THE WASTE LAND

T.S. Eliot

"NAM Sibyllam quidem Cumis ego ipse oculis meis
vidi in ampulla pendere, et cum illi pueri dicerent:
Σίβυλλα τί θέλεις; respondebat illa: ἀποθανεῖν θέλω."

I. THE BURIAL OF THE DEAD

APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding 1
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.
Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee
With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade,
And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten, 10
And drank coffee, and talked for an hour.
Bin gar keine Russin, stamm' aus Litauen, echt deutsch.
And when we were children, staying at the archduke's,
My cousin's, he took me out on a sled,
And I was frightened. He said, Marie,
Marie, hold on tight. And down we went.
In the mountains, there you feel free.
I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.

What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man, 20
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water. Only
There is shadow under this red rock,
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),
And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust. 30

   Frisch weht der Wind
   Der Heimat zu,
   Mein Irisch Kind,
   Wo weilest du?

"You gave me hyacinths first a year ago;
"They called me the hyacinth girl."
—Yet when we came back, late, from the Hyacinth garden,
Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not
Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither
Living nor dead, and I knew nothing, 40
Looking into the heart of light, the silence.
Oed' und leer das Meer.

Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyante,
Had a bad cold, nevertheless
Is known to be the wisest woman in Europe,
With a wicked pack of cards. Here, said she,
Is your card, the drowned Phoenician Sailor,
(Those are pearls that were his eyes. Look!)
Here is Belladonna, the Lady of the Rocks,
The lady of situations. 50
Here is the man with three staves, and here the Wheel,
And here is the one-eyed merchant, and this card,
Which is blank, is something he carries on his back,
Which I am forbidden to see. I do not find
The Hanged Man. Fear death by water.
I see crowds of people, walking round in a ring.
Thank you. If you see dear Mrs. Equitone,
Tell her I bring the horoscope myself:
One must be so careful these days.

Unreal City, 60
Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,
A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,
I had not thought death had undone so many.
Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled,
And each man fixed his eyes before his feet.
Flowed up the hill and down King William Street,
To where Saint Mary Woolnoth kept the hours
With a dead sound on the final stroke of nine.
There I saw one I knew, and stopped him, crying "Stetson!
"You who were with me in the ships at Mylae! 70
"That corpse you planted last year in your garden,
"Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year?
"Or has the sudden frost disturbed its bed?
"Oh keep the Dog far hence, that's friend to men,
"Or with his nails he'll dig it up again!
"You! hypocrite lecteur!—mon semblable,—mon frère!"

---- Noten bij Deel I ----

"The Order for the Burial of the Dead" in The Book of Common Prayer schrijft het ritueel voor bij het begraven van de doden in de Anglicaanse Kerk.

Versregel 1 - Vergelijk met de openingsregels van Geoffrey Chaucers The Canterbury Tales: "Whan that April with his showres soote..." Bij Chaucer is het begin van de lente een gelukkige, optimistische tijd waarin de natuur terug opleeft. Bij Eliot is april echter de “wreedste” maand, juist omdat het de maand is waarin alles in de lente begint te bloeien, en we opnieuw voor de uitdaging worden gesteld om te leven. Immers: de winter(slaap, dood?) hield ons “warm” en in een staat van vergeetachtigheid. We hoefden niet om te gaan met de uitdagingen die het leven ons opdringt. 
Versregel 2 -Walt Whitman schreef het gedicht "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd" ter ere van Abraham Lincoln, de Amerikaanse president die midden april 1865 werd vermoord toen de seringen in bloei kwamen. 
Versregel 8 -De Starnbergersee is een meer nabij München.
Versregel 10 - De Hofgarten is een openbare tuin in München met een wandelpad met zuilengalerijen.
Versregel 13 -'archduke,Een prins van het Oostenrijks-Hongaarse Rijk.
Versregel 15 - De Oostenrijkse gravin Marie von Wallersee-Larish, die Eliot had ontmoet.
Versregel 20 - "Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man" uit Ezechiël, hoofdstuk 2, vers 1: "And he said unto me, Son of man, stand upon thy feet, and I will speak unto thee."
Versregel 31 - Uit Richard Wagner's opera Tristan und Isolde.

