The fact that worms/arachnids are a key element of this reading is really fascinating—and it sort of seems to come out of nowhere. The spider, just as in these lines, is mentioned in the Webster reading, of course:

O men, / That lie upon your death-beds, and are haunted / With howling wives! ne'er trust them; they 'll re-marry / Ere the worm pierce your winding-sheet, ere the spider / Make a thin curtain for your epitaphs.

The "worm" is mentioned by Webster, too, though it is not brought up in Eliot's poem. However, it does share a common trait with a spider—silk: just as a worm can produce silk (i.e. the silkworm), so does a spider ("spider's silk.") Silk as a material may be too specific for what Eliot is referencing, but nonetheless, it can form the material for the "draperies" and the "seals" mentioned in these lines.

It's clear to see the depiction of contrast between each creature. On the one hand, the worm doesn't produce the silk for the draperies, the seals, the winding-sheets, or the curtains—but breaks them. In this way, the creatures may be shorthands for humans that deal with a body after death. A winding-sheet is a "a cloth in which a body is wrapped for burial" (Wikipedia). According to Webster, the worm quickly pierces this cloth—in a way, quickly breaking the period of rest for the dead—just as, per Eliot, the "lean solicitor" breaks the "seals." The worm is akin to the solicitor—that who manages the will/other documents of the dead.

On the other hand, the spider is "beneficent"—it is good, because it doesn't break but "drapes" and "makes a thin curtain" for the dead. One can look at what a drape is, exactly, in its purpose: drapes are often referenced to curtains, which are almost always translucent or opaque so as to block out sunlight. In like fashion, the "drapes" of "memories"—or the "thin curtains" over "epitaphs"—seek to block out the memories of someone who is dead; or blocking out the fact that they even lived a life (which is recorded by an epitaph). On the other hand, the spider can represent the most vile and evil of acts. As Isabel Su points out in a historical annotation, "male spiders basically trap/stalk sexually immature females to ensure that they are the first ones to mate with them, and then female spiders eat their partners after copulation." The theme of sexual violence is very present.

In addition, there's an interesting play between life and death here. The death, and the draping of memories, seems to erase the record that life was present at all. Instead, the solicitor—the worm—brings the dead "back to life" by invoking the memory that they even existed in the first place. Even more interesting is what this has to do with datta—with giving. Is the solicitor truly the giver of life even though all it gives are the "memories"? In some ways, this would be supported by the Bradley text: if life is merely an illusion, the only way for our souls to communicate would be if we were to believe, or remember, that they were present in the first place. The only way for one's life to truly have existed would be if other people saw it as such—if they were remembered.

Some thinking out loud here: this line is rather eye-catching as it is wedged between a conglomeration of lines from other texts. The only parts of the stanza that aren't directly "snatched" from another source are several lines above: "I sat upon the shore / ... / Shall I at least set my lands in order?" From this, a close reading would be most helpful to understand the overall conclusion of the poem.

Firstly, "these fragments" seem to be less cryptic than the rest of the poem: the narrator refers to the lines from other texts—Dante, De Nerval, Kyd, Hindu philosophy, etc.—that precede and follow this line. "Shore," however, has a double-meaning. The first line of the stanza describes the narrator sitting upon a shore (noun), yet the narrator is also shoring—or supporting something (often by holding it up) that would otherwise fail/topple. The fragments are being shored—they are being saved, in a way, from decline or irrelevance; in fact, they already have ("I have shored"). To recap: at the same time that the narrator is "fishing" "upon the shore," the narrator is "shoring" the fragments. The narrator shores these fragments by fishing them out of water; they are saving them from water. Perhaps they are saving them from drowning by fishing them out.

This reminds me of two text references: one, the man at the bottom of the lake in Marie Larisch's "My Past," who "will return" from the bottom of the lake by rising from the dead. In a way, these fragments may be rising from the dead, too, thanks to the narrator. Secondly, from today's reading, the Weston analysis of the Fisher King, who has a "devotion to the pastime of fishing." The text contains a lot of important information, but I see the Fisher King as having two important characteristics. One: "the guardian of the Grail bears the title of Fisher King." This relates to the "third figure," like the "third officer" Shackleton was, whose job is to be a guardian in the first place. In this thread, the Fisher King represents a "third figure" of sorts. The Fisher King looks after—or guards—the Holy Grail, an object that grants immortality to the user. Thus—the Fisher King bars anyone from achieving immortality and constrains everyone to the inevitability of death. This can align with a second description of the Fisher King, toward the end of the Weston text. The Fisher King is

not merely a deeply symbolic figure, but the essential centre of the whole cult, a being semi-divine, semi-human, standing between his people and land, and the unseen forces which control their destiny.

