I think it is particularly significant that the poem ends with not one, but two triplets, two sets of three: “Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata.” and then “Shantih shantih shantih.” As I explored in a previous annotation—and as is very much relevant across the poem—three functions as a number of disruption—it unsettles the stability of two, breaking the pair or the binary or the dipole. And it is from two that a third can be formed—from both, as a mix. (Think Tiresias (man x woman), the mysterious third who is marked as neither man nor woman). Three is also a journey: low to middle to high. Or, in this case, it is middle to low to high (Datta then Dayadhvam then Damyata—address to humans, demons, gods). This is hopeful; there is movement, and trajectory.

Then there is the “Shantih shantih shantih.” As Lucas notes, shantih means peace in Sanskrit, and this connects to Philippians 4:7. It appears, as Lucas says, to be a continuum—both a culmination and a continued search for peace. But given the above, I actually find the third repetition ominous. What kind of disruption is the third “shantih” bringing, or what kind of distorted mixing? What tumultuous motion is to ensue? Unfortunately, I think it is clear that all is in fact not peaceful, with “Hieronymo’s mad againe.”

Again, Celina ’23 had me thinking more about this number. She notes other triplets in the poem which I would like to explore: the three questions asked in lines 121-123, the repetition of “Unreal” three times (as in “Unreal City” two of the times), and more.

I have been tracking agency across the poem in many of my annotations. Something that I think somehow fits with this—also at play across the poem—is perception. Someone touched on this the other day (I think it might have been William, but I can’t quite remember), and it made me think of this connection.

“Da” means “be self-controlled,” “give,” or “be compassionate.” But how can these three be distinguished between when just “Da” is used (and not Damyata or Datta or Dayadhvam, and if the relationship—to gods, to human beings, or to demons—is not defined)? How does the second voice in the exchange in the poem discern which? Zooming out, readers, in a pause before reading what follows after each “Da,” can interpret it as all three at once, or choose one. Is this desired? How does the effect change?

The Bradley source clearly speaks very much to perception. How can the exchange between the two figures (one being thunder) here at the end with the three repetitions, and meanings, of “Da” be informed or elucidated by this? At the very least, it seems to exemplify the potential disconnect (and differing interpretation etc.) Bradley lays out. Is this then to spread to other characters and their exchanges in the poem? All of this makes me want to loop back to Madame Sosotris, and the tarot deck…

On a slightly different note, I think this ending (or at least the beginning of the end; I don’t want to speak too soon) is hopeful. The order of “Da”s goes from human beings to demons to gods, ending with self-control—and a boat responding “Gaily, to the hand expert with sail and oar / the sea was calm…” This seems to lay out the journey, ending on top, and with established human agency. But of course I am now seeing some other ways this could be read…

Lucas, I really enjoyed reading your annotation, and I agree with your analysis. Throughout The Waste Land Eliot explores the fate of men and the fate of women, but there are several central points of almost overwhelming union(/fusion?) of the binary—the first being Tiresias, and the second being here, with this nebulous “third.” This figure, while amorphous, is key, pulling together a number of sources (Shakelton, Marudanayagam, Luke, Weston (the Black Hand?)) and clearly standing as some kind of higher power.

The Visuddhi-Magga boils all beings down to the same—the absolute physical: bones and then working outwards. In so directly linking this to the mysterious third person, Eliot seems finally to have settled in his back and forth between defined gender roles and fates vs. none at all. And, as Lucas notes, bones run through the Waste Land, persisting beyond all outside layers. But how, then, to reconcile that other side still present? Perhaps the way Eliot doesn’t directly quote from the Visuddhi-Magga, and punctuates differently, and switches the order of “man” and “woman” shows that he isn’t in fact wholly drawing from the source.

Something else interesting to note, in a broader / more general sense, is that three functions as a number of disruption—it unsettles the stability of two, breaking the pair or the binary or the dipole. And it is from two that a third can be formed—from both, as a mix. I have been inspired to think more about the significance of this number (which happens to be my lucky number :) ) by Dr. Blevins’ paper on numbers in TWL and Celina ’23’s note that “the number three plays an important role in ancient scholars’ perception of the world, and it is hard to explain this weird infatuation with this specific number across universal applications” (she cites Lao Zi and Daoism, to start). I also think there is perhaps a connection somewhere in here to Hesse’s idea of “the downfall of Europe” which is to result in a fusing of the European man and the Russian man—or perhaps just the European man becoming the Russian man, who in himself is already the third, a mix of good and bad, moral and immoral, etc.