II. A GAME OF CHESS

THE Chair she sat in, like a burnished throne, 77
Glowed on the marble, where the glass
Held up by standards wrought with fruited vines
From which a golden Cupidon peeped out 80
(Another hid his eyes behind his wing)
Doubled the flames of sevenbranched candelabra
Reflecting light upon the table as
The glitter of her jewels rose to meet it,
From satin cases poured in rich profusion;
In vials of ivory and coloured glass 
Unstoppered, lurked her strange synthetic perfumes,
Unguent, powdered, or liquid—troubled, confused
And drowned the sense in odours; stirred by the air
That freshened from the window, these ascended 90
In fattening the prolonged candle-flames,
Flung their smoke into the laquearia,
Stirring the pattern on the coffered ceiling.
Huge sea-wood fed with copper
Burned green and orange, framed by the coloured stone,
In which sad light a carvèd dolphin swam. 
Above the antique mantel was displayed
As though a window gave upon the sylvan scene
The change of Philomel, by the barbarous king
So rudely forced; yet there the nightingale 100
Filled all the desert with inviolable voice
And still she cried, and still the world pursues,
"Jug Jug" to dirty ears.
And other withered stumps of time
Were told upon the walls; staring forms
Leaned out, leaning, hushing the room enclosed. 
Footsteps shuffled on the stair.
Under the firelight, under the brush, her hair
Spread out in fiery points
Glowed into words, then would be savagely still. 110

"My nerves are bad tonight. Yes, bad. Stay with me.
"Speak to me. Why do you never speak? Speak.
"What are you thinking of? What thinking? What?
"I never know what you are thinking. Think."

I think we are in rats' alley
Where the dead men lost their bones.

"What is that noise?"
The wind under the door.
"What is that noise now? What is the wind doing?"
Nothing again nothing. 120
"Do
"You know nothing? Do you see nothing? Do you remember
"Nothing?"
I remember
Those are pearls that were his eyes.
"Are you alive, or not? Is there nothing in your head?"
But
O O O O that Shakespeherian Rag—
It's so elegant
So intelligent 130
"What shall I do now? What shall I do?"
"I shall rush out as I am, and walk the street
"With my hair down, so. What shall we do tomorrow?
"What shall we ever do?"
The hot water at ten.
And if it rains, a closed car at four.
And we shall play a game of chess,
Pressing lidless eyes and waiting for a knock upon the door.

When Lil's husband got demobbed, I said—
I didn't mince my words, I said to her myself, 140
HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
Now Albert's coming back, make yourself a bit smart.
He'll want to know what you done with that money he gave you
To get yourself some teeth. He did, I was there.
You have them all out, Lil, and get a nice set,
He said, I swear, I can't bear to look at you.
And no more can't I, I said, and think of poor Albert,
He's been in the army four years, he wants a good time,
And if you don't give it him, there's others will, I said.
Oh is there, she said. Something o' that, I said. 150
Then I'll know who to thank, she said, and give me a straight look.
HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
If you don't like it you can get on with it, I said,
Others can pick and choose if you can't.
But if Albert makes off, it won't be for lack of telling.
You ought to be ashamed, I said, to look so antique.
(And her only thirty-one.)
I can't help it, she said, pulling a long face,
It's them pills I took, to bring it off, she said.
(She's had five already, and nearly died of young George.)
The chemist said it would be alright, but I've never been the same.
You are a proper fool, I said.
Well, if Albert wont leave you alone, there it is, I said,
What you get married for if you dont want children?
HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
Well, that Sunday Albert was home, they had a hot gammon,
And they asked me in to dinner, to get the beauty of it hot—

HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
Goonight Bill. Goonight Lou. Goonight May. Goonight. 170
Ta ta. Goonight. Goonight.
Good night, ladies, good night, sweet ladies, good night, good night.

