation or
flames as it appears to the poet. “Hades’ bobbin” according to drafts left by Yeats
temporal death which is as barren and sterile as the cold winter blast.
suggests that it is a spirit. Hades (or Pluto) was the Lord of the Underworld, the
Part of the power of the poem comes from our realization that, we, too, have
realm of the dead. The image of the bobbin suggests how the Lord is about to
suffered most of these indignities. Who hasn’t felt the awkwardness of childhood,
summon the sprits that are about to be freed from the shells of life and wound into
or the fears of becoming a man or woman, and fear of enemies who would have

12
the bobbin of reincarnation. The bobbin also signifies the mummy around which speaker thus decides to travel to Byzantium, and later, to eternity, where age is not
the tape is wound. To recover the dead, the tape has to be unwound. The Bobbin an issue, and he will be able to transcend his physical life.
may be also utilized here as a symbol that unwinds the souls first and restores Explanation……
them to their pure elemental forms. Though this transcorporeal creature is That is no country for old men. The young
animated, it is not living and “has no moisture and no breath.” It stands to hail the In one another’s arms, birds in the trees
breathless purified souls. Like the sages in “Sailing to Byzantium”,that withstand —Those dying generations—at their song,
the purgatory fire, this thing is also superhuman that is not alive, yet full of life. The The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
poet claims: “I call it death-in-life and life-in-death.”
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Miracle, bird or golden handiwork,
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
More miracle than bird or handiwork,
Planted on the star-lit golden bough, Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Can like the cocks of Hades crow, Monuments of unaging intellect.
Or, by the moon embittered, scorn aloud In these lines speaker is complaining "That" country seems to be the one he's
In glory of changeless metal currently living in, or the one he is leaving or has just now left. It's a land of youth
Common bird or petal where all the attention is placed on young lovers and on the animals, birds, and fish
And all complexities of mire or blood. that live exuberantly and then die without any sort of advancement. Old men
The poet sees a sort of miracle. Is it a golden bird or is it something else or is it an aren't commended even if their wisdom is "unageing"--they don't fit into this
unusual bird on starlit golden bough?.The golden bird planted on the golden star-lit country. The country remains for the young of the human world, the animal
golden bough is phenomenal than any other living bird or existing handiwork. It can world(birds) and the vegetative world(trees), the country does remain for the
crow like the cocks of hell, or scorn others birds of petals and all the changes which animal world and the vegetative world, but does not for the aged. The fish, flesh
flesh is heir to The cock of Hades is a fixation, not something ephemeral. Moreover, and fowl command and commend during the summer of their years. Nevertheless,
it possesses the power to summon the refined spirits at it crows at the mark of what is begotten has to untimely die the way that it is born. People caught in the
dawn. The spirits are ’blood-begotten”, they are the purged souls of flesh-and ‘sensual’ frenzy of life relegate human concerns and submit more to impulse and
blood human beings but are not bloody anymore. Hence, the adjective “ blood- instinct. Transfixed in a competitive era, the old are termed as the “ Monuments of
begotten.” The golden bough referred to here, is the transfixed one in the world of unaging intellect “ The young neglect them as their intellects appear to deteriorate.
artifice. However, it also alludes to the Golden Bough of legend, for it was in this An aged man is but a paltry thing,
grove of the Golden Bough that Aeneas embarked upon his descent into Hades. In A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
the immutability of gold, the bird appears superior over the commonplace bird or Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
petals, and “ all complexities of mire or blood.” For every tatter in its mortal dress,
At midnight on the Emperor’s pavement flit Nor is there singing school but studying
Flames that no faggot feeds, nor steel has lit, Monuments of its own magnificence;
Nor storm disturbs, flames begotten of flame, And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
Where blood-begotten spirits come To the holy city of Byzantium.
And all complexities of fury leave, An aged man is a trivial entity in this practical world. Like a tattered coat upon a
Dying into a dance, stick, he comes across as disheveled and of no utility value. He will be overcome
An agony of trance, with decrepitude unless the soul in him asserts itself: applauding himself(clapping)
An agony of flame that cannot singe a sleeve and articulating bliss(singing).Now he is limited to studying the monuments of his
At midnight on the Emperor's pavement appears a fire which is not fed by fuel or
own magnificence. In his youth, he could utilize time fruitfully; however now Time
started by striking a piece of iron against a flint stone. No storm can disturb these has won over him arresting him in old age like a monument. As he is caught in this
flames which are begotten of blood (according to medieval belief) or are self-
objective slow motion where he is accounted as a specimen, there is no other
generating. Here the spirits are purified of all their passions in the flames. There the
alternative but to study himself. Therefore, he resolves to travel to the city of
purgatorial dance of spirit begins and ends in a sort of peace and joy. The spirits
Byzantium where he pines for a life of eternity, where there is no cerebral
thus purified gain eternal peace.
regression or emotional corrosion.
At midnight, the poet declares how the images of flames dart across the Emperor’s
In other words an old man is valuable for his wisdom and his soul, and he should
pavement, though they are not fed by wood or steel, and invulnerable to storms. learn to appreciate the battle scars of life or tatters in his "mortal dress". Still, to
The Emperor referred to here is not the one in the first stanza, but the Emperor
gain this sort of appreciation he'll have to study art, the "monuments of [the soul's]
who hails from Byzantium, the world that consists of transcorporeal creatures that
magnificence". And it's for that purpose that he has has arrived in Byzantium, an
are dead yet kinetic. It refers to the emperor in the poem”Sailing to Byzantium”,
ancient city known for its art and culture. I personally think he's only in Byzantium
and does not pertain to the mortal one. The dance of flames represents the
in his imagination, not simply because Byzantium's not really around anymore.
reincarnation process where “all complexities of fury leave.”The dance“at once
suggests rhythm, balance and harmony.” This flame cannot singe a sleeve because
O sages standing in God’s holy fire
it is immaterial in spite of being real.
Astraddle on the dolphin’s mire and blood, As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Spirit after spirit! The smithies break the flood, Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
The golden smithies of the Emperor! And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Marbles of the dancing floor Consume my heart away; sick with desire
Break bitter furies of complexity, And fastened to a dying animal
Those images that yet It knows not what it is; and gather me
Fresh images beget, . Into the artifice of eternity.
That dolphin-torn, that gong-tormented sea. In eloquent imagery, poet pictures himself as living heart “fastened to a dying
Sprits sit astride on the dolphins with their mire and blood and reach the beach of animal. The poem “The Tower”, holds a similar idea where” decrepit age” has been
Byzantium. The blacksmiths of the emperor impose order on these spirits. The tied up on the poet’s “troubled heart” as a battered kettle at the heel”. The poet in
marbles of the dancing floor break little furies of complexity, and those images that the situations deems himself unfit to render sensual songs. He entreats with the
beget fresh images and also the dolphin torn, that gong tormented sea. sages to consume his heart as he transcends into infinity. His heart appears to be
It was the dolphin that bore the musician Arion safely to the shore according to the sick with insatiable aspiration. It now seems like an alien to himself incompatible
legend. The sea in the poem is at one symbolic of the natural world from which the with his aged body. He implores with them to allow him to cross the threshold of
speaker migrates to Byzantium. The spirit is transported across the “mire and the “artifice of eternity” The term ‘artifice’ connotes by itself something enduring
blood” of ordinary mortal existence. The smithies of Byzantium “break the flood:” and inflexible. The term ‘artifice’ is also significant in the context that the brilliantly
they impose order and control upon the world of life with dexterity, to convert it to integrated Byzantine art greatly appealed to the poet. The sage enabling this
a transreal fixation. ‘Marble’ again connotes architectural splendor. They break transformation appear to be standing in a golden mosaic wall ,as they stand in
down life characterized by “bitter furies of complexity:” emotions at their rawest God’s holy fire .The sages by themselves function as symbols of perpetuity. Also the
form. As the process of reincarnation takes place, images beget fresher images. The poet tells us regarding the city of Byzantium, in the record of history, never was
gong of “gong-tormented” signifies religion (the cathedral gong in the first history, religious, aesthetic and practical life merged into one. ‘Pern‘, implies to
stanza)that temporarily strikes a chord in the mortal souls of their ephemeral change one’s opinions for some ulterior object. Here, it refers to giving up the
existence. The sea is “dolphin-torn” as the dolphin tears the sea apart as it renders practical considerations of life for something extraneous that revolves him in the
ephemeral human existence into Eternal Art. spiral column of infinity. Hence, the phrase ”perne in a gyre”. In “The Second
Coming”, the falcon in the gyre emblematizes the collapse of the natural world over
Sailing to Byzantium time.
Reference: These lines have been taken from “Sailing to Byzantium” a poem by Once out of nature I shall never take
W.B.Yeats, published in the collection The Tower (1928). My bodily form from any natural thing,
Context: the poem is allegorical. It tells the story of a man who is travelling to a But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
new country. While the speaker does take an actual journey to Byzantium, the Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
reader can interpret this journey as a metaphorical one, perhaps representing the To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
journey of the artist. In the poem, the speaker feels the country in which he resides Or set upon a golden bough to sing
is no place for the old—it is only welcoming to the young and promising. The To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

13
In this Stanza it seemed like the speaker was in Byzantium, talking to the mosaics, Section IV: "Death by Water"
but now it seems like it was all in his imagination, because he is still not where he’d The shortest section of the poem, "Death by Water" describes a man, Phlebas the Phoenician,
like to be. More than just being dissatisfied with his own weak body, he has who has died, apparently by drowning. In death he has forgotten his worldly cares as the
decided that if he ever has another form, he'll want to be something finely crafted creatures of the sea have picked his body apart. The narrator asks his reader to consider Phlebas
and recall his or her own mortality.
and unnatural.
Section V: "What the Thunder Said"
Yeats always preferred the artificial over the natural. In “The Lover Tells of the Rose
The final section of The Waste Land is dramatic in both its imagery and its events. The first half of
in His Heart”, the speaker expresses a longing to re-make the world in a casket of the section builds to an apocalyptic climax, as suffering people become "hooded hordes
gold” and thereby arrest it in its immaculate beauty minus all natural swarming" and the "unreal" cities of Jerusalem, Athens, Alexandria, Vienna, and London are
imperfections, or his glorification of the golden bird. Nevertheless, the poet does destroyed, rebuilt, and destroyed again. A decaying chapel is described, which suggests the
not intend to limit himself to physical constructs. He is rather pre-occupied with chapel in the legend of the Holy Grail. Atop the chapel, a cock crows, and the rains come,
abstract phenomena like intellectual stagnation, refurnishing the soul, emotional relieving the drought and bringing life back to the land. Curiously, no heroic figure has appeared
to claim the Grail; the renewal has come seemingly at random, gratuitously.
coherence ,rational inflexibility .etc. As with “Sailing to Byzantium’, Karl Parker
The scene then shifts to the Ganges, half a world away from Europe, where thunder rumbles.
asserts that the theme of the poem is “the perfection of the human soul in a city of Eliot draws on the traditional interpretation of "what the thunder says," as taken from the
perfect and eternal art.” Upanishads (Hindu fables). According to these fables, the thunder "gives," "sympathizes," and
"controls" through its "speech"; Eliot launches into a meditation on each of these aspects of the
thunder's power. The meditations seem to bring about some sort of reconciliation, as a Fisher
The Waste Land King-type figure is shown sitting on the shore preparing to put his lands in order, a sign of his
Reference: These lines have been taken from “The Waste Land” Dramatic imminent death or at least abdication. The poem ends with a series of disparate fragments from
Monologue by T.S Eliot, one of the most important Modernist texts to date. a children's song, from Dante, and from Elizabethan drama, leading up to a final chant of "Shantih
Context: T. S. Eliot’s landmark modernist poem The Waste Land was published in shantih shantih"--the traditional ending to an Upanishad. Eliot, in his notes to the poem,
translates this chant as "the peace which passeth understanding," the expression of ultimate
1922. Divided into five sections, the poem explores life in London in the aftermath resignation.
of the First World War, although its various landscapes include the desert and the
ocean as well as the bustling metropolis. The poem is notable for its unusual style,
Explanation…… i. { The Burial of the Dead }
which fuses different poetic forms and traditions. Eliot also alludes to numerous
works of literature including the Bible, Shakespeare, St Augustine, Hindu and April is the cruellest month, breeding
Buddhist sacred texts, as well as French poetry, Wagnerian opera, and Arthurian Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
legend surrounding the Holy Grail. But the poem is also strikingly modern in its Memory and desire, stirring
references to jazz music, gramophones, motorcars, typists and tinned food. Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Section I: "The Burial of the Dead" Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
The first section of The Waste Land takes its title from a line in the Anglican burial service. It is
made up of four vignettes, each seemingly from the perspective of a different speaker. The first is
A little life with dried tubers.
an autobiographical snippet from the childhood of an aristocratic woman, in which she recalls First a little introduction into the times when the poem was conceptualized. The
sledding and claims that she is German, not Russian (this would be important if the woman is Great War (WW I) has just ended and it has literally shaken the core of Europe and
meant to be a member of the recently defeated Austrian imperial family). The woman mixes a the modern man's faith that continued advancement (primarily science driven)
meditation on the seasons with remarks on the barren state of her current existence ("I read, would improve the society and rid of it's all ills. But the confusion (moral & political)
much of the night, and go south in the winter"). The second section is a prophetic, apocalyptic
before the onset of war coupled with incoherence of voices (in favor of
invitation to journey into a desert waste, where the speaker will show the reader "something
different from either / Your shadow at morning striding behind you / Or your shadow at evening race/nation/class) lead to an individual crisis of identity amplified by the world
rising to meet you; / [He] will show you fear in a handful of dust" (Evelyn Waugh took the title for gone wrong. It was as we can call it "The Collapse of the Certainties", that
one of his best-known novels from these lines). The almost threatening prophetic tone is mixed tomorrow will be better then today. This crisis, loss of faith and sterility (diseased)
with childhood reminiscences about a "hyacinth girl" and a nihilistic epiphany the speaker has of the times gave rise to canvas that this poem fills. The poem has references and
after an encounter with her. These recollections are filtered through quotations from Wagner's metaphors to the various sources (historical & contemporary) and follows a non
operatic version of Tristan und Isolde, an Arthurian tale of adultery and loss. The third episode in linear method where the speaker, the context, location and time changes abruptly.
this section describes an imaginative tarot reading, in which some of the cards Eliot includes in
the reading are not part of an actual tarot deck. The final episode of the section is the most
Also it makes use of a myth to connect unconnected ideas into a single narrative.
surreal. The speaker walks through a London populated by ghosts of the dead. He confronts a "April is the cruelest month," because it stirs up an effort to reawaken from the
figure with whom he once fought in a battle that seems to conflate the clashes of World War I dead ("stirring/Dull roots with spring rain.") The line suggests Chaucer's Canterbury
with the Punic Wars between Rome and Carthage (both futile and excessively destructive wars). Tales, where the coming of spring gets the Canterbury pilgrims off on a jovial trip.