The opening of this section seemed to me to reflect the structure in the beginning of Keats’ “What The Thrush Said.” Keats begins with “O thou whose face hath felt the Winter’s wind” and other such lines describing winter before writing “To thee the spring will be a harvest-time.” This repeats once more with slightly different description around light. “What the Thunder Said” begins with these lines highlighted—the second is the most explicitly wintry image, and the others become as such positioned around it. The “torchlight” fading suggests warmth and light being extinguished, as winter approaches; “frosty” feels an early winter quality; “stony places” are barren and hard, describing the frozen, unyielding quality of winter ground; the sounds of “shouting and crying” break through the wintry, “frosty,” silence as harsh winds or storms; and both “prison” and “palace” feel cold and stone-bound, echoing with emptiness. Then follows the sixth line, “Of thunder of spring over distant mountains.” This feels as/seems to function as the lines “To thee the spring will be a harvest-time” and “To thee the Spring shall be a triple morn” from Keats—presenting the rejuvenation and renewal that is to come, that is arriving. In Harrison’s study, she writes, “‘Thunder,’ said Umbara headman of the Yuin tribe, ‘is the voice of Him (and he pointed upwards to the sky) calling on the rain to fall and everything to grow up new.’” So this lovely spring thunder brings God (is God), and brings restorative rain. Interestingly, this is in opposition to the start of the poem, where April, the beginning of spring, is marked “the cruelest month.” But then, in fact, what follows is a seeming inversion of the story of Lazarus (as noted by William) and actually no water of any form. So what is left—from this dry state, to the expectation of water, to no water—is an intense thirsting. And then this is teased, with the way the second stanza goes round and round seemingly getting closer to reaching water, really—but not. Psalm 63 relates thirst to a thirst for God. I think this is definitely at play here. So again we are left with more paradoxes. God is present in the thunder, but absent with the absence of water. Spring at the beginning of “The Burial of the Dead” stirs life from death; spring here settles death (from life). How can these be reconciled?

This line describes what Phlebas the Phoenician has left behind in death: the sensory and commercial world. “Cry of gulls” calls directly to sense of hearing, but I would argue that this sound is so distinct and piercing it somehow reaches other senses, as well as that its context engages other senses (following the gulls with one’s eyes, smelling the salt of the sea). “Profit and loss” alludes to Phlebas’ mercantile life. In his death these things are “forgotten”—defining the futility of their pursuit. The verb “forgot” here is interesting. Instead of these things being just cut off in/with death, they are erased from the mind—while other things remain/persist/live one. There is something slightly active about forgetting, though it is not under one’s control. But the forgetting occurs with the death, marking that event as some kind of turning point. This seems to align somewhat with De Quincey’s elevation of death to the realm of the sublime.

The other thing that is forgotten is “the deep sea swell.” I think this speaks to the pushes and pulls of mortal life: temptations. A sea swell travels far across the sea’s surface and has a regular, rhythmic motion. It is the aftereffect of distant storms or strong winds that continues to move even when the surrounding sea appears calm. It is a residual pulse of the sea. Thus temptation Eliot defines as one of the sea’s roles. But the same body Eliot then describes as having purified/purifying Phlebas—in the way it “picked his bones in whispers.” “Picked” suggests a slow, intentional process of removal, and “whispers” mirrors the quality of fading memory. So the sea also has a role in the forgetting of the aforementioned. Notably this is a current “under.”

But the sea is an incredibly violent actor as well, claiming Phlebas’s life (see the rough draft of “Death by Water”)—perhaps for what it is to afterwards do? Adding to the ideas on temptation explored above, it must also be noted that the sea is the means by which travel and quest for knowledge occur (in the world of Eliot’s references), as well as that which seems to entice such questing. But this pursuit of knowledge (following the biblical arc) ends disastrously, at the hands of the sea—as seen with the story of Ulysses who addresses Dante, and as with Phlebas (whose fuller story is detailed in the earlier draft, see especially the first couple lines). There is a going against/beyond human bounds here—but I feel there is tension between this idea and humans reaching the life they “should” lead (this is actually kind of exactly embodied in Dante!!). I want to explore this further, along with the different, seemingly quite contradictory, roles of the sea in the poem.