---- Noten bij Deel II- ---

Versregel 77 -(burnished throne) Zie William Shakespeares play Antony and Cleopatra, Act II, scene ii line 190: ''The barge she sat in, like a burnished throne...''
Versregel 98 - (As though a window) :oven de schouwmantel hing een schilderij van een boslandschap dat de metamorfose van Philomel uitbeeldde. Eliot beschrijft het schilderij alsof het door een raamkozijn werd gezien.
Versregel 99 - (The change of Philomel) :Eliot verwijst naar Ovidius' Metamorfosen, Boek VI, het verhaal over Philomela.
Versregel 100 - (So rudely forced) : verkracht
Versregel 103 - (Jug jug) : Elizabethaanse dichters gebruiken vaak de klank 'Jug Jug' om het geluid van de nachtegaal weer te geven. 'Jug' had ook een grove seksuele connotatie.
Versregel 115 - (rats' alley) :  mogelijk een verwijzing naar de door ratten geteisterde loopgraven van de Eerste Wereldoorlog




III. THE FIRE SERMON

THE river's tent is broken: the last fingers of leaf 173
Clutch and sink into the wet bank. The wind
Crosses the brown land, unheard. The nymphs are departed.
Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song.
The river bears no empty bottles, sandwich papers,
Silk handkerchiefs, cardboard boxes, cigarette ends
Or other testimony of summer nights. The nymphs are departed.
And their friends, the loitering heirs of city directors; 180
Departed, have left no addresses.
By the waters of Leman I sat down and wept . . .
Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my song,
Sweet Thames, run softly, for I speak not loud or long.
But at my back in a cold blast I hear
The rattle of the bones, and chuckle spread from ear to ear.

A rat crept softly through the vegetation
Dragging its slimy belly on the bank
While I was fishing in the dull canal
On a winter evening round behind the gashouse. 190
Musing upon the king my brother's wreck
And on the king my father's death before him.
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.
But at my back from time to time I hear
The sound of horns and motors, which shall bring
Sweeney to Mrs. Porter in the spring.
O the moon shone bright on Mrs. Porter
And on her daughter 200
They wash their feet in soda water
Et, O ces voix d'enfants, chantant dans la coupole!

Twit twit twit
Jug jug jug jug jug jug
So rudely forc'd.
Tereu

Unreal City
Under the brown fog of a winter noon
Mr. Eugenides, the Smyrna merchant
Unshaven, with a pocket full of currants 210
C.i.f. London: documents at sight,
Asked me in demotic French
To luncheon at the Cannon Street Hotel
Followed by a weekend at the Metropole.

At the violet hour, when the eyes and back
Turn upward from the desk, when the human engine waits
Like a taxi throbbing waiting,
I Tiresias, though blind, throbbing between two lives,
Old man with wrinkled female breasts, can see
At the violet hour, the evening hour that strives 220
Homeward, and brings the sailor home from sea,
The typist home at teatime, clears her breakfast, lights
Her stove, and lays out food in tins.
Out of the window perilously spread
Her drying combinations touched by the sun's last rays,
On the divan are piled (at night her bed)
Stockings, slippers, camisoles, and stays.
I Tiresias, old man with wrinkled dugs
Perceived the scene, and foretold the rest—
I too awaited the expected guest. 230
He, the young man carbuncular, arrives,
A small house agent's clerk, with one bold stare,
One of the low on whom assurance sits
As a silk hat on a Bradford millionaire.
The time is now propitious, as he guesses,
The meal is ended, she is bored and tired,
Endeavours to engage her in caresses
Which still are unreproved, if undesired.
Flushed and decided, he assaults at once;
Exploring hands encounter no defence; 240
His vanity requires no response,
And makes a welcome of indifference.
(And I Tiresias have foresuffered all
Enacted on this same divan or bed;
I who have sat by Thebes below the wall
And walked among the lowest of the dead.)
Bestows one final patronising kiss,
And gropes his way, finding the stairs unlit . . .