The Fisher King plays an intermediary role—he connects the mortal with the divine; in a way, connecting life and death. Life and death can be thought of as two sides of the same coin (in other words, if death didn't exist, then the conception of life wouldn't exist as well). By ensuring death, the Fisher King ensures life in turn—and vice-versa. If this narrator is the Fisher King, or someone akin, then the "fragments" being saved may be the fragments of life itself.

The final part of this line is "against my ruins," and the idea of "ruins" is mentioned numerous times in today's reading. The ruins are not the same as the fragments—they are not being supported, or upheld—but instead, the fragments are being saved against them (in contrast, or opposition, to them). Most notably, "ruins" are mentioned in the De Nerval text:

... the prince of Aquitaine, his tower in ruins...

Notably enough, this quote (in French) comprises the line exactly above this one. The ruins themselves are those of the tower, which reminds me of the Tower tarot reading. The Tower tarot foreshadows "massive change, upheaval, destruction and chaos" (Biddy Tarot). So, in spite of—or in opposition to—this massive change, destruction, and chaos, these "fragments" have been shored up; they have been fished out; they have been saved and preserved. The destruction in question may refer to many things—it may refer to that of WW1, or the decline in religious piety, or the destruction of nature in favor of urbanization (or all three of these). From this destruction are fragments—represented by the lines of text from other sources—that save the core principles of human life. Going back to the Fisher King analysis, what is saved may be the cycle of life and death. Though urbanization and war seem to defy this cycle (the ability to construct and destruct by one's own accord), the Holy Grail is still protected.

Other notes I don't have the space to mention: connections to the illusion of life by Bradley; connections to the idea of memory (preserving memory) from Webster; the idea of planting and eating vegetation; The Golden Bough.

In her annotation, Quisha talks about water as the most purest of substances, though one that isn't "sweet," so to speak. In many ways, the symbol of water reminded me not only of the purity and sweetness of liquid—but of music, specifically as it relates to the hermit-thrush.

The line preceding this one is "Drip drop drip drop drop drop drop." Before reading TWL, we studied modernism in general—and my group had analyzed and listened to atonal music. This onomatopoeia, which "lacks water," is very atonal in itself. It lacks a concrete framework with which the notes—"drip" and "drop"—arrange themselves, nor does it have a "triad" that the notes "drip" and "drop" must return to. In other words, the sequence of "drip" and "drop" is seemingly random—it's atonal. One may also think of the act of water when it drips—down a faucet or a pipe—as inherently atonal music: water makes notes when it drips, but those notes are not carefully constructed under a key signature or arranged in a manner pleasant to the reader. If anything, atonal music—like water droplets—is not only unpleasant, but unsweet—just like water.

As Quisha points out, a lack of sweetness doesn't signify a lack of purity or superiority. Water is the basis for human life; It's the most fundamentally pure substance there is. Atonality can't only be connected to water, though—but the hermit-thrush. The hermit-thrush, as described in the Bicknell entry,

bears high distinction among our song birds. Its notes are not remarkable for variety or volume, but in purity and sweetness of tone and exquisite modulation they are unequaled.

If anything, hermit-thrush music seems to represent the opposite of music produced by water. Neither water's taste nor sound is sweet, or particularly pleasant. On the contrary, the hermit-thrush song is sweet "in tone" and is distinct in its "modulation"—two elements that are entirely absent in atonal music. Nonetheless, the hermit-thrush bears some resemblance to water: its "tranquil clearness of tone and exalted serenity of expression." Water is certainly "clear in its tone"—both its taste and appearance are clear and refreshing. As for its "serenity of expression," it depends: water can be serene on a calm summer's day at the lake—but in the midst of a storm, it can be anything but serene.

Ultimately, the change in purity, in serenity—and perhaps in sweetness—of water is what gives it is most distinguished qualities. Water is never constant—it is always in a state of change, such as when it "drips" atonally in the previous line. Perhaps this is the primary resemblance to the hermit-thrush, the voice of which is also dynamic: "While traveling, the hermit-thrush is not in full voice..." When in motion, the clarity, sweetness, and purity of the hermit-thrush isn't "in full"; likewise, the clarity, sweetness, and purity of water isn't apparent when it's in motion: rain, waves, and the like.