The idea of a river sweating is peculiar. Sweating is the release of a liquid from the body (from the body’s sweat glands). It is a crucial bodily function for regulating temperature, and the cooling effect occurs when sweat evaporates from the skin, absorbing excess heat from the body to do so. If a river releases liquid—oil and tar—isn’t it just to mix with the rest of the water again? Actually—some light oils can evaporate in large bodies of water, if the water is warm and the surface area is large. But it is clearly heavy oils that are meant (like crude oil or motor oil), particularly with tar following. The river sweating here and human sweating remain the same in the most basic sense: both are a function to aid the source, a kind of homeostatic regulation. Contrastingly, the river sweating functions to rid of waste—explicitly material, but probably extending to moral, spiritual, emotional. Unfortunately, this effort is doomed from the start—in a horribly looping, muddled way in that it goes round and round with the oil and tar being supposedly somewhat separated from the rest of the water, or perhaps consolidated, just to mix in again. This process was doomed from the start, but the river wasn’t, with the arrival of the oil and tar. Their presence is obtrusively unnatural. This must be remembered as the following phrases wash over with their sense of predetermination/overarching control: “The barges drift / With the turning tide…sails…swing…The barges wash / Drifting logs…”

What jumped out to me as mirroring this futile process of mixing was the lines “Weialala leia / Wallala leialala”—repeated twice, with the third iteration being just “la la.” In looking back at some past annotations, I noted that Jeannie ’25 made a comment on how “Weialala leia” can be read as a wail. In fact, when attempting to read it out loud, it sounded as though I was reciting a string of jumbled duplications of the word “wail,” and as one, it definitely sounded as a wail. This word is what the letters form, mixed around—but as more and more is added distortion grows, not clarity. In Götterdämmerung, this wailing call is for Siegfried, to return the ring, and thus the Rhine-gold. While initially appearing successful as Siegried enters right after the first call, subsequent ones fall upon deaf ears—along with the rest of the words of the Rhine Daughters. It is almost as though between when the words leave their mouths and when they reach the ears of Siegried—or the reader—there is a warping. The Rhine Daughters’ final “La! la!” feels a dwindling final attempt with recognition of the futility—the “w” is gone—or perhaps marks an even greater warping. Eliot exaggerates this further, with his third repetition being just “la la.” All of this seems to me to very much connect to female voice in the poem—particularly the line “And still she cried, and still the world pursues, / ‘Jug Jug’ to dirty ears” in “A Game of Chess.”

I found this line interesting as it adds to the discourse on female voice, and it connects to the curious section of dialogue in “A Game of Chess.”

In the woman’s encounter with the “young man carbuncular,” she is given no agency—or, rather, no action at all on her part is marked. Not a single action verb follows the pronoun “she.” “Is” is not an action verb (it is a linking verb), and it is used to describe her state as “bored and tired”—thus a mere projection by Tiresias (a man). In fact, lack of action is what is marked. The man’s “caresses” are “unreproved,” his “exploring hands” encounter “no defense,” and his “vanity…makes a welcome of indifference.” The woman’s entire functioning appears to be gone. The connection to John Donne’s Elegy XIX. To His Mistress Going to Bed furthers this.

The one thing left is her voice—not outer (clearly) but inner. But this is operating on the lowest level. It is a singular (“one”), “half-formed” thought that comes. What is interesting is that this is all “her brain allows”—she is stopping herself, or rather a part of her or something inside of her is, as evidently there are two sides. But these two sides—her brain and from wherever thoughts issue (also the brain?)—are natural, integral parts of the self. What is going on here?

But there is definitely a control running through the encounter—and perhaps extending beyond?—as if the whole thing had been laid out. The woman, afterwards, “smoothes her hair with automatic hand” and “puts a record on the gramophone”—set to go round and round and round. The reference to The Vicar of Wakefield appears to add to this, and so does the odd use of the colon, somehow urging an inevitability. I think it has all been laid out—with Tiresias, who can see the future, looming over the scene.

In terms of connection to the dialogue in “A Game of Chess,” there seems to be some sort of comment on women’s agency and what is asked of them: “‘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 would like to explore this further.

This line immediately stood out to me as adding to the conversation on voice. I wonder if in general the Thames has been referred to with a female identity or with a male identity (I am finding conflicting things online). I am leaning towards a female identity—not only would this follow the pattern thus far of silencing female voices/stories/identities, it also seems to make sense to me in the way that London was founded on the Thames and here has a kind of mother role (like a part of mother nature, almost). Cities were often started around rivers because a river is navigable, and provides a defensive advantage and fresh water.