She turns and looks a moment in the glass,
Hardly aware of her departed lover; 250
Her brain allows one half-formed thought to pass:
"Well now that's done: and I'm glad it's over."
When lovely woman stoops to folly and
Paces about her room again, alone,
She smoothes her hair with automatic hand,
And puts a record on the gramophone.

"This music crept by me upon the waters"
And along the Strand, up Queen Victoria Street.
O City city, I can sometimes hear
Beside a public bar in Lower Thames Street, 260
The pleasant whining of a mandoline
And a clatter and a chatter from within
Where fishmen lounge at noon: where the walls
Of Magnus Martyr hold
Inexplicable splendour of Ionian white and gold.

The river sweats
Oil and tar
The barges drift
With the turning tide
Red sails 270
Wide
To leeward, swing on the heavy spar.
The barges wash
Drifting logs
Down Greenwich reach
Past the Isle of Dogs.
Weialala leia
Wallala leialala
Elizabeth and Leicester
Beating oars 280
The stern was formed
A gilded shell
Red and gold
The brisk swell
Rippled both shores
Southwest wind
Carried down stream

The peal of bells
White towers

Weialala leia 290
Wallala leialala
"Trams and dusty trees.
Highbury bore me. Richmond and Kew
Undid me. By Richmond I raised my knees
Supine on the floor of a narrow canoe."

"My feet are at Moorgate, and my heart
Under my feet. After the event
He wept. He promised 'a new start.'
I made no comment. What should I resent?"
"On Margate Sands. 300
I can connect
Nothing with nothing.
The broken fingernails of dirty hands.
My people humble people who expect
Nothing."
la la

To Carthage then I came

Burning burning burning burning
O Lord Thou pluckest me out
O Lord Thou pluckest 310

burning

---- Noten bij Deel III ----
Versregel 173 - De bomen die de rivier beschaduwen zijn kaal (vandaar de vermelding van bladeren). Mogelijk betekent dit dat het ijs op de rivier is gebroken.
Versregel 175 - nimf: Een natuurgodin in de vorm van een mooie jonge vrouw.
Versregel 182 - (By the waters of leman) Aan het Meer van Genève in Lausanne in Zwitserland voltooide Eliot de eerste versie van The Waste Land terwijl hij werd behandeld voor een zenuwziekte. Eliot nam hier ook het eerste vers over uit Psalm 137: "By the rivers of Babylon, there sat we down..."
Versregel 185 - (But at my back...) Vergelijk met Andrew Marvells gedicht To His Coy Mistress: " But at my back I always hear. Time's wingèd chariot hurrying near"
Versregel 192 - (And on the king my father's death before him) Vergelijk met Shakespeares The Tempest, Act I, scene ii regel 192: And on the king my father's death before him.
Versregel 197 - (The sound of horns and motors) Eliots aantekening verwijst naar The Parliament of Bees van John Day, waarin de mythe wordt vermeld dat Actaeon door de godin Diana in een hert werd veranderd:
"When of the sudden, listening, you shall hear A noise of horns and hunting, which shall bringActaeon to Diana in the spring..."
Versregel 198 - Sweeney is een door Eliot gecreëerd personage dat in enkele van zijn werken opduikt als een brutale man: in de gedichten 'Sweeney among the nightingales' en 'Sweeney erect'.
Mrs. Porter was de bordeelhoudster in Caïro. Zij en haar dochter waren goed bekend bij de Australische soldaten, die over haar andere (pikantere) teksten voor een populair ragtimeliedje schreven:
O the moon shone bright on Mrs. Porter
And on the daughter
of Mrs. Porter.
They wash their  feet in soda water
and so they ougther
To keep them clean
Versregel 202 - (Et, O ces voix d'enfants, chantant dans la coupole!)  Eliot verwijst naar de laatste versregel in het Franse sonnet 'Parsifal' van Paul Verlaine.
Ve rsregel 209 - (Smyrna) : Smyrna was een oude handelsstad die werd gesticht rond 3000 v.Chr. Het heet nu Izmir en ligt in het westen van centraal Turkije aan de Egeïsche Zee..
Versregel 211 - (C.i.f.) : In Eliots aantekeningen wordt c.i.f. gedefinieerd als "carriage and insurance free". C.i.f. betekent in feite "cost, insurance and freight".
Versregel 212 - (demotic) : Van het volk of populair, gewoon, vulgair.
Versregel 214 - (Metropole) : Een luxehotel in de badplaats Brighton, aan de zuidkust van Engeland met 328 kamers. Een uitnodiging om in het hotel te verblijven had vaak een seksuele ondertoon.