The speaker asks the ghostly figure, Stetson, about the fate of a corpse planted in his garden. The Here, however, the poet sees April as "cruel," mixing "memory" (what might have
episode concludes with a famous line from the preface to Baudelaire's Fleurs du Mal (an been but is gone) with "desire" (a glimmer of hope), in a time when such hope has
important collection of Symbolist poetry), accusing the reader of sharing in the poet's sins.
been set aside. Eliot will mix references to ancient religions of death and
Section II: "A Game of Chess"
resurrection (Sumerian, Babylonian, Egyptian, etc.) and references to the sexually
This section takes its title from two plays by the early 17th-century playwright Thomas
Middleton, in one of which the moves in a game of chess denote stages in a seduction. This wounded Fisher King of Arthurian legend, whose wasted land reflected his personal
section focuses on two opposing scenes, one of high society and one of the lower classes. The injury, with modern humans in urban situations that show the decadence of
first half of the section portrays a wealthy, highly groomed woman surrounded by exquisite modern civilization: Baudelaire's Paris and modern London. Then he compares
furnishings. As she waits for a lover, her neurotic thoughts become frantic, meaningless cries. Her these with Dante's Limbo, and shows all as the same.
day culminates with plans for an excursion and a game of chess. The second part of this section The first seven lines of the poem are uttered by the prophet narrator, Tiresias, who
shifts to a London barroom, where two women discuss a third woman. Between the bartender's
was a hermaphroditic "seer" attached to king Oedipus court. He gives us a graphic
repeated calls of "HURRY UP PLEASE IT'S TIME" (the bar is closing for the night) one of the
women recounts a conversation with their friend Lil, whose husband has just been discharged picture of what is apparently a natural waste land scenario, which focuses on the
from the army. She has chided Lil over her failure to get herself some false teeth, telling her that deadness of nature. However, at a deeper level, this picture of a desert landscape
her husband will seek out the company of other women if she doesn't improve her appearance. also refers to a mental and spiritual waste land, which brings only sterile desires
Lil claims that the cause of her ravaged looks is the medication she took to induce an abortion; and futile memories.
having nearly died giving birth to her fifth child, she had refused to have another, but her Eliot, in these opening lines strikes an ironic contrast between the modern waste
husband "won't leave [her] alone." The women leave the bar to a chorus of "good night(s)"
land and that in remote and primitive civilizations. Ancient societies celebrated the
reminiscent of Ophelia's farewell speech in Hamlet.
return of spring through the practices of their vegetation cults with their fertility
Section III: "The Fire Sermon"
The title of this, the longest section of The Waste Land, is taken from a sermon given by Buddha rites and sympathetic magic. These rituals demonstrate the unique harmony that
in which he encourages his followers to give up earthly passion (symbolized by fire) and seek then existed between human cultures and the natural environment. But in the 20th
freedom from earthly things. A turn away from the earthly does indeed take place in this section, century waste land, April is not the kindest but "the cruelest month," as it merely
as a series of increasingly debased sexual encounters concludes with a river-song and a religious breeds "Lilacs out of the dead land." It stirs "memory and desire to no fruitful
incantation. The section opens with a desolate riverside scene: Rats and garbage surround the purpose, apparently. There is no quickening of the human spirit. Sex here becomes
speaker, who is fishing and "musing on the king my brother's wreck." The river-song begins in this
sterile, breeding not fulfillment in life but mere disgust and vague apprehensions.
section, with the refrain from Spenser's Prothalamion: "Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my
song." A snippet from a vulgar soldier's ballad follows, then a reference back to Philomela (see Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee
the previous section). The speaker is then propositioned by Mr. Eugenides, the one-eyed With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade,
merchant of Madame Sosostris's tarot pack. Eugenides invites the speaker to go with him to a And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten,
hotel known as a meeting place for homosexual trysts. And drank coffee, and talked for an hour.
The speaker then proclaims himself to be Tiresias, a figure from classical mythology who has both
male and female features ("Old man with wrinkled female breasts") and is blind but can "see" Bin gar keine Russin, stamm’ aus Litauen, echt deutsch.
into the future. Tiresias/the speaker observes a young typist, at home for tea, who awaits her And when we were children, staying at the arch-duke’s,
lover, a dull and slightly arrogant clerk. The woman allows the clerk to have his way with her, and My cousin’s, he took me out on a sled,
he leaves victorious. Tiresias, who has "foresuffered all," watches the whole thing. After her And I was frightened. He said, Marie,
lover's departure, the typist thinks only that she's glad the encounter is done and over.
A brief interlude begins the river-song in earnest. First, a fisherman's bar is described, then a Marie, hold on tight. And down we went.
beautiful church interior, then the Thames itself. These are among the few moments of In the mountains, there you feel free.
tranquility in the poem, and they seem to represent some sort of simpler alternative. The I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.
Thames-daughters, borrowed from Spenser's poem, chime in with a nonsense chorus ("Weialala The Starnbergersee is a lake near Munich; the Hofgarten is a small public park in
leia / Wallala leialala"). The scene shifts again, to Queen Elizabeth I in an amorous encounter
Munich. "Bin gar keine Russin, stamm' aus Litauen, echt deutsch." The woman says,
with the Earl of Leicester. The queen seems unmoved by her lover's declarations, and she thinks
only of her "people humble people who expect / Nothing." The section then comes to an abrupt "I am not Russian at all; I come from Lithuania, a true German." The line suggests
end with a few lines from St. Augustine's Confessions and a vague reference to the Buddha's Fire the woman can identify herself racially, and socially, but not spiritually. In her
Sermon ("burning"). memory of going sledding at the "archduke's" (which suggests the Archduke Franz

14
Ferdinand, over whose death World War I started), we have an image evocative of It has been suggested that hyacinths are phallus-shaped flowers, hence symbols of
the privileged class before the war; she seemed to have hopeas a child, but now the regenerative power of sex. The girl stands like a fertility goddess, but the man's
she reads at night and travels south in the winter, suggesting an avoidance of the feeling is like death, and the moment passes. Regeneration is missing in this land of
rebirth process, which requires a season of death under the snow. The woman the dead.
appears to have been Countess Marie Larisch, who published her autobiography
My Past in London in 1913; Eliot apparently knew her personally.
Oed’ und leer das Meer.
There is a dramatic change of tone and tempo here. These lines mark an abrupt From Act III of Tristan and Isolde: Tristan lies dying, waiting for Isolde to return to
transition from the slow pace and solemn mood of the opening lines, which Tiresias him from Cornwall, but a shepherd, watching for the sail, reports: "Waste and
- the narrator seems to intone as a sort of interior monologue or soliloquy. In the empty is the sea."
11 lines, the speaker seems to have changed and we, apparently, hear the Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyante,
narration of countess Marie Larisch about her childhood memories and present life. Had a bad cold, nevertheless
This passage of her reminiscences throws light upon her early emotional Is known to be the wisest woman in Europe,
experiences, her wanderings through Europe as a political refugee from her native The stanza starts with the narrator seeking the help of a famous oracle Madame
Lithuania and her own loss of identity resulting from her life as an ex - royal exile. Sosostris to seek redemption. But here also the attempt to see enlightenment are
This section creates a picture of an emotional waste land in the lives of aristocratic ultimately fooled by a stagecraft of obscure prophecy. The oracle picks up a series
women like countess Marie who suffered great physical hardships and of tarot cards (drowned phoenician sailor,a versatile belladonna, man with 3
psychological dislocations as a result of the political turmoil in Europe immediately staves, one eyed merchant, a missing hanged man) and ultimately in the end says
before during and soon after World War I. that narrator should 'fear death by water'. She also has a vision of a mass of people
What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow “walking round in a ring.” Even though the oracle is a fraud, she help sustain a tone
Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man, of fear and unease with the images.
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only Madame Sosostris is a modern prophetess, a Tarot card reader. Her name,
supposedly suggested to Eliot by "Sesostris, the Sorceress of Ecbatana," a name
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
assumed by a character in Aldous Huxley's Crome Yellow, who dresses as a gypsy
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
fortuneteller, also suggests she is only "so-so" at foretelling the future.
And the dry stone no sound of water. Only
There is shadow under this red rock, With a wicked pack of cards. Here, said she,
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock), Is your card, the drowned Phoenician Sailor,
And I will show you something different from either The Tarot cards have four suits that Jessie L. Weston in From Ritual to Romance
Your shadow at morning striding behind you connected with feminine (cup and dish) and masculine (staff and sword) life
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you; symbols. About this passage, Eliot noted: "I am not familiar with the exact
I will show you fear in a handful of dust. constitution of the Tarot pack of cards, from which I have obviously departed to
The tone and the narrator changes in the second stanza where the canvas changes suit my own convenience. The hanged man, a member of the traditional pack, fits
to a stony desert where there is no hope that roots can clutch to and no spirit where my purpose in two ways: because he is associated in my mind with the Hanged God
branches can grow. The land is barren and sterile and nothing grows. The language of Frazer [i.e., Sir James Frazer, who wrote The Golden Bough], and because I
is prophetic and biblical. The heat causes mirages to form (heap of broken images) associate him with the hooded figure in the passage of the disciples to Emmaus in
leading to incoherence and confusing signs. It's a stony rubbish, there is no life giver Part V. The Phoenician Sailor and the Merchant appear later; also the 'crowds of
or the song of life. Instead we see fear of the unknown (shadows in the dark). It people,' and Death by Water is executed in Part IV. The man with Three Staves (an
could also point to the ancient times after the Christ was crucified and the Jews had authentic member of the Tarot pack) I associate, quite arbitrarily, with the Fisher
to flee to the barren desert as a punishment for killing the 'Son of Man'. From the King himself." Critics associate the drowned Phoenician Sailor, Phlebas the
morning to the evening, the sun would be relentless and your shadow will be your Phoenician, and Mr. Eugenides, the Smyrna merchant as different faces of the same
only companion (not even God) and there will be no life-giving rain on the parched character.
land (and soul). A sense of horror accompanies those lines. The poem abruptly (Those are pearls that were his eyes. Look!)
breaks to Wagner's Tristan & Isolde's lines where Tristan is taking Isolde her back to A line from Shakespeare's The Tempest; Ariel is singing to the shipwrecked
Ireland so that she can marry his uncle. It may mean her love that was unrequited Ferdinand about the supposed drowning of Ferdinand's father, Alonso. Ferdinand is
and chances of future possibilities wasted. The spirits will still remain unloved and also associated with Phlebas. Drowning effects a "sea change" and hence implies
restless. The narrator again breaks off, with writing about his small affair with a purification, baptism, and "ego death."
girl (mentioned here as the hyacinth girl) that could not lead to fruition and
consummation. She was in his arms, ready to be loved but that hope lead to Here is Belladonna, the Lady of the Rocks,
nothing. The impotence(physical or emotional) comes across and in its failure the The lady of situations.
narrator becomes more withdrawn. He saw nothing and knew nothing when he "Belladonna" means "beautiful lady"; it is a poison of the nightshade family, but it
saw into his heart. There was only a long drawn silence. The modern love has no was used in early times as a cosmetic, to widen the pupils of the eyes.
power to redeem. The last line of the stanza goes back to Wagner's opera where we "Belladonna," the "Lady of the Rocks, / The lady of situations," is evocative of
see Tristan dying and waiting for Isolde's ship on the horizon. The love has failed. Leonardo Da Vinci's famous painting "The Madonna of the Rocks." Ordinarily, this
The chances of making fertile this sterile wasteland have all been but lost. painting is interpreted as the Virgin Mary, with the rocks representing the Catholic
The voice changes and becomes a voice crying in the wilderness. "Son of man," Church. However, when this lady is referred to as a "lady of situations," it suggests
suggests the Book of Ezekiel, with the prophet observing the dry and hopeless she is a lady of love affairs and similar "situations."