The speaker repeats this line three times. If the Thames is thought of as above, the speaker is silencing a primal force of nature, a silencing that far outdoes and at the same time solidifies those prior. It is also to be noted that the silencing taking place here is in direct relation to the rising up/over of the speaker’s voice—there is an apparent trade. The repetition seems to point to some resistance on part of the river. What is also interesting is the part in the third repetition “for I speak not loud.” This is not taken from Prothalamion. So if the speaker were just to speak louder then the river would not need to “run softly”?

Coming out a bit, it doesn’t make much sense to me that the river Thames runs so loudly. Wouldn’t all the noise be coming from the surrounding city, especially by the time Eliot is writing? So perhaps, then, this line functions as a kind of longing call, to a time prior, a happier time, a time when this would really be the case—when/what Spenser is writing about (fleeting even as he describes it). But this is an impossible reality. Perhaps this extends to the reference to Carpenter’s work—a fruitless reaching to his call for the land’s “own people to come and take possession of it,” and perhaps also to his more general detailing of the river/bodies of water as uniting and foundational in that way. This relates to an idea explored a while back with waste lands being communal lands. Or, alternatively, it is possible that, in the case of silencing the river, this role of the river is being erased completely.

This line can be read in two ways (at least). On a first pass—at least this was very much the case for me—it reads with “please” as an adverb, as it is often used in requests or questions. There is a problem then with “its” which is read as “it’s” as in “it is time.” But this error feels fitting—the repetition of the line and its formatting in all caps create a sense of urgency, a rush from which this mistake could ensue. It feels that punctuation has been omitted in a similar fashion.

But “its” could also be read as is, in which case it is a possessive pronoun—“time” belongs to “it.” “Please” is then an imperative verb. I am leaning towards this reading, as it feels slightly hidden (quite Eliot-like), and plays into the question of agency I have been exploring in a number of my annotations.

So what is the “it”? I think “it” refers to some greater force, power, or overarching structure, and here it feels clear that this is the game of chess—which is often played with time constraints.

Chess appears to be ruling this section of the poem, especially the parts pertaining to women. I find chess very interesting in that, in looking at its set-up, it is suggested that the queen, as the most powerful piece (being able to move as she does), should be the most secure. Yet the rules define winning as capturing the king. The queen’s role is one of sacrifice, to protect the king, and in doing so almost always meets her demise. The women referenced in “A Game of Chess” follow this arc. They hold the immense power of “love,” but somehow this is, in each case, twisted to serve men and then lead to their death. It seems that Lil will meet a similar end, with the last line on page 59 being a reference to (some of) Ophelia’s last words (where she is speaking about herself?). The ties to Middleton’s A Game at Chess and its sexual interpretations of the game link these two ideas more firmly.

In Pound’s The Game of Chess there is a pattern of lines on the page that repeats four times. It is a sequence of one line and then the line below it being indented (a couple times?). The space, notably, forms a clear “angle” and an uppercase “l” if rotated 180°. This pattern/spacing, even exaggerated a bit, is replicated twice with lines 117-120 in “A Game of Chess.” This stands out against the formatting up to this point. Now the section is physically fitting into “the game.”

Eliot made the title “A Game of Chess”—not “The Game of Chess” (Pound) or “A Game at Chess” (Middleton). “A Game of Chess” feels more open and less defining than “The Game of Chess.” There is some room. But “A Game at Chess” feels more action-oriented. As always with Eliot, I feel there is back-and-forth.

What is clear across this selection of readings, and their integration into the opening of “A Game of Chess” is the power of woman, or rather the power of “love” (a horribly ambiguous term as it is employed in the readings), which emanates from woman. Enobarbus and Mecaenas fear Cleopatra, in her relationship with Antony. Right after Enorbarbus says, “I saw her once Hop forty paces through the public street; And having lost her breath, she spoke, and panted, That she did make defect perfection, And, breathless, power breathe forth” Mecaenas replies, “Now Antony must leave her utterly.” It is this “now” that marks the fear; it is directly following the detailing of Cleopatra’s everlasting, impossible perfection and power (explicit here) that it is decided Antony cannot be with her. “...secret splendor and fatal beauty That nature had bestowed on her” describes only the corpse of the woman in A Martyred Woman (mysteriously radiant, dangerously enchanting, almost like a force of nature—this connection could either be a testament to female power, or a putting of it onto something else/an attempt to remove it from the source). Philomela is said to immediately ignite “the flame of love” that “takes” Tereus, “as if one had set afire ripe grain, dry leaves, or a haystack.”