I'm very interested in the use of color here. Why is it that in a span of one stanza—in fact, a mere three lines—two colors are referenced: white and brown? I was interested in finding more about this, so the first place I looked to was the etymologies of these colors. From the Online Etymology Dictionary:

Brown: Old English brun "dark, dusky," developing a definite color sense... from PIE root *bher- (2) "bright; brown."

And:

White: ...in late Old English "a highly luminous color devoid of chroma."

Also, interestingly, with white:

...Meaning "morally pure" was in Old English. Association with royalist causes is late 18c. Slang sense of "honorable, fair" is 1877, American English; in Middle English it meant "gracious, friendly, favorable."

Brown and white have stark differences—of course, with the most obvious being the fact that brown is "developing a definite color sense" while white is "devoid of chroma." This is consistent with the basic science behind color: white reflects all wavelengths of light—the absence of color—whereas brown/black absorbs them—a complete presence of color. As the etymology indicates, evidently, one can analogize the absence/presence of color as the absence/presence of sin: white, being absent of "chroma," is as a consequence regarded as "favorable," "honorable," and "morally pure." Of course, one can delve even more into the repercussions this had on white supremacy—but, within the context of the poem, a "white road" may be seen as a pure one: a road, or a path, free of sin (chroma).

Interestingly, however, this idea is turned on its head in the Visuddhi-Magga reading. The "white road" from line 362 can be related to the path from Mt. Cetiya to Anuradhapura; this is hinted by line 365, which mentions the ambiguity of the gender of a figure just as the Visuddhi-Magga reading did on pg. 298. On the same page, however, elements that are white aren't indications of purity—but impurity:

The elder looked up inquiringly, and observing her teeth, realized the impurity of her body...

Also:

But this I know, a set of bones / Is traveling on upon this road.

Both bones and teeth are white—yet they are the utmost signs of the impurities, the least honorable and favorable and gracious elements of the human self.

Finally, with regards to brown—though brown is a "dark" and "dusky" color, it has one commonality with white: the element of brightness, of luminosity, in their etymologies. I am immediately reminded of Dracula when I read this: Dracula comes out only in the absence of brightness, as he is a "nocturnal existence." Yet the mantle—the cloak—worn by this figure, much like one that Dracula is described as wearing in the novel, is brown. From conventional associations of color, if the mantle was a symbol of darkness and evil, one would not expect it to be brown—which even has the etymology of brightness. Instead, this figure may be the antithesis of Dracula itself. This would make sense because, as Angela hinted at, the idea of a "third figure" may symbolize a character of divinity, of providence—or of brightness.

The notion of wind and sound as it relates to this section is fascinating. A sea current is analogous to wind: it is the flow of water (vs. the flow of air) in a singular direction. The personification is even more interesting: the current "picks" the bones of the drowned Phoenician sailor. Whether this verb describes the random erosion of the sailor's remains (picking at something), or an intentional choosing, is an important consideration.

This is far from the first personification of current in the original draft of Death by Water. Early on, Eliot describes a "light fair breeze"—a current that is not only moderate, but just and benevolent. When this breeze wanes, "Thereafter everything went wrong," and the boat was forced to "sail to windward"; in other words, it had to sail in the direction from which the wind was blowing. Finally, an "unfamiliar gust" arrived, becoming stronger by having later "freshened to a gale." The wind turned destructive and deadly—but despite this, the sailor's ship kept on "scudding"—which means to move as if driven by the wind.

Perhaps the "wind" pushing, or pulling, the sailors across the sea is the urge to discover new lands, to settle, and to colonize—not in spite of, but because of its risks of death. The Tennyson reading further supports this:

'T is not too late to seek a newer world. / Push off, and sitting well in order smite / The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds / To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths / Of all the western stars, until I die."

Noise is also an important consideration. When the "wind" came to a lull, both "the crew moaned" and "the sea with many voices / Moaned all about us." In contrast, when the wind strengthened, noise waned. By the time the wind became more deadly, "no one spoke again." With the wind's greater strength came greater noise—one that clouded the judgment of the sailor. He describes the women that had to sing "above the wind," being more loud than the wind itself, to make him realize the futility—or, perhaps, the fiction—of his voyage: "(Nothing was real) for, I thought, now, when / I like, I can wake up and end the dream."

It seems that these sailors were keen to glorify risk—even death—which compelled them to continue their quest in the first place. When the wind died down, they pursued it further—testing the bounds of life and the thrill of death. When the wind picked up, the true peril of death came to light, and the crew became "dead" silent. It is clear that the "whispers" in this line take place in the aftermath of death: the current had retaliated with an act of great "noise," and now retreats to silence.

