The Waste Land

[Editor's note: My guess is that these notes have been scanned from a printed text. There may be occasional textual errors, which I have not yet had time to correct.]

Eliot acknowledged that the poem's title, plan, and symbolism were influenced by Jesse L. Weston's book on the Grail legend, From Ritual to Romance (1920). He also recognized the importance for the poem of James G. Frazer's The Golden Bough (1890-1915), especially the portions that concern vegetation myths and fertility ritals. Eliot's fifty-two footnotes are incorporated among those of the editor and identified as his.

The epigraph quotes Petronius's Satyricon (first century A.D.): "For with my own eyes I saw the Sibyl hanging in a jar at Cumae, and when the boys said to her, 'Sibyl, what do you want?' she replied, 'I want to die.'"

The Sibyl, a prophetess, had been granted immortal life but not immortal youth by Apollo. Her shriveled form was kept in a jar in the temple of Hercules at Cumae.

Eliot's dedication acknowledges the editorial assistance of Ezra Pound, whon he designates "the better craftsman." The Italian quotation is taken from Dante's Purgatorio, XXVI, 17, in which Guido Guinizelli pays tribute to the Provençal poet Arnaut Daniel as a better maker of poems.

1. The Burial of the Dead: a phrase from the Anglican burial service.

2. Starnbergersee (l.8): a resort lake near Munich.

3. Hofgarten (l.10): a public park that had once been a royal palace garden.

4. Bin gar keine...echt deutsch (l.12): German for "I'm not Russian; I come from Lithuania, a true German."

5. Son of man (l.20): Eliot's note: Cf. Ezekiel II, i: "Son of man, stand upon thy feet, and I will speak to thee."

6. the cricket no relief (l.23): Eliot's note: Cf. Ecclesiastes XII, v: "the grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall fail."

7. And the dry stone...under this red rock (l.24-25): The prophet Isaiah had foretold the coming of a Messiah who would be "a river of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land."

8. Frisch weht der Wind...Wo weilest du? (l.31-34): Eliot's note: V.[ide] [see] Tristan and Isolde, I, verses 5-8. The lines mean: "Fresh blows the wind to the homeland, my Irish child, where do you tarry." It is sung in Wagner's opera by a sailor who thinks about his beloved.

9. Oed' und leer das Meer (l.42): Eliot's note reads: Id.[em] [the same] III, verse 24. In Wagner's Tristan, the is line is sung by a shepherd looking out to sea for a sign of Isolde's ship, which Tristan eagerly awaits. Tristan lies wounded at his castle. The line translates: "Empty and waste is the sea."

10. wicked pack of cards (l.46): tarot cards have been used for fortunetelling. Eliot's note on the passage reads: "I am not familiar with the exact constitution of the Tarot pack of cards, from which I have obviously departed to suit my own convenience. The Hanged Man, a member of the traditional pack, fits my purpose in two ways: because he is associated in my mind with the Hanged God of Frazer, and because I associate him with the hooded figure in the passage of the disciples to Emmaus in Part V. The Phoenician Sailor and the Merchant appear later; also the 'crowds of people', and Death by Water is executed in Part IV. The Man with Three Staves (an aithentic member of the Tarot pack) I associate, quite arbitrarily, with the Fisher King himself."

11. Those pearls that were his eyes (l.48): a quotation from Shakespeare's The Tempest I, ii, 398. Prince Ferdinand, who has been shipwrecked with his father on an island, is told falsely that his father has died. The line suggests that the supposed death involved a miraculous change into something rich and beautiful.

12. Belladonna (l.49): literally "beautiful lady," belladonna also refers to nightshade, a poisonous plant.

13. Unreal City (l.60): Eliot's note: Cf. Badelaire: "Fourmillante cité, cité pleine de rêves / Où le spectre en plein jour raccroche le passant." The lines can be translated: "Swarming city, city full of dreams, / Where the specter in broad daylight accosts the passerby."

14. I had not thought...so many (l.63): Eliot's note: Cf. Dante, Inferno, III, 55-57. Eliot quotes the Italian, which can be translated: "so long a train of people, that I would never have believed death had undone so many."

15. Sighs...were exhaled (l.64): Eliot's note: Cf. Inferno, IV, 25-27. Eliot again refers to the Italian, which translates: "Here, to my hearing, there was no weeping, but sighs which caused the eternal air to tremble."