IV. DEATH BY WATER

PHLEBAS the Phoenician, a fortnight dead, 312
Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep sea swell
And the profit and loss.
A current under sea
Picked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell
He passed the stages of his age and youth
Entering the whirlpool.
Gentile or Jew
O you who turn the wheel and look to windward, 320
Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you.

---- Noten bij Deel IV ----

Versregel 412 - (Phlebas the Phoenician) : dit gedeelte ontleende Eliot uit zijn eigen Franse gedicht 'Dans le Restaurant' (1916-1917):
"Plébas, le Phénicien, pendant quinze jours noyé,
oubliait les cris des mouettes..."

V. WHAT THE THUNDER SAID

AFTER the torchlight red on sweaty faces 322
After the frosty silence in the gardens
After the agony in stony places
The shouting and the crying
Prison and palace and reverberation
Of thunder of spring over distant mountains
He who was living is now dead
We who were living are now dying
With a little patience 330

Here is no water but only rock
Rock and no water and the sandy road

The road winding above among the mountains
Which are mountains of rock without water
If there were water we should stop and drink
Amongst the rock one cannot stop or think
Sweat is dry and feet are in the sand
If there were only water amongst the rock
Dead mount in mouth of carious teeth that cannot spit
Here one can neither stand nor lie nor sit 340
There is not even silence in the mountains
But dry sterile thunder without rain
There is not even solitude in the mountains
But red sullen faces sneer and snarl
From doors of mudcracked houses
       If there were water
And no rock
If there were rock
And also water
And water
A spring 350
A pool among the rock
If there were the sound of water only
Not the cicada
And dry grass singing
But sound of water over a rock

Where the hermit-thrush sings in the pine trees
Drip drop drip drop drop drop drop
But there is no water

Who is the third who walks always beside you?
When I count, there are only you and I together 360
But when I look ahead up the white road
There is always another one walking beside you
Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded
I do not know whether a man or a woman
— But who is that on the other side of you?

What is that sound high in the air
Murmur of maternal lamentation
Who are those hooded hordes swarming
Over endless plains, stumbling in cracked earth
Ringed by the flat horizon only 370
What is the city over the mountains
Cracks and reforms and bursts in the violet air
Falling towers
Jerusalem Athens Alexandria
Vienna London
Unreal

A woman drew her long black hair out tight
And fiddled whisper music on those strings
And bats with baby faces in the violet light
Whistled, and beat their wings 380
And crawled head downward down a blackened wall
And upside down in air were towers
Tolling reminiscent bells, that kept the hours
And voices singing out of empty cisterns and exhausted wells.

In this decayed hole among the mountains
In the faint moonlight, the grass is singing
Over the tumbled graves, about the chapel
There is the empty chapel, only the wind's home.

