The Waste Land | Page 8

was on the spot there was no reason why they should not be
married if the queen pleased."
293. Cf. Purgatorio, v. 133:
"Ricorditi di me, che son la Pia;
Siena mi fe', disfecemi Maremma."
307. V. St. Augustine's Confessions: "to Carthage then I came, where a
cauldron of unholy loves sang all about mine ears."
308. The complete text of the Buddha's Fire Sermon (which
corresponds in importance to the Sermon on the Mount) from which
these words are taken, will be found translated in the late Henry Clarke
Warren's Buddhism in Translation (Harvard Oriental Series). Mr.
Warren was one of the great pioneers of Buddhist studies in the
Occident.
309. 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.
V. WHAT THE THUNDER SAID
In the first part of Part 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.
357. This is Turdus aonalaschkae pallasii, the hermit-thrush which I
have heard in Quebec County. Chapman says (Handbook of Birds of

Eastern North America) "it is most at home in secluded woodland and
thickety retreats. . . . Its notes are not remarkable for variety or volume,
but in purity and sweetness of tone and exquisite modulation they are
unequalled." Its "water-dripping song" is justly celebrated.
360. 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.
367-77. Cf. 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."
402. "Datta, dayadhvam, damyata" (Give, sympathize,
control). The
fable of the meaning of the Thunder is found
in the
Brihadaranyaka-Upanishad, 5, 1. A translation is found in Deussen's
Sechzig Upanishads des Veda, p. 489.
408. 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."
412. Cf. Inferno, xxxiii. 46:
"ed io sentii chiavar l'uscio di sotto
all'orribile torre."
Also F. H. Bradley, Appearance and Reality, p. 346:
"My external sensations are no less private to myself than are my
thoughts or 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."
425. V. Weston, From Ritual to Romance; chapter on the Fisher King.
428. V. Purgatorio, xxvi. 148.
"'Ara vos prec per aquella valor
'que vos guida al som de l'escalina,

'sovegna vos a temps de ma dolor.'
Poi s'ascose nel foco che gli
affina."
429. V. Pervigilium Veneris. Cf. Philomela in Parts II and III.
430. V. Gerard de Nerval, Sonnet El Desdichado.
432. V. Kyd's Spanish Tragedy.
434. Shantih. Repeated as here, a formal ending to an Upanishad. 'The
Peace which passeth understanding' is a feeble translation of the
content of this word.
End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Waste Land, by T. S. Eliot
from http://www.dertz.in/