16. King William Street...stroke of nine (l.66-68): Eliot's note: "A phenomenon which I have often noticed." The church of St. Mary Woolnoth is in London's financial district.

17. Mylae (l.70): site of a naval battle in the Punic War (260 B.C.).

18. 'O keep the Dog...dig it up again!' (l.74-75): Eliot's note: Cf. the dirge in Webster's White Devil, V, iv, 97-98 which reads: "But keep the wolf far thence, that's foe to man,/ For with his nails he'll dig them up again."

19. 'You!...mon frère!' (l.76): Eliot's note: V. Baudelaire, Preface to Fleurs du Mal. The last line of Baudelaire's introductory poem "To the Reader" can be translated: "Hypocrite reader!--my likeness--my brother!"

1. A Game of Chess: Thomas Middleton's play (1627). The title alludes to another play in which a seduction occurring on one part of the stage parallels a game of chess on another.

2. The Chair she sat in...Glowed on the marble (l.77-78): Eliot's note: Cf. Antony and Cleopatra, II, ii, 190. The allusion is to Cleopatra's barge, which is described by the Roman soldier Enobarbus: "The barge she sat in, like a burnish'd throne,/ Burn'd on the water."

3. In fattening...the coffered ceiling (l.91-93): Eliot's note: V. Aeneid, I, 276. The reference is to Virgil's description of the banquet given by Dido, Queen of Carthage, for her Trojan lover, Aeneas. Eliot quotes two lines, which may be translated: "blazing torches hang from the golden paneled ceiling, and the torches conquer the night with flames."

4. As though...the sylvan scene (l.98): Eliot's note: V. Milton, Paradise Lost, IV, 140. Milton's description is of Satan looking at Eden.

5. The change of Pliomel...there the nightingale (l.99-100): Eliot's note: V. Ovid, Metamorphoses, VI, Philomela. King Tereus raped Philomela, his wife's sister, and cut out her tongue. Procne, his wife, found out and revenged herself on Tereus by killing his son Itys and serving him to the king as food. Philomela was transformed into a nightingale by the gods.

6. rats' alley (l.115): Eliot's note: Cf. Part III, line 195.

7. The wind under the door (l.118): Eliot's note: Cf. Webster: 'Is the wind in that door still?'

8. demobbed (l.139): demobilized from the army after World War I.

9. HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME (l.141): barkeeper's call at closing time in a British pub.

10. chemist (l.161): druggist.

11. gammon (l.166): ham.

12. Good night, ladies...good night (l.172): allusions to the popular song "Good Night, Ladies" and to Shakespeare's Hamlet IV, v, 72, in which Ophelia sings her mad song before drowning herself.

1. The Fire Sermon: an allusion to Buddha's Fire Sermon, which urges the elimination of desire, the fire of passion.

2. Sweet Thames...end my song (l.176): Eliot's note: V. Spenser Prothalamion. The line is the refrain of Spenser's poem celebrating marriage.

3. By the waters...wept (l.182): in Psalm 137, the exiled Jews lament the loss of their homeland: "By the waters of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion."

4. But at my back...I hear (l.185): an echo of Andrew Marvell (1621-1678) in "To His Coy Mistress": "But at my back I always hear / Time's winged chariot hurrying near,/ And yonder all before us lie / Deserts of vast eternity." Also echoed in lime 196. See below.

5. And on the king...before him (l.192): Eliot's note: Cg. The Tempest, I, ii.

6. The sound of horns...Mrs. Porter in the spring (l.197-198): Eliot's note: Cf. Day, Parliament of Bees: "When of the sudden, listening, you shall hear,/ A noise of horns and hunting, which shall bring Actaeon to Diana in the spring,/ Where all shall see her naked skin."

7. And on her daughter...soda water (l.200-201): Eliot's note: "I do not know the origin of the ballad from which these lines are takenL it was reported to me from Sydney, Australia."

8. Et O ces voix...dans la coupole (l.202): Eliot's note: V. Verlaine, Parsifal. The last line of the poem by Paul Verlaine (1844-1896) can be translated: "And O those children's voices singing in the dome."