And it is as though in utter fear of this power, of this hold of women over men, issuing so strongly before a woman even really does anything, that their voices are taken away. Philomela’s tongue is cut off, and then she is falsely proclaimed dead (an ultimate silencing). Octavius knows what his plan is with Cleopatra—what she says will not make a difference. Dido is twisted into suicide (a self-silencing). The entirety of A Martyred Woman is a man speaking on the image of a dead woman—his thoughts, his views, his opinions.

Eliot adds to this. “Marie” follows “he said” (doubly so, actually, with Eliot writing the poem). Madame Sosostris is a reference to Chrome Yellow’s Madame Sesostris—a man impersonating a woman. And is the spelling change a further mocking? Sybil’s voice is hidden in the epigraph under male layers: Trimalchio, and his friends from childhood, Eliot (macro). When Eliot says, “yet there the nightingale Filled all the desert with inviolable voice And still she cried, and still the world pursues ‘Jug Jug’ to dirty ears” it appears that the voice, the story, of Philomela persists in the song of the nightingale—despite the violence inflicted upon her (rape by King Tereus and the mutilation of her tongue)—but in nature (there might be more here, too, with another nature!), the female nightingale is mute; only the male of the species sings. If anything is being sung, then, it is Tereus’ voice, Tereus’ story. Or what is being “sung” by Philomela as a nightingale comes out as nothing (“‘Jug Jug’”)—can a desert be filled? It would no longer be a desert. Then, mockingly, “the world pursues…”

This scene is that of a modern Inferno. The masses of Londoners commuting across the bridge mirror Dante’s vision of “so long a file of people” (the souls in the vestibule of Hell chasing the banner). With the almost verbatim “I had not thought death had undone so many,” the connection is clear—even if it takes a couple readings to realize. Dante’s journey through hell is, most basically, an allegory for the soul’s recognition of sin and the consequences of immoral actions. And in Canto III, Virgil says of the souls in the vestibule that they “lived without disgrace yet without praise” and “held themselves apart”—subject-driven action verbs. This defining piece of literature so directly referenced and intentionally placed has human responsibility and with that agency (as it pertains to consequence) at its core. This is what Eliot foregrounds.

Tarot, and as used here, is for fortune-telling, a laying out of fate. As we see with the description of Madame Sosostris in the poem and in Huxley’s Chrome Yellow (Sesostris), the fortune is presented definitively, following the manner of the tarot reader (witch? sorceress? clairvoyante?)—in a way that subtly and cleverly conceals, in part through a kind of fear, the open analysis involved, the different “readings” of varying images, words, colors. So actually the fortune is a flexible fate—and perhaps bent, perhaps twisted. But is it made self-fulfilling?

The comical line “Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyante, Had a bad cold, nevertheless…” seems to play on this. “Clairvoyant” breaks down into “clair,” meaning clear, and “voyant,” meaning seeing: to see—not strictly defined to sight but including other senses, I would say—clearly. Yet it is a cold that muffles the senses, so they are dull, blurry, confused.

Loy too seems to play with these ideas in At the Door of the House. The repeated phrase “at the door of the house” presses first a sense of imminence—and with that the definite quality. However, a doorway is also a threshold—a point of change, and a point of choice: to cross, or not to cross. Here again there is that flexibility, and pushing towards an agent flexibility. But Loy does establish a stagnancy in finality with “...Looking for the little love-tale that never came true At the door of the house.” This calls back to the definitive (self-fulfilling?) side.

Could the same be demonstrated with the spelling of “Sosostris” in Eliot’s poem—because in Chrome Yellow it is “Sesostris.” This might be seen as going too far, but Eliot does not change spelling in his earlier reference to “Marie.” What also seems to fit here is that Madame Sesostris in Chrome Yellow is impersonating a woman.

This line calls back to the Book of Ezekiel, in two places in Ezek.6. God comes upon Ezekiel, ordering to “prophesy against” the people of Israel, but his words turn from warning with room for correction (Ezek.3) to a fierce threat of immediate destruction: “Behold, I, even I, will bring a sword upon you, and I will destroy your high places. And your altars shall be desolate, and your images shall be broken…and your images may be cut down, and your works abolished.”

This destruction/waste that is to come/comes is not directly at the hands of sin and iniquity; it is at the hands of God, punishing sin and iniquity. This raises again a question of agency. Why aren’t the people of Israel allowed a chance at redemption anymore? What about those born into this way of sin and iniquity?