It has no windows, and the door swings,
Dry bones can harm no one. 390
Only a cock stood on the rooftree
Co co rico co co rico
In a flash of lightning. Then a damp gust
Bringing rain
Ganga was sunken, and the limp leaves
Waited for rain, while the black clouds
Gathered far distant, over Himavant.
The jungle crouched, humped in silence.
Then spoke the thunder
Da    400
Datta: what have we given?
My friend, blood shaking my heart
The awful daring of a moment's surrender
Which an age of prudence can never retract
By this, and this only, we have existed
Which is not to be found in our obituaries
Or in memories draped by the beneficent spider
Or under seals broken by the lean solicitor
In our empty rooms
Da    410
Dayadhvam: I have heard the key
Turn in the door once and turn once only
We think of the key, each in his prison
Thinking of the key, each confirms a prison
Only at nightfall, aetherial rumours
Revive for a moment a broken Coriolanus
Da
Damyata: The boat responded
Gaily, to the hand expert with sail and oar
The sea was calm, your heart would have responded 420
Gaily, when invited, beating obedient
To controlling hands

I sat upon the shore
Fishing, with the arid plain behind me
Shall I at least set my lands in order?

London Bridge is falling down falling down falling down

Poi s'ascose nel foco che gli affina
Quando fiam ceu chelidon— O swallow swallow
Le Prince d'Aquitaine à la tour abolie
These fragments I have shored against my ruins 430
Why then Ile fit you. Hieronymo's mad againe.
Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata.

Shantih shantih shantih

---- Noten bij Deel V ----

Versregels 322--330 van The Waste Land worden traditioneel gelezen als een toespeling op de gebeurtenissen die Christus meemaakte in de Hof van Gethsemane..
Versregel 356 - In het gedicht When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd van Walt Whitman wordt veelvuldig melding gemaakt van de heremietlijster en zijn zang.
Versregel 360 - Eliot zegt over regel 360 "De aanleiding voor de volgende regels was het verslag van een van de Antarctische expedities (ik weet niet meer welke, maar ik dacht dat het een van Shackleton was): er werd verteld dat de groep ontdekkingsreizigers, op het einde van hun krachten, voortdurend de illusie had dat er één lid meer was dan er in werkelijkheid geteld konden worden."
Versregel 363 - ''Gliding' : zie Whitman "gliding near with soft feet.".
Versregel 366 - (that sound) : Eliot verwijst in zijn commentaar bij deze regel naar  
Hermann Hesse, Blick ins Chaos:
Schon ist halb Europa, schon ist zumindest der halbe Osten Europas auf dem Wege zum Chaos, fährt betrunken im heiligem Wahn am Abgrund entlang und singt dazu, singt betrunken und hymnisch wie Dmitri Karamasoff sang. Ueber diese Lieder lacht der Bürger beleidigt, der Heilige und Seher hört sie mit Tränen..
Versregel 376 -B. C. Southam over regels 371 - 376: "Bertrand Russell herinnerde zich dat hij Eliot ooit had verteld over een nachtmerrie waarin hij een visioen had van Londen als een onwerkelijke stad, met inwoners als hallucinaties, instortende bruggen, gebouwen die in mist veranderden - alles, zei Russell, dat Eliot in het gedicht had verwerkt."
Versregel 387 - (graves, chapel) : In de Graallegendes wordt de Kapel meestal omringd door een begraafplaats.
Versregels 391, 392 - Een toespeling op Petrus die drie keer ontkent Christus te kennen, voordat de haan kraait, precies zoals Christus voorspeld heeft.
Versregel 398 - (The jungle crouched, humped in silence.) Eliot vergelijkt hier de jungle met een gehurkte kat.
Versregel 399 - (The spoke the thunder) : Eliots commentaar verwijst naar de fabel over de betekenis van de donder in de Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 5. In deze fabel dondert de Heer van de schepping, Prajapati, driemaal, een geluid dat in het Sanskriet wordt weergegeven met het woord "DA" 
Versregel 400 - ("Da") De donder die spreekt - In de Brihadaranyaka-Upanishad vragen de drie nakomelingen van Prajapati - goden, mensen en duivels - hem op hun beurt om heilige kennis. Hij spreekt als donder en antwoordt "Da" aan elk en elk interpreteert het antwoord anders. Ze horen damyata, datta en dayadhvam.