"broken images" of Western Europe after World War I. In this desert, there is no Here is the man with three staves, and here the Wheel,
life-giving water. The reference to the "cricket" recalls the Sibyl in her cage, and And here is the one-eyed merchant, and this card,
Eliot himself referred to Ecclesiastes XII, wherein the preacher is speaking of the
Which is blank, is something he carries on his back,
desolation of old age. The invitation to "Come in under the shadow of this red
Which I am forbidden to see. I do not find
rock" suggests Isaiah XXXII.2 wherein the "righteous king" "shall be . . . as rivers of
water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land." "Fear in a
The Hanged Man. Fear death by water.
"The man with three staves" is the Three of Wands card, which shows a man
handful of dust" suggests the idea, "Dust thou art, and to dust thou shalt return."
looking out at the desert (generally thought to be an omen of good fortune. Eliot
In these lines one can hear again the voice of Tiresias, who depicts a sort of
associated him with the Fisher King of Arthurian legend. The "Wheel" is the Wheel
spiritual waste land. The tone here is reminiscent of old biblical prophets littering
of Fortune card, suggestive of the eternal changes of fortune in each life; this image
their somber prophecies. It portrays an agonized world filled with "stony rubbish,"
was frequently found on the walls of medieval churches. "The one-eyed Merchant"
where "the sun beats" mercilessly down so that "the dead trees give no shelter"
suggests the character is in profile (like a "one-eyed Jack") and is usually seen as
and the shrill cry of the cricket brings "no relief." In this desolate scenario "the dry
another face of Mr. Eugenides. I am told that early Tarot decks often contained
stone" gives "no sound of water." (Unlike in biblical times, when Moses could
blank cards. M. H. Abrams, et al., in the Norton Anthology of English Literature,
procure water from rocks using his "divining" rod and thus bring relief to the thirsty
references Weston as having emphasized that Phoenician merchants carried the
Israelites wandering the desert).
mystery cults throughout the Mediterranean, and they suggest this may be what
Frisch weht der Wind
the merchant carries that Mme. Sosostris cannot see. The warning to "Fear death
Der Heimat zu by water," foreshadows the fourth section of the poem. The "crowds of people,
Mein Irisch Kind, walking round in a ring" suggest the dead in Dante's Limbo.
Wo weilest du?
Lines 31-34: Eliot noted that this quatrain was from Wagner's Tristan and Isolde. In I see crowds of people, walking round in a ring.
the opera a sailor remembers a girl he left behind: "Fresh blows the wind to the Thank you. If you see dear Mrs. Equitone,
homeland; my Irish child, where are you waiting?"
Tell her I bring the horoscope myself:
“You gave me hyacinths first a year ago;
One must be so careful these days.
“They called me the hyacinth girl.” The prophetess says goodbye to her client. She mentions "Mrs. Equitone," a name
—Yet when we came back, late, from the Hyacinth garden, suggesting only one note, and the boredom that would come from that
Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not changelessness.
Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither Unreal City,
Living nor dead, and I knew nothing, Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,
Looking into the heart of light, the silence. A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,
I had not thought death had undone so many.
15
 Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled,
And each man fixed his eyes before his feet. The Chair she sat in, like a burnished throne,
Flowed up the hill and down King William Street, Glowed on the marble, where the glass
To where Saint Mary Woolnoth kept the hours Held up by standards wrought with fruited vines
With a dead sound on the final stroke of nine. From which a golden Cupidon peeped out
The last stanza moves to a surreal description of a modern city (London) that is decaying. (Another hid his eyes behind his wing)
The brown fog pervades over it like an evil spirit. A crowd of people move around the Doubled the flames of sevenbranched candelabra
street in mindless synchronization not thinking anything, not going anywhere but Reflecting light upon the table as
just living. Dante's Inferno is quoted here for these people are spiritually dead and blinded
The glitter of her jewels rose to meet it,
by the occupied city life. They lives seemed like a mechanical clockwork each only able to
see nothing beyond there feet and constantly engaged with the hustle-bustle of the From satin cases poured in rich profusion;
modern city life. Life it seemed had moved to the background and with it the human Though the scene ultimately suggests sexual sterility and frustration, it opens with
warmth and self-invigorating vitality of love. Even the sound of the church bell becomes a parallel to the description of Cleopatra's barge of love in Shakespeare's Antony
the sound of the dead. The narrator in this stir sees a old friend(Stetson) that was with and Cleopatra. The woman is preparing for rich, satisfying, Cleopatra-like
him in the Punic Wars. He asks him what happened to the corpse that he planted in his lovemaking. There is a mirror here, held by golden Cupids, too cute for Cleopatra,
garden and has it begin to sprout. Probably the sterile wasteland could only sprout the that doubles the visual experience. The senses are "drowned" with the visual and
dead. In the end, the poet says that the reader must share his sins as well. All cities are olfactory sensations. Eliot noted that the word "laquearia" came from Virgil's
same like London (they are dying) and all wars are same and all men are same. All the Aeneid, with reference to another famous pair of lovers, Dido and Aeneas.
individual faces blur into Stetson. An undefined and formless humanity as the burial The ‘she’ in the first part of this section is Belladonna, the lady of Rocks, the lady of
procession moved across a London bridge. We all will be dead into this infertile dust and situations, represents the agony of all the women in the poem who have been
will not give life.
betrayed by their lovers. It is the ennui born of her husband’s cold and indifferent
Eliot mentioned in his notes that he had often observed the flow of people over
attitude towards her that has poisoned her life, as her name suggests; she does not
London Bridge on their way to work. Here he echoes lines from Baudelaire and
destroy any body. It is she who is wasting herself bit by bit while waiting for a few
Dante to show that the people are slaves of time, moving as in a chain gang.
moments of love, and it is true that because of her sad tragic life she has been
reduced to a lady of situations, to a creature lost in “aimless routine affairs”.
There I saw one I knew, and stopped him, crying: “Stetson! The lady of the Rocks (Belladonna) sat in a royal chair which looked a polished
The name Stetson has been suggested as a meaningless name to give the average
throne. The reflection of the chair could be seen on the marble floor. The looking
businessman he recognizes a non-identifiable quality.
glass was supported by pillars which had the designs of fruits and grapes carved on
them. A golden image of Cupid hung from one of the pillars. Another small image of
“You who were with me in the ships at Mylae! Cupid could be seen peeping out behind the wing of the golden Cupid. The flames
“That corpse you planted last year in your garden, of the seven candles burnings in the chandler, were reflected in the mirror. The
“Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year? double reflection appeared on the shining table while the glitter of the jewels of
“Or has the sudden frost disturbed its bed? the lady which stood in their satin boxes, added to their brilliance.
“Oh keep the Dog far hence, that’s friend to men, In vials of ivory and coloured glass
“Or with his nails he’ll dig it up again! Unstoppered, lurked her strange synthetic perfumes,
Mylae was a battle in the First Punic War (260 B.C.), which Abrams, et al., suggest Unguent, powdered, or liquid—troubled, confused
was like World War I, in that if was fought for economic reasons. The reference to And drowned the sense in odours; stirred by the air
the corpse planted in the garden is evocative of the dying and rising vegetation That freshened from the window, these ascended
gods of Frazer's Golden Bough and Weston's From Ritual to Romance. But
In fattening the prolonged candle-flames,
resurrection would be untimely if the "Dog. . . that's friend to men" should "dig it
Flung their smoke into the laquearia,
up again." This passage creates a feeling of horror, but it also suggests that leaving
the dead buried may be the best course to follow. Attention is drawn to the word Stirring the pattern on the coffered ceiling.
Dog by its being capitalized; "dog" is "god" spelled backward, as many school The bottles of ivory and colored glass were opened and they gave out a strange
children enjoy pointing out, and this suggests that all things are out of sequence. It fragrance of synthetic perfumes. The make up of the lady consisted of creams,
may also be a reference to Sirius, the Dog Star, associated in Egyptian mythology powders and liquids. All these gave out a dizzy fragrance which drowned the sense
with the fertilizing flooding of the Nile. There is also an echo, as Eliot himself in odors’. The fragrance was disturbed by the air which came fresh from the
pointed out, to a line from the Dirge in Webster's White Devil, "But keep the wolf windows, and as it went up it fattened the long-lasting candle flames and turned
far thence, that's foe to men, / For with his nails he'll dig them up again." their smoke towards the ceiling, thereby disturbing the patterns carved therein.
Huge sea-wood fed with copper
“You! hypocrite lecteur!—mon semblable,—mon frère!” Burned green and orange, framed by the coloured stone,
Another reference to Baudelaire, which translates "Hypocrite reader!—my In which sad light a carvéd dolphin swam.
likeness—my brother!" The logs of sea wood along with copper pieces, burnt in the fire place were paneled
by colored stone. The flames appeared green and orange and in the dim light
thereof was seen the carving of a swimming dolphin. The paintings and other works
ii. { A Game of Chess }
of art refer to stories of ancient love and rape. The scenes displayed in her room
The first stanza opens with opulent setting where a wealthy lady sits on a high chair in a
room stocked with all the paraphernalia of the rich society. The room is filled with big pertain to such mythical tales as comment upon her own tragic plight. The scene on
paintings on the walls, perfumes that pervades the room, ivory vials of exotic scents that the paneled ceiling images the banquet given by Dido in honors of Aeneas, her
fill the satin cases. The lady herself is covered with glitter from all the jewels she is lover, who betrayed her. Another scene painted above the mantel tells the story of
wearing. The setting though luxuriant looks artificial and of decay and decadence. The the rape of Philomel whose ‘inviolable voice’ still fills the waste land to whose
spirits are all confused and troubled by the fresh air coming from the open window inhabitants it is only the ‘Jug Jug’ of a bird song.
(metaphor on state of disarray inside due to the incoming fear of the unknown). The whiff Above the antique mantel was displayed
of air flatten the candles that burn and smoke fills the grand room. The setting shows the As though a window gave upon the sylvan scene
lives of the high society who though are free from the grinding of the daily struggle still The change of Philomel, by the barbarous king
face the emotional and sexual collapse due to self absorption. The painting of Philomela,
a character out of Ovid’s Metamorphoses is hung on the wall. Philomela is raped by her
So rudely forced; yet there the nightingale
brother-in-law Tereus, who then cuts her tongue out to keep her quiet. She manages to Filled all the desert with inviolable voice
tell her sister, who helps her avenge herself by murdering the king’s son and feeding him And still she cried, and still the world pursues,
to the king. The sisters are then changed into birds, Philomela into a nightingale. The “Jug Jug” to dirty ears.
story of Philomela brings the lust and cruelty into the foreground. The woman here in the The reference to a "sylvan scene" Eliot said came from Milton's Paradise Lost,
poem is like Philomela (unable to speak) sitting alone on a high pedestal unable to though the perspective was that of Satan. The reference to Philomela comes from
reconcile to her luxurious environs chirping meaningless verses (like a nightingale). Lust Ovid's Metamorphosis, wherein Philomela was raped by the brutal Tereus,
(using Philomela story) is one setting here that showed love not only failed to invigorate husband of her sister Procne. Philomela was turned into a nightingale, where she
but instead broke down into a vicious circle of cruelty and revenge. The wealthy woman is
could sing the song of what had been done. But her song is meaningless in the
also neurotic (maybe by self destructing occupation with the self and materialism) and
waste land: "'Jug Jug' to dirty ears."
pleads her lover to stay with her and talk to her, while the lover is obsessed with nihilistic
It looked as if a window opened upon a sylvan scene of the fate of Philomel so
ideas and thoughts of drowning. Occasionally we see a hint of absolute terror in his
speech. This lack of communication and emotional attachment negates any chances of rudely raped by the barbarous king. Philomel who was transformed into a
love and alleviating the sterility of their lives. What ever little communication happens is a nightingale filled the desert with a sweet music. Even till today she continues to cry
cacophony of mindless babble of the neurotic and frantic couple incapable of shared and still the world listens to her, but her cry has been interpreted as the reaction of
sentiment. In the last lines, the woman plans for what she is going to do the next day (an her rape to the dirty ears of the modern man.
outing, a game of chess) which appears to be a meaningless rote. It signifies the diversion And other withered stumps of time
and distraction that typically masks the routine married life where love has been pushed Were told upon the walls; staring forms
to the boundary. Leaned out, leaning, hushing the room enclosed.
Footsteps shuffled on the stair.