When Eliot writes, “Son of man, You cannot say, or guess, for you know only A heap of broken images,” it is strongly suggested that whoever Eliot is addressing—“son of man” feels encompassing—is separate from the settling of the waste condition, for it is all they know. God refers to Ezekiel as “son of man,” and it also feels inherently removed with the “son of”—removed from God, but removed from something else, too.

This calls the title back into question, where in my first annotation I explored how there is/could be agency and movement and hope. But perhaps the set-up with “The Waste Land” where “waste” is a noun/subject and “land” a verb is that this landing is a pre-established condition. What hope then?

The alternate title “He Do the Police in Different Voices” has ties to the established title, but in all it presents a different set-up to the poem—how to read it, what it’s doing, what it’s about.

The line being a direct quote from Charles Dickens’ Our Mutual Friend referring to Sloppy, there settles immediately but much less assertively similar images to those “waste land” conjures—given the background of Sloppy’s name, his situation, and his description, collectively pulling together “dung,” “slime,” and “ungainly.” But what is said of Sloppy in the line “he do the Police in different voices,” as well as what immediately precedes it—“Sloppy is a beautiful reader”—is a surprising contrast, and in fact much more telling—in speaking of ability, particularly the mind, in speaking of the inside. So, as with “The Waste Land” (see my previous annotation for more), in this title there is optimistic movement from the initial. It is sort of a potential again, but really it is stronger—an exposure, a correction.

Read on its own, “he do the Police in different voices” suggests social commentary and critique, and taken with that explored above, later exposure. This positions the author as outside looking in, or looking down, removed, rather than as part of what is to follow—which we do not fully get with “The Waste Land” either, but definitely more so, particularly with the connotation of “waste land” as the past communal lands. The epigraph that follows the alternate title is a complete detailing of one by another, an outside analysis and commentary on a universal experience.

But the alternate title and beginning are somehow more accepting. “Different voices” explicitly opens different views, perspectives, people, ideas to be brought in and explored. As noted in our last class, “waste land” pulls at this as well, tentatively offering the poem as a new/metaphorical waste land, in its bring together of all its sources. But this is sort of eclipsed by the words’ initial darkness and weight. The epigraph following in latin and greek versus English builds this contrast.

Only three words, the title The Waste Land, is heavily and darkly assertive and defining but also hopefully open. In its multiple readings, the role of agency is brought into question.

When first read, I think our heads subtly reconfigure it to be “The Wasteland”; and immediately, as William notes, “a desolate place, a barren landscape devoid of life” is conjured. But “waste” and “land” are separated, so either “waste” functions as an adjective describing the noun “land,” or “land” is a verb and “waste” is its subject. So we cannot and should not jump to “wasteland”; transparently and deliberately, if yet also elusively, there is a space.

In having this space, gradually a flexibility opens up—room to move and breathe and change. This is already somewhat underlying in the word “waste” itself, however it functions; “waste” has an inherent sense of loss, of a comparative (close to opposing) state that was but is no longer—at least for the time being. And so in “waste” there is change, and though as of now this change has been to a depressing state, there is potential for change again—with a gentle calling back to the previous, happier condition.

If “waste” functions as an adjective, the feeling above is only amplified, as it is the nature of an adjective to be taken in and out, or swapped, or exchanged. At the same time, however, an adjective, especially if standing alone, is intentional and determining. If “waste” is a noun (and “land” a verb), the above is also amplified; if the “waste” “land,” they arrived, they settled, from elsewhere—we are given this nebulous ‘before’ and then left to ask: Then what?

The word “the” can appear defining but I think it is less so than “a,” which in its indefiniteness is much more all-reaching. “The” is simply pointed.

So in either case, with “waste” as an adjective or a noun, we are presented with a quiet, optimistic potential for more change—and following this, especially if “waste” is a noun/subject, there is agency.

In From Ritual to Romance, Jessie Weston offers an idea present in some versions of the Grail Quest that “the misfortunes of the land are not antecedent to, but dependent upon, the hero’s abortive visit…the failure of the predestined hero to ask concerning the office of the Grail is alone responsible for the illness of the King and the misfortunes of the country.” Eliot does not play to this hollow, performative agency into (and thus not out of, either) the state in which we are situated to begin. The agency he presents is real, and appears to follow a set-up such as is detailed in the Gawain (Bleheris) version presented by Weston—“...so that the folk be once more joyful and the land repeopled which by ye and this sword are wasted and made void”—or that which is in Le Morte D’Arthur with King Labor and King Hurlame who both die with the use of the sword.

We begin with a corrupting, evil agent (human) force, and it will be a struggle to rectify.