By this point, I have developed a key interest in the structuring of these kinds of phrases. Every time that a geographical region/location is mentioned, the articles of speech rearrange—the sentence starts with a preposition, and the subject "I" comes after the name of the place. "By Richmond I raised my knees... "On Margate Sands. I can connect..." Of course, there are exceptions to this, but the structure is nevertheless eye-catching. It reminded me of Paradise Lost, which I read last year, where Milton engages with a similar diversion from traditional sentence structure. I am not sure what to make of this—except for the fact that, just as Milton's unconventional language occurred during the Enlightenment, a time of great "political upheaval" (Wikipedia), so might Eliot's language have been written in the context of WW1 and its own societal upheavals.

According to Wikipedia:

Carthage, a seaside suburb of Tunisia’s capital, Tunis, is known for its ancient archaeological sites. Founded by the Phoenicians in the first millennium B.C., it was once the seat of the powerful Carthaginian (Punic) Empire, which fell to Rome in the 2nd century B.C.

The first detail I noticed in searching up Carthage were the "Phoenicians"—of course, this holds relevance to the "drowned Phoenician Sailor" mentioned in Section I. The Phoenicians were colonizers—"sailing" across the Mediterranean to grow a vast and powerful empire. Eventually, however, Carthage fell to the Romans—as did the Phoenicians. Perhaps this loss of power is symbolized the act of "drowning"; on the other hand, it could be the act of "burning" instead.

We see this line as "To Carthage I came," as the first line in Confessions—except why is the word then added in TWL? It doesn't make sense, unless you think of the "coming to Carthage" as the result, or action following the previous line: "My people humbl[ing] people who expect / Nothing." These "people" may be the ones referenced in Confessions as the ones who, at Carthage, "sang all around me in my ears a cauldron of unholy loves." There are several things to unpack here. First of all, the people are singing, and their music is "unholy." This unholiness is the opposite of what takes place in the "Fire Sermon," where, in escaping the burning of the senses, "he knows... that he has lived the holy life." Secondly, the music is a cauldron. Thinking about what a cauldron itself does, it is a vessel usually where something is cooked in boiling liquid—essentially, being burned and drowned at the same time. Perhaps burning and drowning, in this sense, aren't two disparate means of suffering—but two sides of the same coin. Whereas burning is the suffering derived from desire, drowning is the stifling of power, and of "rest" (going back to Burial of the Dead), as a result of the suffering.

Eliot has a propensity to snatch a line from another source and weave it with his poetry in some form. This line is no different, clearly borrowed from the Goldsmith reading "Vicar of Wakefield" containing a larger song. This song acted as an interlude which illustrated the dire progression of events following Squire Thornhill's abandonment of Olivia, who spiraled into a wretched state afterward. It reads:

When lovely woman stoops to folly, / And finds, too late, that men betray, / What charm can soothe her melancholy? / What art can wash her guilt away?

As we've seen before, the burden of sin is placed upon the woman: even though men are the ones who "betray," it is the woman who had been "folly" in the first place. Despite this, Awa, in her past annotation, brings up a vital point: the element of humanization in Eliot's work compared to Goldsmith:

...Eliot rehumanizes his female victims in many of our stories. Initially they are abused, killed, trapped, or cursed. But in this stanza Elliot allows a woman who experienced trauma to heal without dying and heal alone.

As Awa explains, there is clearly a difference in the aftermath—the "recovery"—of these women after their trauma. Whereas Goldsmith puts into question the ability for women to heal after being betrayed, Eliot's descriptions allude to a swift recomposition: someone who "smoothes [their] hair" and "puts a record on the gramophone"—an apparent lack of affliction. A similar description, meanwhile, takes place in "The Jig of Forslin":

Women by mirrors combing out their hair / Women sleeping, old men dying.

The aspect of "mirrors" is interesting, as it is referred to at the top of Eliot's stanza when the woman "looks a moment in the glass." Also, in "The Jig of Forslin":

Maenad maidens in bacchanalian dance / Follow as in a trance / With heads thrown back, shut eyes, and yearning throats / The menacing mournful notes."

Finally, song is brought up in Whitman's poem, as an invitation to Death: "I bring thee a song that when thou must indeed come, come unfalteringly."

In all three of these texts, song seems to symbolize ignorance as bliss. For Eliot, this is being "Hardly aware of her departed lover"; for Conrad Aiken, the "trance" of the "menacing, mournful notes"; for Whitman, this is more radical—the "sure-enwinding arms of cool-enfolding death" mentioned previously. Could all of these represent the same thing—most evidently, death? According to Goldsmith, it would make sense: the only thing that could "soothe her melancholy" is "to die." Goldsmith also attests that melancholy itself is soothing: "that melancholy, which is... inspired by sounds of harmony, soothes the heart instead of corroding it."