As Abrams, et al., point out, the title refers to a play by Thomas Middleton, which
Under the firelight, under the brush, her hair
leads us to another Middleton play, Women Beware Women, wherein a mother-in-law
Spread out in fiery points
plays chess while her daughter-in-law is seduced. By the end of the section the scene
moves to a bar wherein women discuss abortion. As these critics point out, the section
Glowed into words, then would be savagely still.
suggests "sterility and misuse of sex which help to make up the modern Waste Land.
16
Many other carved figures and decorations dealing with the stories and myths of Again a comment upon and rejection of the mechanized, dull routine life which
the past could be seen hanging on the walls of the drawing room, staring images, does not allow even sound sleep. The first is the hot water bath at ten o’clock.
and carving leaned out from the walls. The room appeared quite hushed and silent. Thereafter he will go to the club in a closed car if it rains. At the club they will play a
Suddenly there was a footstep which indicated that some visitor was about to game of chess. There is a reference pertaining to Middleton’s play entitled Women
enter the drawing room. The lady sitting on that room got a little excited and with Beware Women, where a game of chess is played with the mother-in-law in order
the light of the fire started looking for her brush in order to keep her hair in form. to distract her attention and to enable a lustful Duke to seduce her daughter-in-
She brushed her hair, which are spread out in fiery points indicating her law. The knock upon the door will be a signal that the love-affair should be brought
excitement. to an end. In ‘A Game of Chess’.
“My nerves are bad tonight. Yes, bad. Stay with me. When Lil’s husband got demobbed, I said—
“Speak to me. Why do you never speak. Speak. I didn’t mince my words, I said to her myself,
“What are you thinking of? What thinking? What? HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
“I never know what you are thinking. Think.” Now Albert’s coming back, make yourself a bit smart.
I think we are in rats’ alley He’ll want to know what you done with that money he gave you
Where the dead men lost their bones. To get yourself some teeth. He did, I was there.
“What is that noise?” You have them all out, Lil, and get a nice set,
The wind under the door. He said, I swear, I can’t bear to look at you.
“What is that noise now? What is the wind doing?” And no more can’t I, I said, and think of poor Albert,
Nothing again nothing. He’s been in the army four years, he wants a good time,
“Do And if you don’t give it him, there’s others will, I said.
“You know nothing? Do you see nothing? Do you remember In the second part we are introduced to Lil, aged 31, another wasteland, who has
“Nothing?” prematurely grown old and has lost her physical charm due to poverty and
I remember childbearing. Her story is told, in a pub by one of her friends who knows “very well”
Those are pearls that were his eyes. Lil’s husband, Albert. Now that Albert is coming home, after four years of military
“Are you alive, or not? Is there nothing in your head?” service. She gives ‘practical’ advice to Lil to make herself a bit smart. The money
The woman says she has "bad" nerves—she is asking frantically for Albert gave her for getting a nice set of teeth she spent on pills for abortion. Her
communication. The man's response is not in quotation marks; there is no friend tells her that Albert Who is responsible for her bearing five children? She? If
communication between the two. Eliot noted that the man's answer about "rat's not, why should she be looked down upon by her own man who has ruined her
alley" foreshadows Part III, line 195. It also suggests that death has been reduced to youth and beauty for his pleasure? Lil’s friend, the interlocutor of this part is
the rubbish heap. However, when she asks whether he remembers anything he perhaps herself one who would give Albert ‘a good time’. She feels flattered to tell
replies: "I remember / Those are pearls that were his eyes," referencing the Tarot her friends in the pub that she dined with Albert one Sunday.
reading again. It would appear that the man, though sexually and emotionally Oh is there, she said. Something o’ that, I said.
dead, has undergone some kind of transformation or sea change. Then I’ll know who to thank, she said, and give me a straight look.
Eliot, then gives us an example of emotionally and intellectually degenerated man, HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
who cannot express, what he is thinking. He finds himself in a dilemma situation. If you don’t like it you can get on with it, I said.
He seems to be intellectually and emotionally bankrupt and by remaining in such Others can pick and choose if you can’t.
condition he met only troubles himself, but also the people associated to him. In But if Albert makes off, it won’t be for lack of telling.
the poem, in the lonely chamber of Belladonna comes her husband, she tells him You ought to be ashamed, I said, to look so antique.
that she is feeling nervous and requests him to stay with her, perhaps she fears he (And her only thirty-one.)
will go else where. He does not speak to her-his silence gnaws at her heart; she I can’t help it, she said, pulling a long face,
wants to know what has been occupying his mind; she cries in a bewildered tone. It’s them pills I took, to bring it off, she said.
He does not speak, because he feels, he has nothing significant to speak. He is
(She’s had five already, and nearly died of young George.)
aware of the fact that he is culturally and morally impotent. Tires as looks into his
The chemist said it would be all right, but I’ve never been the same.
mind, which is equally a scene of torture.
There are the words that Belladonna’s husband would have uttered. What a fine
You are a proper fool, I said.
image to explain the death-in-life that they are forced to lead! Belladonna again Well, if Albert won’t leave you alone, there it is, I said,
cries; “You know nothing?... What you get married for if you don’t want children?
Yes, he is incapable of doing all the above mentioned things. He is maimed and his HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
senses are defunct; he cannot see or remember anything. He is neither living nor Well, that Sunday Albert was home, they had a hot gammon,
dead, his mind is quite blank: And they asked me in to dinner, to get the beauty of it hot—
“Are you alive or not? Is there nothing in your head? HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
This has a reference to Ariel’s song in The Tempest where the eyes of the drowned HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
man are converted into pearls. The lover who is mentally exhausted feels that the Thus, we see that Lil’s is a tragedy of perverse sex-relation without love. About the
line he has quoted from The Tempest is meaningless. It is a sort of rag for the waste situation of modern man, who is wandering aimlessly, James Truslow Adams says:
lenders, though in its original context it appears so intelligent, significant and “We are floundering in a morass”
beautiful. The empty and aimless life of a woman belonging to upper and affluent It throws light on the tragedy of Lil who has lost her health and is yet unable to
class, is mentioned here. The lady does not know how to kill her time. She has no keep her husband. It reveals perversion of married life where child-bearing has to
idea of how to use her leisure. Life has become a boring routine. She does not know be controlled and at the same time, the sensual husband is to be prevented from
what to do with herself and with the time at her disposal. She feels that she should mixing with other women. There is again and again the cry of the bar maid asking
break the conventions of society and rush out into the street, as she is not dressed. the clients to hurry up as the bar is about to close. The pub is to close down and the
Her hair is untidy and disheveled. She does not know what she will do tomorrow. clients are bidding farewell to one another.
There is nothing to do in life except following the monotony of routine. The lady
asks her lover what they should do? Both the lover and the lady have no idea of the Goonight Bill. Goonight Lou. Goonight May. Goonight.
meaning and goal of life. The dullness of the lazy aristocratic life breaks her: ‘What Ta ta. Goonight. Goonight.
shall we do tomorrow? What shall we ever do? Her husband has been silent all the Good night, ladies, good night, sweet ladies, good night, good night.
while’. This line is an adaption from the farewell of Ophelia in Hamlet, thereby bringing a
But note of sadness and pathos into the story. These are Ophelia’s last words in Hamlet
O O O O that Shakespeherian Rag— IV, V. She drowns herself, driven mad by her father’s death and by Hamlet’s
It’s so elegant rejection. The line does not serve merely as an ironic contrast. It evokes Ophelia’s
So intelligent anguish and suggests correspondences with the other women in the poem who are
“What shall I do now? What shall I do?” victims. The suffering beneath the coarse surface of Lil’s story is suggested by the
“I shall rush out as I am, and walk the street quotation. Ophelia also recalls the hyacinth girl. There is a note of elegiac pathos in
“With my hair down, so. What shall we do tomorrow? the farewell. Eliot seems to plead that marriage is meant for regulation and
“What shall we ever do?” discipline of sex life and not for sex perversion. It symbolically sums up the tragedy
The hot water at ten. of the married life of Lil and Albert.
And if it rains, a closed car at four.
The scene shifts to a bar, where a woman is telling her conversation with another
And we shall play a game of chess,
woman named Lil. Lil's husband Albert got demobilized after four years in the war,
Pressing lidless eyes and waiting for a knock upon the door. and she was giving Lil advice about making herself more attractive, getting her
The "Shakespeherian Rag" suggests the glory of the Elizabethan period has teeth pulled and getting a nice set, so she'll be sexually attractive to him. Lil has five
degenerated to a tawdry music hall performance. The woman becomes ever more children, and took pills to get an abortion. And the question arose: "What you get
hysterical, ready to rush out with her hair down. The man offers an answer to her married for if you don't want children?" suggesting that sex is only for procreation.
franticness, suggesting mundane ways to protect them from life: "a closed car at They had also invited the speaker to dinner on Sunday for a "hot gammon,"
four. / And we shall play a game of chess." The significance of the chess game was meaning bacon or ham, when Albert was home. Throughout her imparting of this
discussed above in the note on the title of the section. other relationship to the listeners in the bar, the bartender's voice intrudes:
"HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME," with ever more urgency, asking them to clear the bar

17
at closing, but also suggesting time is running out on all these people. People who result.Lines 193-195: "White bodies naked on the low damp ground" suggest the
live meaningless lives, who have never lived, are running out of time. The scene bones of the dead, but they are not "Full fathom five" as they would have been in
ends with lines that echo Ophelia's madness scene in Hamlet: "Good night, ladies, The Tempest.
good night, sweet ladies, good night, good night. White bodies naked on the low damp ground
………. And bones cast in a little low dry garret,
Rattled by the rat’s foot only, year to year.
The second stanza is a conversation that happens between two women in a crowded bar
But at my back from time to time I hear
that is about to close. The women are talking about a certain Lil whose husband is about
to be demobilized from the army and would be returning home. Their talk shows that they The sound of horns and motors, which shall bring
all belong to the working class unlike the high society in the first stanza. The women talk Sweeney to Mrs. Porter in the spring.
about how they chided Lil to mend herself up (get a new set of false teeth) so that when O the moon shone bright on Mrs. Porter
Albert returns he finds her pleasing. The women gossip telling her that Albert would leave And on her daughter
her for some other attractive woman if she does not improve her appearance. Lil replies They wash their feet in soda water
that she is on certain pills that is making her sick (could be pills for abortion). She has Again the poet echoes Marvell, but this time the sound is of horns and motors,
already got five times pregnant, all at the age of 31 and was near dying due to the last bringing Sweeney, Eliot's symbol of a mere sensualist, to Mrs. Porter, a madam, in
pregnancy. She does not want more, but Albert won't leave her alone. All this
the spring, which should be, but is not here, the season of regeneration. Eliot noted
conversation happens in the midst of the frequent calls by the bar owner about "it's time
to close". The two women greet each other and leave. The stanza shows the rushed
also a parody of Day's Parliament of Bees: "When of the sudden, listening, you shall
existence of the working class made evident by the many calls of the bar owner. The poor hear / A noise of horns and hunting, which shall bring / Actaeon to Diana in the
have no culture, but only gossip and trivialities and the drudgery of marriage. The poet spring, / Where all shall see her naked skin . . . " Actaeon was changed into a stag
juxtaposes the high society experiences with the lives of the working class and retorts that and hunted to the death after he saw the goddess Diana bathing. The next song
ultimately it is in the same state. In working class, the love and sexual lives have become lines come from an Australian bawdy ballad. Christ washed the feet of his disciples,
demeaning and the vitality is missing due to the premature aging brought frequent but Mrs. Porter and her daughter wash their feet in soda water, and as the song
abortions and promiscuity. In the richer classes, it has become materialistic and goes, "And so they oughter / To keep them clean." The final line is from Verlaine's
sometimes neurotic. So in both there is no life enhancing sense of joy, no live giving "Parsifal" and translates: "And O those children's voices singing in the dome!"
fertility. Neither high nor working class sexuality is generative. The Fisher King will have Parsifal was a Grail knight who had to wash his feet before entering the Grail
to wait more. Nowhere is the sense of redemption and potency. Everything is sterile. A Chapel.Lines 203-206: The music of the Grail ritual in the previous lines cannot be
Waste Land. sustained, and Philomela's voice breaks in. Philomela had to be raped, but the
people in the waste land passively acquiesce in sexual acts that mean nothing to
iii. { The Fire Sermon } them.
The title of this section is borrowed from the sermon of Buddha wherein he said Et O ces voix d’enfants, chantant dans la coupole!
that the world is on fire, burning with the fire of hatred, with the fire of infatuation, Twit twit twit
with birth, old age and death, sorrow, lamentation and misery, grief and despair. It Jug jug jug jug jug jug
also reminds one of the confessions of St. Augustine wherein he represents lust as
So rudely forc’d.
a burning cauldron. Both in the East and West lust has been condemned as a source
Tereu
of evil, but the spiritually dead, modern humanity knows only lust, and no true
This line refers to the choir of children singing at the foot washing ceremony
love. The section is sermon, but it is a sermon by examples only.
preceding the success of Parsifal’s quest and the lifting of the curse from the Fisher
The river’s tent is broken: the last fingers of leaf
King and his country.
