The Waste Land
Epigraph
Nam Sibyllam quidem Cumis ego ipse oculis meis vidi in ampulla pendere, et cum illi pueri dicerent: Sibylla ti theleis; respondebat illa: apothanein thelo.
[I have seen with my own eyes the Sibyl hanging in a jar, and when the boys asked her “What do you want?” She answered, “I want to die.”]
—Petronius, Satyricon
Myths and Comments
Cumaean Sibyl was the most famous of the Sibyls, the prophetic old women of Greek mythology; she guided Aeneas through Hades in the Aeneid. She had been granted immortality by Apollo, but because she forgot to ask for perpetual youth, she shrank into withered old age and her authority declined.]
Let’s Check our Knowledge
Who is the narrator of the epigraph?
Ans: Encolpious, He quotes Trimalchios boast
Who had become the shrunken insect?
Ans. Cumaean Sibyl
What did she deliver from the cave?
Ans. Aeneid (The gatekeeper of the hell) and Oracles.
Q. What do you know about Sybil?
Old woman Sybil is hanged upside down and can’t see reality.
She symbolises death in life.
Beginning of the Poem:
begins with an excerpt from Petronius Arbiter’s Satyricon, in Latin and Greek, which translates as: “For once I saw with my own eyes the Cumean Sibyl hanging in a jar, and when the boys asked her, ‘Sibyl, what do you want?’ she answered, ‘I want to die.’”
Explanation
Eliot’s opening quotation sets the tone for the poem as a whole. Sibyl is a mythological figure who asked Apollo “for as many years of life as there are grains in a handful of sand” (North, 3). Unfortunately, she did not think to ask for everlasting youth. As a result, she is doomed to decay for years and years, and preserves herself within a jar. Having asked for something akin to eternal life, she finds that what she most wants is death. Death alone offers escape; death alone promises the end, and therefore a new beginning.
Thus does Eliot begin his magisterial poem, labelling his first section “The Burial of the Dead,” a title pulled from the Anglican Book of Common Prayer.
Burrial of the Dead
Text of the Poem:
April is the cruellest month, breeding | अप्रैल सबसे क्रूर महीना है. मृत भूमि से बकाइन पैदा हो रहे हैं , स्मृति और इच्छा का मिश्रण हो रहा है , वसंत की बारिश से सुस्त जड़ो मे हलचल हो रही है. सर्दी ने हमें गर्म रखा, भुलक्कड़ बर्फ में धरती को ढकते हुए , सूखे कंदों के साथ एक छोटा सा जीवन खिला रही है। |
Explanation:
Ezra Pound was a leading figure in modernist poetry and Eliot’s good friend. He often helped Eliot in editing his poems, including “The Waste Land.”
Translated from vernacular Italian, the phrase Il miglior fabbro means “the greater craftsman” and expresses Eliot’s humility and recognition of Pound’s artistry as a poet.
The poem begins with an unidentified speaker contrasting spring and winter. The contrast is ironic—a paradox: the speaker describes April, the month associated with the return of spring, warmth, and the renewal of life, as causing the greatest pain, whereas winter snow’s covering the earth “kept us warm” is a phrase that suggests comfort and security. April is cruel, according to the speaker, because it evokes “memory and desire”; the “forgetful snow” of winter does not. The idea that remembering the past and feeling desire are now painful experiences to be avoided foreshadows a major theme in the poem: that World War I and the post-war era, the setting of the poem, resulted in a deadening of the human spirit. The theme is also suggested by the title of this section of the poem, “The Burial of the Dead.”
Myth of Egyptian god of Fertility and Death
Osiris murdered by his brother, disposed in water
Entangled in the tree roots in the Lebanese port of Babylose, Pillar of the Palace.
Married to his sister Isis, She buried him properly and hacked into 14 pieces, scattered all over Egypt, and her sister buried them wherever they found.
Introduces the fear of death, parallel between the life sequences of plants and man.
Suggests that death is required for new life, you die to your flesh and are born to your spirit.