Essentially, music induces a state of melancholy, which soothes the heart. This is precisely what Awa was referring to: the "humanness" of healing alone. What may be more interesting, however, is whether this process of healing can come from death itself—that there is healing even as the body physically decomposes. Or perhaps death is metaphorical in this case: it is a detachment from one's emotions—a death of the soul—as opposed to a physical death, and these texts would certainly seem to confirm it through music.

This phrase is repeated twice—the first iteration being just a few lines earlier—so as a general, low-hanging fruit of an idea, it has obvious significance. Indeed, with closer scrutiny, the "nymphs" in question can be symbols of the web—between man vs. woman, life vs. death, and nature vs. industrialization—that Eliot has crafted. To see this, one may first look at the exact definition of a nymph, per Google: "a mythological spirit of nature imagined as a beautiful maiden inhabiting rivers, woods, or other locations." The nymph is clearly an element of the female identity and an element of nature at the same time. This connection is ever-present in "Parisfal," where nymphs are represented as the flower-maidens. These flower-maidens were beautiful, seductive women intended to lure knights into Klingsor's, a male magician's, power. In other words, women were used as a seductive tool to heighten male power; this is not uncommon to what we saw in "The Game of Chess," where the "queen" was seen as a piece of seduction, of superficial power—to uphold the true power held by the "king."

Importantly, in "Parsifal," the women (flower-maids) are the physical representation of sin—just how in Paradise Lost, Eve was the illustration of sin and its dangers. In fact, Eve, being born out of Adam's rib, could be interpreted as a perversion of Adam's purity—falling trap to Satan's seduction. This demonization of women was discussed briefly in class. It paints women not only in a light of sin, but more specifically, seduction. Women almost take the place of Satan in this light. This is why, in "Parsifal," when "Parsifal has conquered the girls" and "He's conquered lovely Woman," he has conquered a sin (lust) but what he's truly "conquered" are the women themselves, who are agents of that sin. When the "nymphs have departed," as referred to here, sin has departed and purity has pervaded. Thus, when the "nymphs have departed," women have departed and male dominance has pervaded.

The allusions to industry are abundantly clear when we compare the ideas of man vs. woman and good vs. evil to those of life vs. death and nature vs. urbanization. One point that Sophie P. mentioned in class was that in many ways, women are symbols of nature whereas men are symbols of industry; the flower-maidens are a case in point. More importantly, however, urbanization is seen as an act of death—representing the destruction of nature, or women, or sin. When the "river's tent is broken" in the first line, the longevity of the river Thames is waning; in other words, the natural elements of London are degrading. However, this isn't necessarily a bad thing: it could be interpreted as a liberation from the shackles of nature. For example, Jules Laforgue asserts that

...until nature shows a nice and kind concern The humdrum life'll serve my turn.

In other words, nature is malicious and sinful and destructive to the individual, and it is the "turn" of the "humdrum," or industrial development, to take precedence. Yet urbanization, while being less "sinful" in this manner, can still be portrayed as "death-like." The London Bridge is a perfect symbol: Eliot comments on the crowd that "flowed over London Bridge" by saying that he had "not thought death had undone so many." The same crowd is referred to by Carpenter as a "solid flow of business men northward across London Bridge." So what does this mean? Life and death may align counterintuitively with purity and sin: in fact, it is death (industry, business, men) that is free of sin, and life (nature, women) that is full of it. This inversion of what is normally preferable—life or death—has been prominent in The Waste Land from the beginning.

Strangely, although this is referring to the Drowned Phoenician Sailor tarot card, it reminds me of a line from the Middleton reading—where Ignatius Loyola says:

Pawns argue but poor spirits and slight preferments, Not worthy of the name of my disciples. If I had stood so nigh, I would have cut That Bishop’s throat but I’d have had his place And told the Queen a love tale in her ear Would make her best pulse dance. There’s no elixir Of brain or spirit amongst ‘em.