Clutch and sink into the wet bank. The wind But looking at Mrs. Porter and her daughter washing their feet, he is stunned at the
Crosses the brown land, unheard. The nymphs are departed. parody of a pious ritual. He anticipates that Sweeney will rape Mrs. Porter’s
Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song. daughter and Mrs. Porter will be happy because after all, she is a procuress. He
The river bears no empty bottles, sandwich papers, feels that Miss Porter is crying like Philomel-nightingale ‘Twit twit twit Jug jug jug
Silk handkerchiefs, cardboard boxes, cigarette ends jug jug Jug, and Sweeney is chasing her.
Or other testimony of summer nights. The nymphs are departed. Unreal City
And their friends, the loitering heirs of city directors; Under the brown fog of a winter noon
Departed, have left no addresses. Mr. Eugenides, the Smyrna merchant
By the waters of Leman I sat down and wept . . . Unshaven, with a pocket full of currants
Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my song, C.i.f. London: documents at sight,
Sweet Thames, run softly, for I speak not loud or long. Asked me in demotic French
The holiness of the Thames river has come to an end. The last leaves of the autumn To luncheon at the Cannon Street Hotel
season fall on the bank and sink into the water. The wind moves without any Followed by a weekend at the Metropole.
rustle. The nymphs, who used to play on the river bank, have gone away. The poet Again the image moves to the urban waste land, "under the brown fog of a winter
addresses the sweet Thames and requests her to flow softly, till he finishes his noon," where Mr. Eugenides, whose name suggests "eugenics," or breeding for
song. At that time, the river does not carry empty bottles and sandwich papers and improvement of genetic stock, is a Smyrna (Turkish) merchant, rather scruffy, "with
silk handkerchiefs and card-board boxes and cigarette ends or any other remnant a pocket full of currants," echoing the "currents" with which one may experience
of the picnics held on summer nights. The young girls have disappeared as also death by water. He speaks a low form of French. He invites the speaker to
their friends and lovers who are the wandering successors of executives of city participate not in the Grail ritual, but in a perverted sexual experience: "luncheon"
firms who will not come again to the river. and a "weekend at the Metropole" Hotel.
It is winter on the Thames, and the "nymphs" or river deities have departed. The The poet calls London the unreal city because unbelievable things happen in this
line "Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song," is from Edmund Spenser's town. Rape, lust and cheating go on without any hindrance. The poet recalls a
Prothalameon or marriage song; it contrasts fruitful marriage with the abortion in scene in London in the fog of a winter noon when he meets Mr. Eugenie’s, a
part two. It is winter, and there is no debris of summer nights, no litter in the water merchant from Smyrna, who is ugly and unshaven. His pocket is full of samples of
as one might have expected then. The nymphs have departed, as have their friends, currants and business documents. He stays at Cannon street hotel and spends the
all of whom have "left no addresses," suggesting their encounters were one-night week-end at the Monopole hotel. Both the hotels were notorious for sex
stands. The "By the waters of Leman I sat down and wept . . ." passage has layers of perversions including homosexual contacts. The merchant invites the protagonist
meaning; it is another name for Lake Geneva, and suggests the theme of exile, for to lunch. The merchant of today has his eyes on lust and money making.
Eliot was in therapy in Switzerland during some of the writing of The Waste Land. At the violet hour, when the eyes and back
"Leman" is a middle English word meaning "lover," but the passage also echoes Turn upward from the desk, when the human engine waits
Psalm, wherein the Hebrews wept for their captivity in Babylon.
Like a taxi throbbing waiting,
But at my back in a cold blast I hear
I Tiresias, though blind, throbbing between two lives,
The rattle of the bones, and chuckle spread from ear to ear. Eliot now gives another instance of mechanical sex relationship. The girl typist who
A rat crept softly through the vegetation works in the office, rises from the desk in the evening. Her daily routine of
Dragging its slimy belly on the bank drudgery is now over. She is like a human machine, like a throbbing taxi. Tires as,
While I was fishing in the dull canal the protagonist gives us the picture of the typist. He has personal experience of
On a winter evening round behind the gashouse such girls as he has led two lives, as a man and as a woman. The typist gets home,
Musing upon the king my brother’s wreck prepares her tea, cleans dishes and then prepares the dinner. She collects the
And on the king my father’s death before him. clothes drying on cloth line hanging outside the window and she arranges them.
Again the theme of time running out comes in an echo from Andrew Marvell's "To Old man with wrinkled female breasts, can see
His Coy Mistress"; Marvell, however, hears "Time's winged chariot drawing near," At the violet hour, the evening hour that strives
but the poet of the waste land hears "The rattle of bones, and chuckle spread from Homeward, and brings the sailor home from sea,
ear to ear," or in other words, the rattle of a death's head. The rat from Part II now The typist home at teatime, clears her breakfast, lights
makes another nasty appearance, and the image of a man fishing (the Fisher King Her stove, and lays out food in tins.
of Arthurian legend) in the "dull canal" shows that Spenser's river and the sea in Out of the window perilously spread
The Tempest have dwindled. The fisherman "Musing upon the king my brother's
Her drying combinations touched by the sun’s last rays,
wreck / And on the king my father's death before him" suggests The Tempest and
On the divan are piled (at night her bed)
death by water, though in a sea change perhaps the restoration to fertility will
Stockings, slippers, camisoles, and stays.
18
 I Tiresias, old man with wrinkled dugs Queen Elizabeth I and Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester. The reference to the Isle of
Perceived the scene, and foretold the rest— Dogs is a reminder of the Dog in Part I.
I too awaited the expected guest. Elizabeth and Leicester
He, the young man carbuncular, arrives, Beating oars
A small house agent’s clerk, with one bold stare, The stern was formed
One of the low on whom assurance sits A gilded shell
As a silk hat on a Bradford millionaire. Red and gold
The time is now propitious, as he guesses, The brisk swell
The meal is ended, she is bored and tired, Rippled both shores
Endeavours to engage her in caresses Southwest wind
Which still are unreproved, if undesired. Carried down stream
Flushed and decided, he assaults at once; The peal of bells
Exploring hands encounter no defence; White towers
His vanity requires no response, Weialala leia
And makes a welcome of indifference. Wallala leialala
(And I Tiresias have foresuffered all The queen and her lover-the Earl of Leicester are enjoying a pleasure trip on the
Enacted on this same divan or bed; river. This is a scene of love in high society. In this scene the woman is the superior,
I who have sat by Thebes below the wall because she is a queen, whereas love-making at a lower level shows the superiority
of brute male force. This royal love-making is as futile and meaningless as the rape
And walked among the lowest of the dead.)
of poor daughters of the Thames. The poet describes the majestic movements of
Bestows one final patronising kiss,
the royal barge glittering in red and gold as, it moves briskly on the water. It passes
And gropes his way, finding the stairs unlit . . . the towers situated on the river-bank.
The time becomes twilight, and the speaker becomes Tiresias, the blind
The scene now shifts to what happens on the river-bank to the daughters of the
hermaphrodite prophet of Thebes, who watches a typist come home from work,
Thames in the modern world. The first girl who comes from High bury tells the
tidy her flat, and prepare for a meaningless meal and tumble with a "carbuncular"
story of her sex experience. In her boat, she passed through Richmond and Kew. At
young clerk, "One of the low on whom assurance sits /As a silk hat" on a newly
Richmond, she was sexually assaulted by a reveler on the floor of the boat. The
made millionaire. Though the typist doesn't desire him, he manages to caress and
second girl gives a similar story of her sexual experience.
then assault her, and since she doesn't stop him, he completes the act and departs
“Trams and dusty trees.
with a "final patronising kiss," groping his way out on the "unlit" stairs, a metaphor
Highbury bore me. Richmond and Kew
for his murky life. Tiresius says he has experienced all that is enacted on the divan,
for he was both male and then female, and then male again. Tiresius has also been Undid me. By Richmond I raised my knees
to hell, for that is where he was encountered by Odysseus. Supine on the floor of a narrow canoe.”
She turns and looks a moment in the glass, The second girl belongs to Moorgate. She was criminally assaulted by a young man.
He felt repressed and promised that he would behave better. The girl felt ashamed
Hardly aware of her departed lover;
but did not express her displeasure. She kept quite. The third girl belongs to
Her brain allows one half-formed thought to pass:
Moorgate sands. Tires as had been to this place. After the sexual assault, her mind
“Well now that’s done: and I’m glad it’s over.”
was awakened. She could not remember anything. She is compared to broken
When lovely woman stoops to folly and finger-nails of dirty hands. This shows the insignificance of the seduced girl’s life.
Paces about her room again, alone,
The typist, hardly aware that her lover has departed, demonstrates relief that the “My feet are at Moorgate, and my heart
encounter is over. "When lovely woman stoops to folly" is a line from a song sung
Under my feet. After the event
by a character in Oliver Goldsmith's The Vicar of Wakefield, wherein the character
He wept. He promised a ‘new start.’
sings a similar song upon returning to the place where she was seduced. However,
I made no comment. What should I resent?”
that character believed the only way to bring repentance to her lover would be for
her to die; here the typist distracts herself by putting a record on the gramaphone. “On Margate Sands.
She smoothes her hair with automatic hand, I can connect
And puts a record on the gramophone. Nothing with nothing.
“This music crept by me upon the waters” The broken fingernails of dirty hands.
And along the Strand, up Queen Victoria Street. My people humble people who expect
O City city, I can sometimes hear Nothing.”
Beside a public bar in Lower Thames Street, la la
In the next three stanzas, each of the Thames daughters explains how she lost her
The pleasant whining of a mandoline
chastity. The first is aristocratic, the second middle class, and the third is lower
And a clatter and a chatter from within
class.
Where fishmen lounge at noon: where the walls
To Carthage then I came
Of Magnus Martyr hold
Burning burning burning burning
Inexplicable splendour of Ionian white and gold.
O Lord Thou pluckest me out
"The music crept by me on the waters" is yet another line from The Tempest. Here
O Lord Thou pluckest
the music comes from a mandoline being played in a public bar, where people rest
after work, and all in the shadow of the Church of Magnus Martyr in its gold and burning
white Greek splendor. Abrams, et al., suggest this is a moment of pleasure in the As the title of this section suggests, The Fire Sermon refers to the universal flame of
context of true religious values, but it doesn't last. sex which is burning in this world. Buddha’s fire sermon reminds one that the fire
refers to the lust, hatred, and infatuation. The remedy suggested by the Lord
The river sweats
Buddha and St. Augustine for putting out this fire is self-control and moral
Oil and tar
discipline, which tames this strong desire. Eliot believes that the degeneration of
The barges drift
the modern world is due to sex-perversion, and violation of the sanctity of sex and
With the turning tide dignity of woman. Cleanthes Brooks writes:
Red sails “The songs of the three Thames- daughters, as a matter of fact, epitomize this
Wide whole section of the poem. With reference to the quotations from St. Augustine
To leeward, swing on the heavy spar. and Buddha at the end of “The Fire Sermon” Eliot states that the collocation of
The barges wash these two representatives of eastern and western asceticism, as the culmination of
Drifting logs this part of the poem, is not an accident.
Down Greenwich reach St. Augustine wrote, "To Carthage then I came, where a cauldron of unholy love
Past the Isle of Dogs. sang all about my ears." Augustine asked God to make him a saint . . . "but not
Weialala leia yet." But now it was time for repentance. The burning suggests a movement away
Wallala leialala from hell toward Purgatory. It also suggests the funeral pyre of Dido, who died
The poet now gives a picture of the river Thames. The daughters of the Thames from her unholy love when Aeneas left her in Carthage and made his way to Italy.
lament the loss of their chastity and the pollution of water. The song of the first girl Eliot also recalls the fire sermon of the Buddha. He calls on as many myths as
is about the pollution of the river Thames caused by trades and commerce. The possible to keep the poem from being narrowly Christian, in spite of all its Christian
river water is full of oil and tar. As the boats carry goods, they pour their oil on the significance.
surface of the river. The river is dotted with a number of boats. Some barges move
further, carried by the pressure of the wind on their sails. As the boats move, they iv. { Death by Water }
wash the logs and shift them from one bank to another. These boats remind one of It describes a man, Phlebas, the Phoenician, who dies apparently by drowning in
the scenes of the past, when England was ruled by Queen Elizabeth. the sea. He challenges the almighty and he has to face the result. The narrator asks
The song of the Thames daughters begins here; they are roughly equivalent to the his reader to think about Phlebas and recall his or her own mortality. If you go
Rhine maidens of the Wagner's Gotterdammerung; these girls show the shabbiness against the God, or you challenge the God then, the end of your life is like Phlebas.
of their current life in the present, but they hark back to the unattainable of love of Here, we can see the concept of the Christianity. One can never cross their limits or

19
can never go against the almighty. Here, in this part, the symbol of Sea symbolizes If there were water we should stop and drink
Death. As Frye has described in his Archetypal theory that sea symbolizes for the Amongst the rock one cannot stop or think
death. The prime consideration of this short section is to claim ideas of renewal and Sweat is dry and feet are in the sand
regeneration. In this part, Madame Sosostris’s prophecy, “Fear death by water”, If there were only water amongst the rock
becomes true and another thing is the language and from of this part shows the Dead mountain mouth of carious teeth that cannot spit
biblical story which is rich in meaning.