9. Tereu (l.206): Tereus; along with "jug" it is a way of alluding to the nightingale's song. See note on lines 99-100.

10. C.i.f. London: documents at sight (l.211): Eliot's note: "The currents were quoted at a price 'cost insurance and freight to London'; and the Bill of Landing, etc., were to be handed to the buyer upon payment of the sight draft."

11. Tiresias (l.218): Eliot's note: "Tiresias, although a mere spectator and not indeed a 'character,' is yet the most important personage in the poem, uniting all the rest. Just as the one-eyed merchant, seller of currants, melts into the Phoenician Sailor, and the latter is not wholly distinct from Ferdinand, Prince of Naples, so all the women are one woman, and the two sexes meet in Tiresias. What Tiresias sees, in fact, is the substance of the poem. The whole passage from Ovid is of great anthropological interest..."

12. and brings the sailor home from sea (l.221): Eliot's note: "This may not appear as exact as Sappho's lines, but I had in mind the 'longshore' or 'dory' fisherman, who returns at nightfall." Eliot echoes both the Greek poet Sappho (600 B.C.) and the Scottish write Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894), who wrote in Requiem: "Home is the sailor, home from sea."

13. Bradford millionaire (l.234): the manufacturers of Bradford, an English industrial ciry, were reputed to have profited handsomely from war industry in World War I.

14. When lovely woman stoops...on the gramophone (l.253-256): Eliot's note: V. Goldsmith, the song in The Vicar of Wakefield. The seduced woman's song reads: "When lovely woman stoops to folly / And finds too late that men betray / What charm can soothe her melancholy, / What art can wash her guilt away?"

15. 'This music...upon the waters' (l.257): Eliot's note: V. The Tempest, as above.

16. where the walls / Of Magnus Martyr...Ionian white and gold (l.263-265): Eliot's note: "The interior of St. Magnus Martyr is to my mind one of the finest among Wren's interiors."

17. Greenwich reach...Dogs (l.275-276): a bend in the River Thames that forms a peninsula called the Isle of Dogs.

18. Elizabeth and Leicester (l.279): refers to the love affair of Queen Elizabeth and the Earl of Leicester. Eliot's note quotes the historian J.A.Froude's Elizabeth, Vol. I, chapter 4, letter of De Quadra to Philip of Spain: "In the afternoon we were in a barge, watching the games on the river. [The queen] was alone with Lord Robert and myself on the poop, when they begin to talk nonsense, and went so far that Lord Robert at last said, as I was on the spot there was no reason why they should not be married if the queen pleased."

19. Highbury...Undid me. (l.293-294): Eliot's noteL Cf. Dante Purgatorio V. 133. Eliot quotes the Italian, which translates as: "Remember me, who am La Pia./ Siena made me, Meremma undid me." Highbury is a London neighborhood; Richmond and Kew, boating places on the Thames.

20. 'Trams and dusty trees...people who expect / Nothing.' (l.292-305): Eliot's note: "The Song of the (three) Thames daughters begins here. From lines 292 to 305 inclusive they speak in turn. V. Gotterdammerung, III, i: the Rhinedaughters." In Wagner's opera, the Rhine maidens attempt to seduce the hero, Siegfried, and threaten and implore him to retrieve their stolen gold. Eliot quotes their refrain.

21. Moorgate (l.296): a London slum.

22. Margate Sands (l.300): an English seaside resort.

23. To Carthage then I came (l.307): Eliot's note: V. St. Augustine's Confessions: "To Carthage then I came, where a cauldron of unholy loves sang all about mine ears."

24. Burning burning burning burning (l.308): Eliot's note to this line alludes to Buddha's Fire Sermon, without quoting any of it.

25. O Lord Thou pluckest me out (l.309): Eliot's note: "From St. Augustine's Confessions again. The collocation of these two representatives of eastern and western asceticism, as the culmination of this part of the poem is not an accident."

1. Death by Water: Eliot offered no notes for Part IV

1. What the Thunder Said: Eliot's note: "In the first part of V three themes are employed: the journey to Emmaus, the approach to the Chapel Perilous (see Miss Weston's book) and the present decay of Eastern Europe."

2. After the torchlight...distant mountains (l.322-327): an allusion to Christ's agony in the garden of Gethsemane, his arrest, and his crucifixion.