This one snippet of dialogue seems rather denigrating to women, to say the least. Loyola is saying, essentially, that if he were on the chess board, he would attempt to seduce the Queen—who has "no elixir / Of brain or spirit"—even if it meant turning against the pieces on his own team. In my conversation with Quisha in class yesterday, she mentioned the fact that the game of chess has distinct gender roles: the queen, though being the most powerful and versatile piece on the board, is not nearly as venerated as the king—who ultimately decides the fate of the game; this is meant to be a reflection of gender roles in society. In fact, Pound's "The Game of Chess" speaks to a similar dichotomy: he describes the "'x's of queens," which I thought of as referring to the XX chromosomes in the female sex, with little to no descriptors. On the contrary, the "'Y' pawns" were depicted in a more triumphant light: "... cleaving! Embanking! / Whirl! Centripetal! Mate!" Essentially, while the "female" pieces are dispensable—something to be seen as an object of seduction and lust—the "male" pieces are lauded, perhaps beyond their actual abilities. As for the connections to the Drowned Phoenician Sailor, this makes sense: the Phoenician Sailor, for whom one must "Fear death by water," is a reflection of the female torment. Ophelia, for one, drowns herself in a river in Hamlet—the precise "death by water"—due to the nature of gender discrimination.

Clearly, this line is an imitation of a line we see early on in Antony and Cleopatra—with one change: the word "barge" is changed to a capitalized "Chair" here. This is very much an Eliot technique, reminiscent of the other one-word alteration, from "history" to "nature," that we saw in his "Gerontion" drafts. So why was "barge" changed to "Chair," and why is the word "Chair" capitalized? For one, Chair might not be referring to a literal chair, which isn't a proper noun—but an organizational position, which can be. A "Chair" in a company is an executive position; likewise, a metaphorical Chair in a kingdom may refer to one's supreme status. This makes sense—but that still leaves out this transition from a "barge," which is an ornamental boat used for pleasure or ceremony. Eliot seems to take Cleopatra, having been described in the primary text we read, and elevating her to a much grander (and less wretched) status. For example, while the original text says that the barge "Burned on the water," the Chair in "A Game of Chess" is "Glowed on the marble"—a much more preferable alternative to burning. In the original text, also, the symbol of wind plays a much more prominent (and favorable) role. It depicts that

The winds were love sick with them; the oars were silver Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made The water to which they beat follow faster, As amorous of their strokes...

The wind, or "air," is portrayed in a different tone in this section, however: the perfumes that are "troubled, confused / And drowned," are "stirred by the air." These are, precisely, the differences with how love is portrayed in each text. In the original, Antony's love for Cleopatra is initially portrayed as favorable—likening Cleopatra to Venus, the goddess of love. On the other hand, love is tainted in this passage, either stirring trouble, confusion, and drowning, or simply foreshadowing a catastrophe (like when a Cupid "hid his eyes behind his wing").

As Angela pointed out, this line represents an amalgamation of several symbols from the texts we read last night. However, at the same time, Eliot is able to incorporate a certain humor, even waggishness which—as Nate remarked in class—has been present before with the reference to Madame "Soso"stris. In the same way, Eliot seems to emanate this humor through his phrases in parentheses. There have been a few: "Come in under the shadow of this red rock," or "Those are pearls that were his eyes. Look!" that are speaking directly to the reader (or perhaps his "semblable," or "second self," as he calls it). This line, while not as directed, is all the more cartoonish. As clear from our readings, these first few lines refer to Antony and Cleopatra, where Antony becomes infatuated with Cleopatra. This is where not one, but two Cupids—the god of desire and attraction—appear, as two selves. The situation is so precarious that one of the Cupids, in the cartoonish line, cannot even bear to see what is happening to the tainted "standards" of his love, having been "wrought with fruited vines." In some ways, The narrator's tone of voice shines through in these lines—describing something so profound yet so casually all at once. They are the storyteller—and in the parentheses, they may beckon to us, whisper to us.

As Richard points out, the meaning of this line is illustrated in the preface of "Les Fleurs Du Mal," or "The Flowers of Evil," from which one can infer that Eliot is saying "You! hypocritical reader!—my second self,—my brother!" From the very start, the title of Baudelaire's piece is interesting; typically, we associate life, including flowers, as benevolent—but for Baudelaire, it is the precise opposite: life is evil, and death is virtuous. In fact, according to Wikipedia, Baudelaire derived his poem from the industrialization of Paris in the 19th century (also known as 'Haussmannisation,' as I learned in the summer reading I did this year). This makes sense, as the ideas of what best sustains life in Paris turned from those of nature—of the purest form of life—to complete urbanization, which requires the destruction of life. Death is necessary for life, in this way, and this inversion has been relevant throughout our study of The Waste Land. A few lines before, Eliot describes not seeds as being the forces behind life, but corpses—the fundamental representation of death. In other words, death leads to life, rather than vice-versa.