Here one can neither stand nor lie nor sit
Phlebas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead, There is not even silence in the mountains
Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep sea swell But dry sterile thunder without rain
And the profit and loss. There is not even solitude in the mountains
A current under sea They look at one another and sometimes feel doubtful whether they will at all
Picked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell reach the destination. The doubt in the minds of spiritual seekers makes them
He passed the stages of his age and youth proceed further and further in quest of their goal. They pass through insects and
Entering the whirlpool. dry grass but there is no sign of water. They are unable to hear the notes of the
Phlebas the Phoenician, the drowned sailor, is in a stage of decomposition. As a hermit-thrush which is like the sound of dripping water. This lack of water is
synonym for the merchant, he has forgotten everything that he held important, symbol of the drought of the soul.
even his profit and loss statement. Death is not a way into life; it is merely a But red sullen faces sneer and snarl
cessation of sensation. The description of the rising and falling of his body is From doors of mudcracked houses
naturalistic and materialistic, not the death by water of baptism. This section is a If there were water
simple drowning, not a meaningful ego death from which one can return.
And no rock
Gentile or Jew If there were rock
O you who turn the wheel and look to windward, And also water
Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you. And water
In calling upon Gentiles and Jews, Eliot is acknowledging that Christ belongs to
A spring
both. The turn of the wheel is both the ship's wheel and the wheel of fortune,
A pool among the rock
which has brought Phlebas to his "death by water" as predicted in the Tarot
reading. Being handsome and tall is not something you can take with you, any If there were the sound of water only
more than your profit and loss statement. Both the Phoenicians and the Smyrna Not the cicada
merchants had a background in the ancient fertility cults. And perhaps there is also And dry grass singing
here the Greek idea that if one does not get a proper burial, he will not be able to But sound of water over a rock
cross into the land of the dead. Where the hermit-thrush sings in the pine trees
Drip drop drip drop drop drop drop
v. { What the Thunder Said } But there is no water
the title of this part of this poem is taken from the“Upnishad”. Moreover, this last Williamson writes:
part of the poem is more dramatic in both things like, in its imagery as well as in “The search of Part V–for its parts make one journey- leads ultimately to the sacred
events also. A decaying chapel is described, which suggests the chapel in the legend river and its wisdom. Throughout, the illusionary character of the protagonist’s
of the Holy Grail. According to this Hindu fables, the Thunder “gives”, vision increases as his fortune converges. The experience of agony and its doubt
“Sympathizes”, and “controls” through its “speech”. Eliot initiates into a meditation rise out of the physical conditions of this journey through the Waste Land, now the
on each of these aspects of the thunder’s power. In this Final part, three roles are desert scene of Part I which emphasizes the need of water.”
introduced to us- Datta, Dayadhvam and Damyata. Datta means, you must become This journey is continued as the Biblical journey to the village of Emmaus. The
a “Giver”. Do not be so selfish or a person who always expect more and more from opening lines supply the key to the story.
the others. Dayadhvam refers to the thing that you must also become a person Who is the third who walks always beside you?
with having mercy upon the people, and try to be an egoless man. Do not be so When I count, there are only you and I together
pride on you. The third role, Damyata tells us that you must self-control on your But when I look ahead up the white road
passions, ambitions and desires. If your desires, passions and ambitions run amok, There is always another one walking beside you
then, you have to face the result. So you must have self-control on yourself. This journey is continued as the Biblical journey to the village of Emmaus. The
After the torchlight red on sweaty faces opening lines supply the key to the story.
After the frosty silence in the gardens There are two disciples of Christ walking together. Both were doubtful about the
After the agony in stony places truth of the report that the dead Christ had arisen from the grave. One of the
The shouting and the crying disciples feels as if there is a third person with a head covered with hood walking
Prison and palace and reverberation along with them. As he turns to verify, if there is a third person, the hooded figure
Of thunder of spring over distant mountains becomes visible. The third person is Christ himself-duly resurrected- who reveals
This stanza of The Wasteland ties into the concept of Western and Eastern his identity at the end of the journey. Cleanthes Brooks remarks:
traditions and relating to the themes of hope, death and resurrection. The poet “The parallelism between the ‘hooded figure’ who ‘walks always beside you’, and
describes the final scene of the life of Christ-his betrayal and arrest, his trial and his the ‘hooded hordes’ is another instance of the sort of parallelism that is really a
fructification. First there is the march of the crowd and his followers. They took him contrast. In the first case, the figure is indistinct because spiritual; in the second,
to the garden. He was imprisoned and there after the trial began in the palace of the hooded hordes are indistinct because completely unspiritual- they are the
the high priest. The mob feared that Christ might be released and so they did a lot people of the Waste Land”
of shouting against his expected acquittal. Then came the tragic act of Christ’s Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded
fructification which was accompanied by the convulsion of the earth and thunder in I do not know whether a man or a woman
the sky. —But who is that on the other side of you?
He who was living is now dead What is that sound high in the air
We who were living are now dying Murmur of maternal lamentation
With a little patience Who are those hooded hordes swarming
This was the sign of a new birth and the birth of a new religion. Christ is no more Over endless plains, stumbling in cracked earth
but he has left a philosophy and religion which is undying. We who live today are The scene now shifts to Europe. The First World War destroyed a good part of
actually not alive. The Christian faith has declined and as such humanity is dying. Europe. Millions were uprooted and the air was full of cry and lamentation.
Christ died for others, while the modern man is dying without any feeling of regret The roads were full of refugees. The children suffered a great deal. The crowd
or hope. Cleanthes Brooks remarks: marched without any hope and direction. The sound of the cavalcade of refugee
“The poet does not say ‘we who are living’. It was disturbed by the cries of women and the cries of children. Some of them
is we who were living. It is the death-in-life of dropped on the way. Many of them lost their reason and moved here and there like
Dante’s Limbo. Life in the full sense has been mad men. Cities were full of ashes and damaged houses. Many towers and big
lost.” buildings crashed to the ground. The civilization of many modern capitals like
Here is no water but only rock Athens, Vienna and London, was threatened with extinction. This was the havoc
Rock and no water and the sandy road caused by the First World War. Cleanthes Brooks writes:
The road winding above among the mountains “Eliot, as his notes tells us, has particularly connected the description, here with the
Which are mountains of rock without water ‘decay of eastern Europe’. The hordes represent, then, the general waste land of
The poet now describes the journey of the knight to Chapel Perilous. He describes the modern world with a special application to the breakup of Eastern Europe, the
the hardship of the way till he reaches his destination. Water refers to the water of region with which the fertility cults were especially connected and in which today
faith. the traditional values are thoroughly discredited. The cities, Jerusalem, Athens,
The followers of Christ are walking through a dry and stony region towards the Alexandria, Vienna, like the London of the first section of the poem are ‘unreal’,
chapel on distant mountains. Their bodies perspire on account of heat and the dry and for the same reason.”
wind. They only see the broken rocks. Sometimes they hear the sounds of thunder.
But there is no indication of rain.

20
 Ringed by the flat horizon only leaves cried for rain. The dark clouds appeared over the Himalayas in the north.
What is the city over the mountains Williamson writes:
Cracks and reforms and bursts in the violet air “And Ganga (the Ganges) in the Waste Land waits for it. The sacred river, now
Falling towers sunken, was the home of the earliest vegetation myths, and its religious thought is
Jerusalem Athens Alexandria represented here by words from an Upanishad.”
Vienna London DA
Unreal Datta: what have we given?
Eliot noted for these lines Herman Hesse's "A Glimpse into Chaos," which is My friend, blood shaking my heart
translated: "Already half of Europe, already at least half of Eastern Europe, on the The awful daring of a moment’s surrender
way to Chaos, drives drunk in sacred infatuation along the edge of the precipice, Which an age of prudence can never retract
sings drunkenly, as though hymn singing . . . ." The reference to the "murmur of By this, and this only, we have existed
maternal lamentation" suggests the women weeping for Jesus, as they wept for Which is not to be found in our obituaries
Dumuzi, Tammuz, and all the dead gods of antiquity. Cities were coming apart all Or in memories draped by the beneficent spider
over Europe. Or under seals broken by the lean solicitor
A woman drew her long black hair out tight In our empty rooms
And fiddled whisper music on those strings DA
And bats with baby faces in the violet light Dayadhvam: I have heard the key
Whistled, and beat their wings Turn in the door once and turn once only
And crawled head downward down a blackened wall We think of the key, each in his prison
And upside down in air were towers Thinking of the key, each confirms a prison
Tolling reminiscent bells, that kept the hours Only at nightfall, aethereal rumours
And voices singing out of empty cisterns and exhausted wells. Revive for a moment a broken Coriolanus
The poet now describes the scene in the Eastern Europe. The Russian Revolution DA
affected many countries. Nearly half of Europe was in a state of Chaos. The Russian Damyata: The boat responded
upheaval is described through the story of the crazy woman. Gaily, to the hand expert with sail and oar
The woman playing music on her hair and the bats with baby faces crawling
The sea was calm, your heart would have responded
downward on the blackened wall are images of madness and horror. Towers are
Gaily, when invited, beating obedient
turned upside down in this surrealistic landscape, and disembodied voices sing out
of the empty cisterns and wells.
To controlling hands
The poet refers to one of the Hindu Upanishads, where in a period of doubt and
Her black hair flew in the air while the lady played music on the string of her hair.
confusion, men, gods and demons prayed to the creator. God answered their
The fiddle of the black hair is a token of miserable and sad music. The sad spectacle
prayers through a divine thunder, which uttered one word thrice Da, Da, Da. Each
of civilization going to pieces in combined with the horror felt by the knight and his
group gave its own interpretation.
followers as they move towards Chapel Perilous.
S. Radhakrishnan writes:
According to a tradition, the knights had to face many horror to prove their courage
“The parable concludes: ‘This very thing the heavenly voice of thunder repeats, da,
and they had to face terrible vision and hallucinations as for example bats with
da, da that is, control yourselves, give, be compassionate. One should practice this
baby face and towers upside down in the violet light. Cleanthes Brooks writes:
same triad, self control, giving and compassion”
“It is a description of the hour of twilight. Here it indicates the twilight of the
Men said “Da” which means “Data”… “Give” Demons said “Da” which means,
civilization, but it is perhaps something more. Violet is one of the liturgical colors
“Dayadham” which means to “sympathies”, further the gods said “Da” which
of the church. It symbolizes repentance and it is the color of baptism”
means “Damyata” i.e. “control”. According to Eliot, all the three shows the path of
This shows the utter disintegration of modern civilization. Even today the bells ring
salvation for humanity, because man has all the three qualities i.e. human,
in the churches calling the people to prayer but the empty minded audience
demonic and angelic. Eliot calls these three things as the three categorical
reminds us that true faith has departed and religion has been reduced to a mere
imperatives which are necessary for the survival of humanity.
ritual. The lack of the true spirit of faith has made the soul of humanity an empty
When the thunder speaks, it is like the voices of the gods. The words are Sanskrit,
cistern. This ultimately shows that real faith has departed from the Christian
supposedly the oldest of the sacred languages of mankind. Each "Da" is like an
people.
affirmation. The other three words mean give, sympathize, and control. Eliot said
In this decayed hole among the mountains
the meaning of the Thunder is found in the Brihadaranyaka-Upanishad, 5, 1; the
In the faint moonlight, the grass is singing
fable says that gods, men, and demons each in turn asked their father Prajapati,
Over the tumbled graves, about the chapel "Speak to us, O Lord," and to each the voice answered "Da," but each interpreted it
There is the empty chapel, only the wind’s home. a different way. To give refers apparently to alms-giving and the necessity for
It has no windows, and the door swings, generosity. Sympathy comes when one learns compassion, but one must break out
Dry bones can harm no one. of the prison of personal identity. The reference to "a broken Coriolanus" is to a
Only a cock stood on the rooftree character who was a traditional figure of pride. The word control does not mean
Co co rico co co rico control over others but the practicing of self-control and allowing oneself to be
In a flash of lightning. Then a damp gust controlled. Submitting to control also suggests submission to the will of God—"Thy
Bringing rain will be done." The boat responds "gaily" to the expertise of the sailor.
