The Waste Land | Page 7

Cambridge.
I. THE BURIAL OF THE DEAD
Line 20. Cf. Ezekiel 2:1.
23. Cf. Ecclesiastes 12:5.
31. V. Tristan und Isolde, i, verses 5-8.
42. Id. iii, verse 24.
46. 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 authentic member of the Tarot pack) I associate, quite
arbitrarily, with the Fisher King himself.
60. Cf. Baudelaire:
"Fourmillante cite;, cite; pleine de reves,
Ou le spectre en plein jour
raccroche le passant."
63. Cf. Inferno, iii. 55-7.
"si lunga tratta
di gente, ch'io non avrei mai creduto
che morte tanta
n'avesse disfatta."
64. Cf. Inferno, iv. 25-7:
"Quivi, secondo che per ascoltare,
"non avea pianto, ma' che di
sospiri,
"che l'aura eterna facevan tremare."
68. A phenomenon which I have often noticed.
74. Cf. the Dirge in Webster's White Devil .
76. V. Baudelaire, Preface to Fleurs du Mal.
II. A GAME OF CHESS
77. Cf. Antony and Cleopatra, II. ii., l. 190.
92. Laquearia. V. Aeneid, I. 726:
dependent lychni laquearibus aureis incensi, et noctem flammis
funalia vincunt.
98. Sylvan scene. V. Milton, Paradise Lost, iv. 140.

99. V. Ovid, Metamorphoses, vi, Philomela.
100. Cf. Part III, l. 204.
115. Cf. Part III, l. 195.
118. Cf. Webster: "Is the wind in that door still?"
126. Cf. Part I, l. 37, 48.
138. Cf. the game of chess in Middleton's Women beware Women.
III. THE FIRE SERMON
176. V. Spenser, Prothalamion.
192. Cf. The Tempest, I. ii.
196. Cf. Marvell, To His Coy Mistress.
197. 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 . . ."
199. I do not know the origin of the ballad from which these lines are
taken: it was reported to me from Sydney, Australia.
202. V. Verlaine, Parsifal.
210. The currants were quoted at a price "carriage and insurance free to
London"; and the Bill of Lading etc. were to be handed to the buyer
upon payment of the sight draft.
Notes 196 and 197 were transposed in this and the Hogarth Press
edition, but have been corrected here.
210. "Carriage and insurance free"] "cost, insurance and

freight"-Editor.
218. 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:
'. . . Cum Iunone iocos et maior vestra profecto est
Quam, quae
contingit maribus,' dixisse, 'voluptas.'
Illa negat; placuit quae sit
sententia docti
Quaerere Tiresiae: venus huic erat utraque nota.

Nam duo magnorum viridi coeuntia silva
Corpora serpentum baculi
violaverat ictu
Deque viro factus, mirabile, femina septem
Egerat
autumnos; octavo rursus eosdem
Vidit et 'est vestrae si tanta potentia
plagae,'
Dixit 'ut auctoris sortem in contraria mutet,
Nunc quoque
vos feriam!' percussis anguibus isdem
Forma prior rediit genetivaque
venit imago.
Arbiter hic igitur sumptus de lite iocosa
Dicta Iovis
firmat; gravius Saturnia iusto
Nec pro materia fertur doluisse suique

Iudicis aeterna damnavit lumina nocte,
At pater omnipotens (neque
enim licet inrita cuiquam
Facta dei fecisse deo) pro lumine adempto

Scire futura dedit poenamque levavit honore.
221. This may not appear as exact as Sappho's lines, but I had in mind
the "longshore" or "dory" fisherman, who returns at nightfall.
253. V. Goldsmith, the song in The Vicar of Wakefield.
257. V. The Tempest, as above.
264. The interior of St. Magnus Martyr is to my mind one of the finest
among Wren's interiors. See The Proposed Demolition of Nineteen City
Churches (P. S. King & Son, Ltd.).
266. The Song of the (three) Thames-daughters begins here. From line

292 to 306 inclusive they speak in turn.
V. Gutterdsammerung, III. i:
the Rhine-daughters.
279. V. Froude, Elizabeth, Vol. I, ch. iv, 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 began to talk nonsense, and went so far that Lord Robert at last
said, as I