This is essential for understanding the idea of a "second-self," as depicted by the word "semblable" in this line. In a modern context, the word "semblable" means a "fellow"—someone or something who is alike, similar, and an 'equal'. Once again, this aligns with the idea of life being not the antithesis of death, but its complement. More importantly, however, a second self is reflected in the way the narrator presents themself. The narrator references the "hypocritical Reader" in a tone of resolve ("You!"). Essentially, the narrator implies that the "hypocritical Reader" is indeed the "second self": the "brother" of the narrator, or rather, the narrator themself across a different period of time or perspective. This is exactly how Dante, in his Inferno, presents the idea of multiple selves: he harbors a "poet self," a "narrator self," and a "character self." Perhaps the idea of multiple consciousnesses—of multiple selves—ties into that of resurrection: the convergence of the passage of life and death. When one self dies, another self is born (or reborn). This is exactly what is described in lines 60-76: when one's mortal body dies, their soul is brought to the "Unreal City" that Eliot mentions. Furthermore, death doesn't destroy one's self, but rather, "un[does]" it. This is key: death is merely a reversion or a new rendition of life, rather than the elimination of it.

This supposed absence of "The Hanged Man" is notable because, according to the preface in "Tristan und Isolde," in one of the earlier versions of the text, Tristan died by hanging. In this case, The Hanged Man—which may be hinting to Tristan indirectly—is referring to an image on some card that cannot be found. I ended up searching up "The Hanged Man"—and sure enough, I found that it is the twelfth card in traditional tarot card decks. So, the cards that Madame Sosostris owns are tarots—but, more importantly, The Hanged Man precedes the final card of the deck, Death. This means that the absence of The Hanged Man may symbolize an anticipation of death—as outlined in the same line: "Fear death by water," which seems to tie back to "the drowned Phoenician Sailor." This would make sense given the significance of a tarot card as it relates to prophecy and the foretelling of death. For example, Sybil, as the most famous Greek prophetess and who was punished with the absence of death, is referenced in the epigraph.

According to Wikipedia, The Hanged Man holds underlying significance as it relates to death:

the solemn expression on [The Hanged Man's] face traditionally suggests that he is there by his own accord, and the card is meant to represent self-sacrifice more so than it does corporal punishment or criminality.

The idea of self-sacrifice is resonant in many of the texts we have read so far. In "Le Morte d'Arthur," for example, Galahad sacrifices his life to Jesu Christ, and his soul departs to the heavens. The act of hanging also has been mentioned. In "Heart of Darkness," "Marlow confirms that hangings had been discussed" with regards to Kurtz's death, as Kurtz had been damaging to his ivory company's business. The story of Tristan, however, does not reflect this theme as apparently. Tristan's hanging is not a self-sacrifice—it is imposed as punishment by his uncle. Furthermore, Tristan did not prophesize his own death—unless one could infer such a prophecy by the foreshadowing of consuming the love potion. The later versions, however, do provide this context of self-sacrifice, except without the act of hanging. In one version, Tristan dies of grief—which, in some ways, is a death of his own accord, by his own emotions. The operatic version, which we read, states that

Tristan is betrayed by his friend, who tries to fight him—Tristan allows him to would him mortally in the leg.

Tristan allows his friend to kill him—an act of self-sacrifice. The one aspect yet to be explored is the absence of this tarot card. Is the absence of something merely used to accentuate its importance? For example, in "Letters from America," Brooke repeatedly mentioned his friend being unable to "remember what had happened to the fourth man...." which made the "fourth man" all the more significant.

This is one of the most famous lines in the entirety of the poem; T.S. Eliot, evidently, depicts April—springtime, the season of life—as a personified and cruel entity. April is referenced in Rupert Brooke's letters from America, as well, under a similar backdrop of cruelty—the dawn of the first World War—though April, again, does not intuitively match this tone of darkness. For Rupert's friend,

Between him and the Cornish sea he saw quite clearly an April morning on a lake south of Berlin, the grey water slipping past his little boat, and a peasant-woman, suddenly revealed against apple-blossom, hanging up blue and scarlet garments to dry in the sun.