Fallen garden is Waste Land, Original garden where there is no longer fear and desire only peace.
| ग्रीष्म ऋतु ने स्टर्नबर्गरसी के पास आकर हमें आश्चर्यचकित कर दिया बारिश की फुहार के साथ; हम कोलोनेड में रुके, और सूरज की रोशनी में चलना जारी रखा ,हॉफगार्टन में और कॉफ़ी पी, और एक घंटे तक बातें कीं। बिन गार कीन रुसिन, स्टैम' ऑस लिटौएन, इच्ट ड्यूश। |
| और जब हम बच्चे थे, आर्चड्यूक के यहां रहते थे, मेरे चचेरे भाई, वह मुझे स्लेज पर बाहर ले गया, और मैं डर गई . उन्होंने कहा, मैरी, मैरी, कसकर पकड़ो। और वह नीचे चला गया. पहाड़ों में, वहां आप स्वतंत्र महसूस करते हैं। मैं अधिकतर रातें पढ़ता हूँ और सर्दियों में दक्षिण चला जाता हूँ। |
Marie: She is symbol of
Spiritual Degradation
Sexual Desire
From World of Innocence to World of Experience
Nostalgia
Explanation:
The Starnbergersee, or Lake Starnberg, is a large body of water south of Munich in Germany. The speaker now recalls life in Germany before the war and begins to describe a pleasant summer afternoon.
The Hofgarten, German for “court garden,” is a popular and historic public garden located in Munich. It is noted for the colonnade in the garden. (A colonnade is a row of columns holding up a roof that are separated from each other by an equal distance.) Whiling away the time in conversation on a sunny summer day in Germany must be a painful memory for the speaker after the destruction of the war and perhaps explains her description of spring at the beginning of the poem.
Translated from German, the sentence reads “I’m not Russian at all, I come from Lithuania, a true German.” It is unclear who is speaking at this point, because speakers change throughout the poem, often with no notice. The statement could be part of a conversation overheard in the Hofgarten. Eliot’s inclusion of foreign languages in the poem often serves to capture the atmosphere of a particular setting. In this case, it emphasizes the geographical and political elements present in Europe before World War I.
The allusion to the arch-duke likely refers to Austria’s Crown Prince Rudolph, who was also an archduke and a first cousin to Marie, Countess Larisch, who appears to be identified here as the speaker. Eliot met Countess Larisch in Munich either in the summer of 1911 or possibly in 1914 before World War I began. This passage, as well as others in the text, seem to reflect conversations Eliot had had with various people in his life.
The passage marks the conclusion of Marie’s two happy memories of life before the war and indicates her present emotional state. Reading “much of the night” suggests isolation and withdrawal from human relationships, and choosing to “go south in the winter,” instead of going to the mountains where “you feel free,” suggests no longer feeling or seeking to feel joy or fulfillment. Marie’s emotional state further develops the poem’s themes of disillusionment and the deadening of the human spirit in the post-war era.
Summer came all of a sudden, crossing Lake Starnbergersee in the rain. We sat in the sunny park, drinking coffee and talking. "I am not Russian at all; I come from Lithuania, a real German." When we were children, I stayed with my cousin the archduke, and he took me sledding, and I was scared. He said to me, "Marie, hold on tight," and down the hill we went. You feel a sense of freedom up there in the mountains. I read all night long, and I travel south when winter comes.
| कौन सी जड़ें पकड़ती हैं, कौन सी शाखाएं बढ़ती हैं इस पथरीले कूड़े से? मनुष्य का पुत्र, आप कह नहीं सकते, या अनुमान नहीं लगा सकते, क्योंकि आप ही जानते हैं टूटी हुई छवियों का ढेर, जहाँ सूरज ढलता है, और मरा हुआ पेड़ कोई आश्रय नहीं देता, झींगुर कोई राहत नहीं देता, और सूखे पत्थर में पानी की कोई आवाज नहीं। |
| केवल इस लाल चट्टान के नीचे छाया है, (इस लाल चट्टान की छाया में आओ), और मैं तुम्हें इनमें से कुछ अलग दिखाऊंगा सुबह आपकी परछाई आपके पीछे-पीछे चल रही है या शाम को तेरी परछाई तुझसे मिलने को उठे; मैं तुम्हें मुट्ठी भर धूल में डर दिखाऊंगा. |
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