The Grail knight's Chapel Perilous is empty, with a door swinging on its hinges, no I sat upon the shore
windows, and surrounded by "tumbled graves" with dry bones. But suddenly as the Fishing, with the arid plain behind me
lightning flashes, the cock crows, a signal for the departure of evil spirits. The cock Shall I at least set my lands in order?
is said to crow all night at Easter. It may also be a reference to Peter's cock, which London Bridge is falling down falling down falling down
Jesus said would crow as a signal that Peter had denied him three times. The wind Poi s’ascose nel foco che gli affina
picks up and promises the beginning of rain. Quando fiam uti chelidon—O swallow swallow
The broken church in the modern world reminds the poet of the deserted Church Le Prince d’Aquitaine à la tour abolie
towards which the knight and his friends are marching. He has nearly reached the These fragments I have shored against my ruins
journey’s end under the moon light. He sees the dancing grass. The grass seems to
The fisherman on the shore with the arid plain behind him suggests the Fisher King
be singing. This indicates the success of knight as he enters the empty church at the
has moved to the other side of the waste land. He recognizes that the first
top of hill, which is full of wind, coming from the broken windows. There are graves
obligation of his new state is to set his lands in order, or take responsibility for his
out-side but there is no fear of ghosts. The knight feels happy as the cock crows and
own soul, even in the face of disaster ("London Bridge is falling down. . . ."). Eliot
announces the end of the night and the return of the light. The lightening flash
noted that the first quote is a portion of a line from Dante's Purgatorio, wherein
brings with itself a shower of welcome rain to fertilize the thirsty land. The
the Provençal poet Arnaut Daniel says: "Now I pray you, by that virtue which
successful journey of the Knight marks the victory of faith over temptation and
guides you to the summit of the stairway, be mindful in due time of my pain." The
suffering.
next phrase is in Latin, and means: "When shall I be as the swallow?" and comes
Ganga was sunken, and the limp leaves from an anonymous poem that combines a hymn to Venus with a description of
Waited for rain, while the black clouds spring. And the third quote is from a sonnet by Gerard de Nerval and may be
Gathered far distant, over Himavant. translated, "The Prince of Aquitaine in the ruined tower," possibly referring to
The jungle crouched, humped in silence. another of the Tarot cards, the Tower struck by lightning.
Then spoke the thunder Why then Ile fit you. Hieronymo’s mad againe.
"Ganga" is the Ganges River; it is considered to be a holy river by people in India. Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata.
"Himavant" is a peak in the Himalayas. These two references lend universality to Shantih shantih shantih
the experience that is coming. Fragments of poems are like fragments of life and may be all that one has when
The poet now turns from Western Civilization to the civilization of India. In the things seem to be in ruins. In Thomas Kyd's Spanish Tragedy, the character
history of every nation or civilization, there comes a time of a spiritual crisis. The Hieronymo has gone mad because of the murder of his son. When he is asked to
poet has already given the example of the successful march of the knight to the write a court entertainment, he replies, "Why then Ile fit you," and proceeds to
Chapel Perilous. Now he has turned for the river. Ganges has achieved a lower assign parts so that during the play his son's murderers are killed and he has his
water level which only indicated a spiritual decline. The land was hot and dry. The revenge. One way of looking at this last passage is that in the face of chaos, folly or

21
madness may be wisdom. The word "Shantih" means the "peace that passes And seeing that it was a soft October night,
understanding," and is the formal ending to an Upanishad. Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.
Prufrock describes the scene in the evening. There is no movement of the air. The
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock fog is spreading all over the streets. The fog is compared to a cat which rubs its
Reference: These lines have been taken from "The Love Song of J. Alfred back upon the window panes. It contains a lot of smoke which too covers the
Prufrock," often called "the first Modernist poem of T.S Eliot," It was included window panes. The inactivity of the fog symbolizes Prufrock’s own inactivity,
in Prufrock and Other Observations, Eliot's first book of poetry, in 1917. indecision and mental fogginess. It spreads all over. It licks its tongue into the
corners of the evening. The fog spreads widely so as to cover all the things visible in
Context: It’s about a man, J. Alfred Prufrock, who is getting older and who isn’t the evening. The fog hung upon the pools in the drains. It allows the particles of
satisfied with his life so far, but he’s unable to do something about it. And he’s smoke and dust which come from the chimney of the factories, to settle on its
been unable to do something about his life for the xx years that he’s lived because back. The smog missed the terrace the suddenly jumped up in the soft October
he doesn’t dare. We follow him in his round in the city, going to cocktail parties night, curled over the house and stayed there. Prufrock reflects his own mental
with beautiful women. But Prufrock doesn’t make a move. He’s afraid, perhaps of fogginess in not being able to pursue the course of the fog. He does not wish to
failure. Yet he’s painfully aware that he’s missed something, and that there is a take any decision. He easily postpones the issue before him and is in no hurry to
better life somewhere. The poem’s conclusion is sad: Prufrock has heard the make his marriage proposal. This task is as difficult as the committing of murder
mermaids* singing, but he doesn’t think they will sing to him. and creating something new:
Explanation…… And indeed there will be time
S'io credesse che mia riposta fosse For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
A persona che mai tornasse al mondo, Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse. There will be time, there will be time
Ma perciocche giammai di questo fondo To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
Non torno vivo alcun, s' i'odo il vero, There will be time to murder and create,
Senza tema d'infamia ti rispondo. And time for all the works and days of hands
Translation: If I thought my answer were to one who could return to the world, I That lift and drop a question on your plate;
would not reply, but as none ever did return alive from this depth, without fear of Time for you and time for me,
infamy I answer thee. The words are spoken by Count Guido da Montefeltro, a And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
damned soul in the Eighth Circle of Hell in Dante's Divine Comedy(Inferno, Canto27) And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Comment: Eliot opens "The Love Song" with this quotation from Dante's epic Before the taking of a toast and tea.
poem to suggest that Prufrock, like Count Guido, is in hell. But Prufrock is in a hell
on earth—a hell in the form of a modern, impersonal city with smoky skies. The In the room the women come and go
quotation also points out that Prufrock, again like Count Guido, can present his Talking of Michelangelo.
feelings "without fear of infamy." There's no hurry, though, the speaker tells himself. There will be time to decide and
Let us go then, you and I, then to act—time to put on the right face and demeanor to meet people. There will
When the evening is spread out against the sky be time to kill and time to act; in fact, there will be time to do many things. There
Like a patient etherized upon a table; will even be time to think about doing things—time to dream and then revise those
It is a dialogue between two persons but it is not so. When the evening spreads out dreams—before sitting down with a woman to take toast and tea.
in the sky, like a patient under anesthesia on a table, you and he (Prufrock and his The words echo closely the title “work and days”, of the poem by an ancient Greek
beloved) go out together. Prufrock is also like an etherized patient, conscious but writer Hesiod. In this poem the Greek poet has glorified the life of a farmer. The
conscious of nothing. The image is in the manner of a metaphysical conceit, effect is ironical, because a farmer’s hard life of physical labor is in sharp contrast
suggesting the mental vacuity of the speaker. with the life of the neurotic and unmanly Prufrock. We are reminded of the story of
John the Baptist who rejected the love of Salome. She pleased Herod by her
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets, dancing, and as a reward his (of John the Baptist) head was severed and brought to
her on a plate. There will be enough time even for a murder and act of creation, as
The muttering retreats
also for all the daily routine of work, there will also be time to prepare, question
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
and put it on your plate. There will be time for you as well as time for him and yet
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells: enough time for a hundred indecision, a hundred visions and revisions, before
Streets that follow like a tedious argument taking a cup of tea and a toast. In the room women come and go out talking of
Of insidious intent Michelangelo.
Let us walk through some half-deserted streets which provide places of rest, for And indeed there will be time
poor people. In the evening time the people leave the streets and go to their To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”
homes. Prufrock imagines that they are passing through the poorer part of the
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
town. There are cheap hotels where rooms are rented out for each night. There the
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair —
poor pass sleepless nights. They mutter in their sleep. The people who can’t afford
paying for good hotels, spend their nights in cheap hotels, but they do not get (They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”)
adequate rest and sleep. The floors of cheap and dirty restaurant are covered with My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
sawdust. Streets which follow one another are like the never ending argument, My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin —
because the destination is unknown. (They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”)
To lead you to an overwhelming question ... Do I dare
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?” Disturb the universe?
Let us go and make our visit. In a minute there is time
In the room the women come and go For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.
Talking of Michelangelo. Prufrock says there will be time to wonder whether he dares to approach a woman.
This “overwhelming question” refers to his intended proposal to the lady he loves. He feels like turning back. After all, he has a bald spot, thinning hair, and thin arms
He avoids discussing this question. Prufrock does not wish to tell anyone the and legs. Moreover, he has doubts about the acceptability of his clothing. What will
purpose of his visit. Let us go and make a visit. Does he actually make the visit, or people think of him? Does he dare to approach a woman? He will think about it and
he merely imagines the experience? Prufrock speaks of the hotel room. The room make a decision, then reverse the decision.
is the saloon of a fashionable restaurant. At a social gathering in a room, women Prufrock is only to ask a question, but is not prepared to answer it. This shows his
discuss the great Renaissance artist Michelangelo. Prufrock may wonder how they great indecision. He must muster up his courage in order to be able to make his
could possibly be interested in him when they are discussing someone as illustrious proposal. This may take quiet some time. He wants time and opportunity to screw
as Michelango. Michelangelo was a great Italian painter and sculptor of the early his courage up. At the right moment he may lose his courage and simply turn back
16th century. The ladies talk of the painter, but they do not know much about him. and descend the stair. There will be enough time to wonder and ask him, if he has
It is only an artistic pretension. Thus the hypocrisy of modern society is ironically the courage to express his desire. People will observe the bald spot in the middle of
treated. It is a fashion to talk about the paintings of great masters; they discuss the his hair. In spite of his smart and modern dress, namely his morning coats, his stiff
works of this talented Italian painter. collar, his necktie, his pin, people will observe his thin arms and legs. Prufrock is
in short we are in a room with women talking, and they’re discussing very high growing old and even so he is becoming more and more indecisive and timid. He is
subjects, one of which might be God and the creation, Renaissance art and making conscious of his old age.
airplanes. Does this sound like Hell to you? To me, personally, it sounds more like For Prufrock, the proposal is a very important matter and its reception or response
Heaven. But let’s read on, we are curious to know why J. Alfred Prufrock thinks this is as important as a disturbance in the universe. On account of his ever-changing
is Hell. mind, his decisions are reversed in a minute and therefore it is much better
The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes, postponing the making of a decision. He has known all the decisions and revision
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes, and has also known what happens in the evenings, mornings and afternoons. He
admits that his life is full of trivialities.
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Critical Appriciation:
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains, These lines depict a man with an overwhelming fear and insecurity about his situation, as
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys, Prufrock delivers a clue to this in each line. He convinces himself that there is time, so there is no
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap, need to rush into action. He asks if he can dare, and then has second thoughts and plans to "turn

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back" and leave the party. He is concerned with a bald spot and what people will say about it. He manner, worthy of any social setting, and probably enough to garner the interest of
desires something very much, yet he is afraid to act. Eliot is not content with simply portraying a the women:
man who is insecure, instead, he uses the character’s own recollections and melancholy to
deepen his meaning, "For I have known them all already, known them all— / Have known the
Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets
evenings, mornings, afternoons." Eliot shows further how the speaker convinces himself not to And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
act, although it is unclear in this section of the poem what he wishes not to act on. The speaker is Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows? ...
tormented by his neurotic insecurity, and he describes it in more detail in the successive lines. I should have been a pair of ragged claws
If J. Alfred Prufrock was actually able to identify and articulate all of the feelings he demonstrates
in the poem, he would most likely have been more confident and secure in himself. He then
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.
would not feel as insecure and would not need to write the poem. This is the paradox which is Will Prufrock tell a woman that he came through narrow streets, where lonely men
explained by the epigraph. (like Prufrock) lean out of windows watching life go by but not taking part in it? He
The epigraph from Inferno is what Eliot uses to show the reader that the poem is spoken, not as should have been nothing more than crab claws in the depths of the silent ocean.
Prufrock would, but as what Prufrock would say if he were come back from another place, like Prufrock wishes to tell his lady that he has seen lonely men leaning out of the
Dante. This is a place where he could understand his insecurity and relate it in poetic form. While windows of their houses and smoking their pipes in the evening. This would
the speaker from Inferno has come back from Hades, Eliot does not make it clear where Prufrock
emphasis his own loneliness and need for company. He does not like to take a
is speaking from, but he is distanced, nevertheless, from the scene. The melancholy reflections in
the poem are more like what an aged man would say in reflection of his youth, yet the speaker is decision. He wants to delay and to postpone his declaration. He wishes to be some
apparently a young person who goes to academic tea parties with women who speak of see-fish with rough claws moving quickly across the floors of silent seas.
Michelangelo. He is uncomfortable because he wishes to talk to them. From this stanza we understand that Prufrock is an expert at lonely walks through
For I have known them all already, known them all: the city, and he discovers there are plenty of other lonely men around.
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons, “I should have been a pair of ragged claws” Here’s a reference to Shakespeare,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons; to Hamlet’s line when he says Polonius, whom he hates, is an old man walking
I know the voices dying with a dying fall backwards like a crab. Hamlet is mentioned later in the poem. In this image,
Beneath the music from a farther room. Prufrock is comparing himself to a crab (could also be a lobster, but in English you
So how should I presume? can call an old man an old crab, so crab is a better image). You could make some
Prufrock realizes that the people here are the same as the people he has met many interesting comparisons between them: Prufrock is protective and defensive of
times before—the same, uninteresting people in the same uninteresting world. himself, just like a crab is in his shell and with his sharp claws. He’s slow like a crab.