3. hermit-thrush (l.357): Eliot's note: "This is...the hermit-thrush which I have heard in Quebec Province...Its water-dripping is justly celebrated."

4. Who is the third...beside you? (l.360): Eliot's note: "The following lines were stimulated by the account of one of the Antarctic expeditions (I forget which, but I think one of Shackleton's): it was related that the party of explorers, at the extremity of their strength, had the constant delusion that there was one more member than could actually be counted." Also relevant is Luke 24: 13-16m, which describes Jesus on the way to Emmaus with two of his disciples who were unaware of who he was.

5. What is that sound...Over endless plains (l.367-370): Eliot's note quotes A Glimpse of Chaos by Hermann Hesse. In English translation: "Already half of Europe, already at least half of Eastern Europe is on the way to Chaos, drives drunkenly in sacred madness along the edge of the abyss, and moreover, sings, sings drunken hymns as Dmitri Karamasoff sang. The offended bourgwois laughs at these songs, the saint and seer hear them with tears."

6. Ganga (l.396): the River Ganges, sacred in India.

7. Himavant (l.398): a Himalayan mountain.

8. Datta...Dayadhvam...Damyata (l.402-419): Eliot's note: Datta, dayadhvam, damyata (Give, sympathize, control). The fable of hte meaning of the thunder is found in Bihandaranyaka, Upanishad, V, I. The fable describes how when the Creator speaks "Da," gods, men, and demons hear and respond to different commands.

9. Or in memories...beneficent spider(l.408): Eliot's note: Cf. Webster, The White Devil, V, vi: "they'll remarry / Ere the worm pierce your winding-sheet, ere the spider / Make a thin curtain for your epitaphs."

10. I have heard the key (l.412): Eliot refers to Dante's Inferno, XXXIII, 46, which describes Ugolino and his children, who were locked in a tower to starve to death. Eliot quotes the Italian, which translates: "And I heard below the door of the horrible tower being locked up." Eliot also quotes the philosopher F.H. Bradley's Apperance and Reality: "My external sensations are no less private to myself than are my thoughts of my feelings. In either case, my experience falls within my own circle, a circle closed on the outside, and, with all its elements alike, every sphere is opaque to the others which surround it....In brief, regarded as an existence which appears in a soul, the whole world for each is peculiar and private to that soul."

11. Coriolanus (l.417): the tragic hero of Shakespeare's Coriolanus, a Roman general who, exiled from Rome, led the enemy against his former city.

12. sat upon the shore / Fishing (l.424-425): Eliot's note: "V. Weston. From Ritual to Romance, chapter on the Fisher King."

13. Shall I at least set my lands in order? (l.426): Cf. Isaiah: 38, 1: "Thus saith the Lord. Set thine house in order: for thou shalt die, and not live."

14. Poi s'ascose...gli affina (l.428): Eliot's note: V. [for "Vide"] Purgatorio XXVI, 148. In the note, he quotes four lines that translate: "Now I pray youby that virtue / that guides you to th etop of the stair / be mindful in time of my suffering / Then he hid himself in the fire that refines them." In the poem, Eliot quotes only the last line of the four. The lines are spoken by the Provençal poet Arnaut Daniel, who was an important influence on Dante.

15. Quando fian uti chelidon (l.429): Eliot's note: V. Pervigilium Veneris. Cf. Philomela in Parts II and III. See note on lines 99-100. The line translates: "She sings when will my spring come."

16. Le Prince d'Aquitaine à la tour abolie (l.430): Eliot's note: V. Gerard de Nerval, sonnet 'El Desdichado'. The title means "The Disinherited"; the line, "The Prince of Aquitaine at the ruined tower."

17. Hieronymo (l.432): Eliot's note: V. Kyd's (1558-1594) Spanish Tragedy with the subtitle Hieronymo's Mad Againe. In the play, Hieronymo avenges the murder of his son.

18. Shantih shantih shantih (l.434): Eliot's note: "Shantih. Repeated as here a formal ending to an Upanishad. 'The Peace with passeth understanding' is our equivalent to this word."

Eliot's own notes, somewhat expanded, can be found at:

http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Studio/3714/WasteLandNotes.html

Thanks to Malcolm Anders & Steve Neville for these notes.