They all even sound the same. So why should he do anything? And although the crab lives under the sea, Prufrock lives in his own world too. The
For Prufrock, the proposal is a very important matter and its reception or response crab’s claws are a nice contrast with the elegant braceleted arms of the women in
is as important as a disturbance in the universe. On account of his ever-changing the room. Crab’s claws are also aggressive, and reading between the lines Prufrock
mind, his decisions are reversed in a minute and therefore it is much better does sound aggressive, angry and frustrated.
postponing the making of a decision. He has known all the decisions and revision Critical Appriciation:
and has also known what happens in the evenings, mornings and afternoons. He The flow and beauty of these lines demonstrates that Prufrock is capable of speaking about love
in poetic style, so he should not be insecure. Again, it Is the understanding that Prufrock is
admits that his life is full of trivialities. He has wasted a good deal of time in taking
speaking as though he were come back from another place, like Dante, that allows him to reveal
coffee. Here the triviality of modern city life is disclosed. Modern civilization his emotions in such heightened language. Prufrock has skill with language throughout the poem,
includes a succession of tea parties and coffee sessions. His life is measured not in but it is not Prufrock in the setting that is relating the scene. It is not the Prufrock of the scene
terms of actions or resolution but by the number of coffee spoons. Prufrock knows that can quote from Marvell and Shakespeare; instead, it is the Prufrock of another place that is
the nature and activities of ladies. He has known people singing in the restaurants speaking in the poem. All this is given by Eliot's use of a passage by Dante, but without the
and their voices becoming faint on account of a highly vocal music coming from context of the poem as a whole, looked back on, as it were, the epigraph makes little sense and
seems out of place. When taken in retrospect, the reference to Dante is not only appropriate, but
another room. The question is: How can he therefore speak out his mind.
it explains how a character as insecure and inarticulate as Prufrock can say exactly what he
And I have known the eyes already, known them all— means in the poem (through the poet), but not in the scene in the poem.
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase, Eliot draws, perhaps, on his own experiences to write The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, but he
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin, extrapolates his sensations into the neurotic Prufrock, his alter ego. Since a poem spoken by
Prufrock might have been unimaginative, Eliot chooses the device of a dramatic monologue to
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
make his observations of the human condition. His use of the epigraph works well with the
Then how should I begin monologue to allow Eliot to write in the first person, and the technique keeps the poem fresh,
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways? even after several readings. It is more rewarding for a reader to make sense of a difficult poem,
And how should I presume? or a poem that makes its point in a very subtle manner, than it is to simply state an observation
Prufrock has known the eyes (of ladies)-the eyes that size him up in a definite in plain language. Eliot makes a simple observation and keeps the reader interested by using
unusual techniques that are both subtle and effective.
phrase, and after that he is labeled. He sprawls on a pin and is afterwards pinned
And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!
and left wriggling on the wall. Prufrock recognizes the voices of the ladies who
were singing in the restaurant but he can’t dare to speak out his mind. He does not Smoothed by long fingers,
know how to make the proposal or to disclose his love to his lady. He knows the Asleep ... tired ... or it malingers,
women in room. He knows their likes and dislikes and their value system. He knows Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
that they will look at him with searching eyes and he will not be able to stand their Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
staring. His situation will be similar to that of a poor worm fixed on a wall with the Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
help of a sharp pin. The worm will be struggling helplessly; as such he has no mind But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
to face the ladies. Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter,
His life is made up of trivialities which make us his days and ways, his life is as I am no prophet — and here’s no great matter;
useless as the butt-ends of smoked cigarettes which are thrown away. He does not I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
know how to make his proposal to his lady-love. And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And I have known the arms already, known them all— And in short, I was afraid.
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare The time passes peacefully. It is as if the afternoon/evening is sleeping or simply
(But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!) wasting time, stretched out on the floor. Should the speaker sit down with
Is it perfume from a dress someone and have dessert—should he take a chance, make an acquaintance, live?
That makes me so digress? Oh, he has suffered; he has even imagined his head being brought in on a platter,
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl. like the head of John the Baptist. Of course, unlike John, he is no prophet. He has
And should I then presume? seen his opportunities pass and even seen death up close, holding his coat,
And how should I begin? snickering. He has been afraid.
Prufrock has known women like these before, wearing jewelry but really bare, Prufrock seeing his head brought in on a platter (= dish) is a reference to the Bible
lacking substance. Why is he thinking about them? Perhaps it is the smell of a story about John the Baptist who was murdered when the King’s daughter asked
woman's perfume. him for John’s head. His head was then brought into the room on a plate. The
He has known the arms of women (Prufrock is very familiar with the society meaning of this line surely is that Prufrock foresees that he will die soon. Perhaps
women of the day). Their arms are bracelet, white and uncovered, but when seen he envisions his head on a plate because he’s all the time at those cocktail parties,
against the lamp light, the arms are covered with brown hair. Is it the fragrance of and he feels that no one loves him.
perfume coming from her dress which makes him give up his intention to speak out Surrounded by the peace and quiet of the evening, he does not feel the necessity of
his love? He should be bold enough to speak out his mind. The main problem with making the decision. The evening is compared to a child or a cat lulled to sleep. He
Prufrock is how to start his conversation with the lady and make her know his pretends to be sick to avoid performance of duty and action. Prufrock thinks that
proposal of love. He is an embodiment of mental cowardice and indecision. He perhaps after taking tea and snacks he will get enough strength and courage to
wishes to introduce the subject of his love to his lady in a suitable manner. Perhaps take a decision in this matter. Though he has wept, fasted and prayed, he imagined
he may make a beginning by mentioning his loneliness. that his head has been cut and brought in a platter. He is no prophet, though he has
This is what is troubling to Prufrock. He is afraid to speak to the women he sees suffered a lot of persecution but that is a different matter. He has observed his
because he feels that he will not speak well enough to have them interested in him, hesitation at the moment of his achievement. He has seen god of Death laugh at his
and his insecurity will not allow him to overcome this shyness. The women are cowardice but what could he do. He was different and nervous and could not speak
young, as the references to "White" and "bare" indicate, and they are attractive to out.
Prufrock. He is taken by their appearance, and it seems that he has had this And would it have been worth it, after all,
problem before, since he has "known them already." After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
What is odd about Prufrock is that, while he is impotent to act because he cannot Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
begin to speak, he states what he feels about himself in an eloquent and poetic Would it have been worth while,
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 To have bitten off the matter with a smile, Prufrock as of Hamlet. Prufrock is conscious of his own limitations. He is self-
To have squeezed the universe into a ball depreciating. The lines constitute an admirable piece of self-analysis.
To roll it towards some overwhelming question, Prufrock remembers Polonius, a courtier of King Claudius. Prufrock feels that he
To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead, can fit into that role. Like a courtier, he can attend on some prince, walk in his
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”— retinue, may initiate action in small matters or advice the prince or place himself at
his disposal. He may be respectable, serviceable, wise, vigilant, and precise full of
If one, settling a pillow by her head
maxims, though a bit thick-headed and sometimes ridiculous like a court jester.
Should say: “That is not what I meant at all;
Prufrock analyses his own character and thinks rather low of him.
That is not it, at all.”
Hamlet, the protagonist of Shakespeare's Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, famous for
Would it have been worth it for the speaker while drinking tea to try to make a
his hesitancy and indecision while plotting to avenge the murder of his father, King
connection with one of the women? Would it have been worth it to arise from his
Hamlet, by the king's brother, Claudius. Prufrock is like young Hamlet in that the
lifeless life and dare to engage in conversation with a woman, only to have her
latter is also indecisive. However, Prufrock decides not to compare himself with
criticize him or reject him.
Hamlet, who is charismatic and even majestic in spite of his shortcomings. Instead,
Even if it were possible for him to speak out, would it have been worth-while.
Prufrock compares himself with an unimpressive character in the Shakespeare play,
Would it have been proper after the drinks and snacks served in the fine China-
an attendant lord, Polonius.
ware, Prufrock thinks that the declaration of his love will require a very great effort
I grow old ... I grow old ...
like the effort needed to squeeze the universe into a ball, a task which is impossible
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.
for him?
‘To have squeezed the universe into a ball’ This phrase is allusion to Marvell's "To
His Coy Mistress. In the last stanza of that poem, the speaker/persona says, " Let us Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
roll all our strength and all / Our sweetness up into one ball." In Eliot's poem, the I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
speaker asks whether it would have been worth it to do the same thing with a I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
woman of his choosing.
He makes a reference to the story of Lazarus in the Bible. (Lazarus of Bethany, Jesus I do not think that they will sing to me.
raised him from the dead (Gospel of John);When Lazarus died, he was taken into
heaven. When a rich man named Dives died, he went to hell. He requested that I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Lazarus be returned to earth to warn his brothers about the horror of hell, but his Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
request was denied.) Perhaps the lady whom Prufrock loves may tell him that he When the wind blows the water white and black.
has misunderstood her gentleness and politeness. She has no love for him. He has We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
only misunderstood courtesies. This is another reason for postponing his proposal By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
to his lady love.
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.
‘If one, settling a pillow by her head’Here it seems as if Prufrock has a lady in mind
The speaker realizes that time is passing and that he is growing old. However, like
who might misunderstand him. Wouldn’t that be even worse than failure, is what
other men going through a middle-age crisis, he considers changing his hairstyle
he seems to ask himself. By the way, we still don’t know what the overwhelming
and clothes. Like Odysseus in the Odyssey, he has heard the song of the sirens.
question is, besides the one that we read at the beginning of the poem: “Shall I
However, they are not singing to him.
dare?” It could be that Prufrock is thinking about starting up with a certain woman
Prufrock is old like Polonius but he is some-what different. He dresses himself like a
he’s interested in. But he’s too afraid of failure.
modern dandy. He wears the trousers with rolled bottoms. He dresses his hair in a
And would it have been worth it, after all, fashionable manner parting them from behind, (perhaps to cover his baldness). Can
Would it have been worth while, he dare to eat a peach while walking on the beach? He wears fashionable white
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets, flannel trousers. In fact, he wants to look young and fashionable and to hide his old
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor— age in order to be acceptable to his lady love.
And this, and so much more?— He wants to escape from the routine of civilized social life; while walking on a
It is impossible to say just what I mean! beach, he remembers the story of mermaids who sang to Ulysses and his
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen: companions voyaging on the high seas. He feels that the mermaids will not sing for
Would it have been worth while him because he is not brave and adventurous like Ulysses. He is timid and
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl, cowardly.
And turning toward the window, should say: “His love song is being divided between passion and timidity; it is never sung in the
“That is not it at all, real world. For this poem develops a theme of frustration, of emotional conflict,
That is not what I meant, at all.” dramatized by you and I.”
Therefore, he is unfit to listen to the music of mermaids. He says that he has seen
Would it have been worth it, considering all the times he would be with the woman
the mermaid riding on the waves towards the sea and as they move, they comb the
at sunset or with her in a dooryard? Would it have been worth it after all the
mornings or evenings when workmen sprinkled the streets, after all the novels he foam of the waves thrown back by the strong wind, which makes the water appear
white and black.
would discuss with her over tea, after all the times he heard the drag of her skirt
This is the song of mermaids. They sing about their living deep in the bottom of the
along the floor, after so many other occasions? Would it have been worth it if, after
sea and being garlanded by sea-girls with red and brown sea-weeds. He is
plumping a pillow or throwing off her shawl, she turned casually toward a window
awakened from his romantic vision (day-dreaming) when he hears the human
and told him that he was mistaken about her intentions toward him?
voices around him. He realizes that the must face the problems of the life and must
Prufrock refers to his activities during the day and in the evening, particularly the
take his decisions.
social formalities namely, taking tea in the club, and dancing with the ladies. After
“If this is a sublimation of the amorous Prufrock, it is a release of the timid
these formalities he has no strength left to declare his love in suitable words to his
Prufrock from the polite world which overcomes him. But reality returns, and the
lady. Prufrock compares the eyes of the ladies to the x-ray machines, which can
divided self is submerged again, not resolved.”
disclose the picture of things lying hidden inside the body. The ladies would be able
to read his inner feelings-his cowardice, his indecision and lack of courage and so
they would laugh at him. Perhaps the lady whom he loves would tell him that she
knows his weaknesses and has, therefore, nothing to do with him. If a magic
lantern could give picture of his inner feelings on a screen, for the lady to see,
would it have been worthwhile doing all this. Perhaps the lady would rest herself
on a pillow or throw off a shawl and turning towards him would say that she did
not mean anything, i.e. she has no love for him.
No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—
Almost, at times, the Fool.
Prufrock and Hamlet (the protagonist of Shakespeare's Hamlet, Prince of Denmark)
are both indecisive. But Prufrock lacks the majesty and charisma of Hamlet.
Therefore, he fancies himself as Polonius, the busybody lord chamberlain in
Shakespeare's play.
Prufrock compares his indecision and lack of courage to that of Prince Hamlet in
Shakespeare. He, however, realizes that his problem is not so difficult and tragic as
that of Prince Hamlet and so he gives up the comparison. He certainly hesitates and
wavers like the Prince of Denmark. “To be or not to be” is as good a description of

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