Though apparently a peaceful moment, the lake is the key element here, as the symbol of "cruelty." It immediately reminded me of the lake from "My Past," where Marie and her aunt visit a castle in the countryside, which is described as being "close to [Marie's] grandparents castle of Possenhofen on the Lake of Starnberg." This is the exact lake that Brooke's frieind was looking at—the "Starnberger See," the German name for the same body of water. Might the "peasant-woman" be the same woman that Marie and her aunt had encountered on their visit to the lake—the "old woman who [they] heard afterwards was the widow of a fisherman"? It wouldn't be surprising given the ominous nature of the women in both stories—and would certainly provide context as to the cruelty of the lake, and thus the cruelty of April. The old woman, in "My Past," explains that her dead son had been "lying in the lake for seven years," apparently dead, but that "he will return." This is parallel to Eliot's description of "breeding / Lilacs out of the dead land," as in resurrecting the dead—perhaps against its own will. In a Frankenstein-like way, Eliot and Marie Larisch reverse the definition of cruelty as it relates to life vs. death; death is "rest," as is described in "The Burial of the Dead," and life is a disruption of that rest, and therefore a result of "cruelty."

The elements of this prefacing quote, whether stylistic or scholastic in nature, are noteworthy. In fact, they reaffirm the prevalence of mortality, life, and resurrection—a "reliving" or enduring of life—in Eliot's ideas.

This theme, for one, is echoed through both Ovid's Metamorphoses. Although Sybil was granted the extremely long life that she wished for, it was accompanied by a cynical twist—the fact that she would not retain her youth, and would suffer the crumblings of old age in anticipation of her death. Of course, this can explain her simple desire: "I want to die." This was entirely a result of Sybil's denial of a higher power, of having "rejected Apollo's gift, and never married." Yet even more fascinating is the idea of a voice as the last remnant of human life before death:

The time will come when the passage of days will render such body as I have tiny, and my limbs, consumed with age, will reduce to the slightest of burdens... I will be viewed as non-existent, but still known as a voice: the fates will bequeath me with a voice."

Clearly, the concept of a voice transcends the physical form of humans, or at least that of Sybil. But who are the "fates," and who are they to grant a voice once she, or perhaps the fates themselves, leave? In Dickens's "Our Mutual Friend," this is provided with more context; scarlet-beans, a plant form of life, are described as being "to grow in the coming season if the Fates were propitious." Fates is capitalized as a proper noun here, symbolizing a divine power of sorts that dictates the passage of life, and the arrival of death, whether that of Sybil or the scarlet-beans.

A further connection to the idea of a voice shines in Conrad's "Heart of Darkness," where Kurtz was also "reduced to a voice" after his death. Not only had "He had something to say" and "said it," but Marlow

went no more near the remarkable man who had pronounced a judgment upon the adventures of his soul on this earth. The voice was gone. What else had been there?

This isn't the only pattern between Conrad and Ovid's works. Whereas Sybil had rejected the demands of a higher power, Apollo, one can interpret Kurtz has having done so with the ivory trade company he worked for. From the story's underlying plot, it seems that Kurtz went through an ideological transformation, a realization that the hunting of ivory was unethical, which sowed the "crop of unextinguishable regrets" and the "knowledge of yourself" that Marlow describes in reference to death. It reminded me of the depictions of vegetation in The Golden Bough where, after King Hurlame slew King Labor, all vegetation—and, by proxy, life—turned to a waste land. When Kurtz was on the verge of death, he experienced this exact reckoning of virtue, a virtue to which "no way is barred," according to Sybil. Virtue and life are inextricable in this fashion; it is exactly why, on his deathbed, Kurtz was muttering "Live rightly, die, die..." because only when one lives righteously can they truly die righteously.

This leads to the final quote, which prefaced the original first section of The Waste Land, known as He Do the Police in Different Voices. The first sentence of the quote is a question, asking

Did he live his life again in every detail of desire, temptation, and surrender during that supreme moment of complete knowledge?

The key word here is "again," because Kurtz didn't merely live and die—but lived with naive knowledge, lived once more with "complete knowledge"—the knowledge of true virtue—and died as a result. This is parallel to how Sybil lived her life, thousands more times longer and more painful than she wanted it to be, with the burn of "complete knowledge,"—her voice—in her mind. This is "The horror! The horror!" of the self-perpetuating life-death cycle.

From the very beginning, T.S. Eliot's work demonstrates a fascinating confrontation with morality; this is prefaced by the title, with the individual word waste being of special interest. One observation that Boris made in a previous annotation was the fact that "Waste Land" is intentionally broken up into two words, not the one word "wasteland," or a barren land. Fortunately, the etymology of the word "waste" provides clues into this peculiarity: its suffixed form of root eue- signifies the act "to leave, abandon, give out." The essential question in this regard is who/what is doing the abandoning, who/what is leaving: the land* may very well represent this answer, defined as being not "of waste," but the "waste" itself. This makes sense; land transcends life, land exists beyond life, and life parts with land against its will—therefore, the land is leaving—but this isn't sufficient to describe the significance of the "waste land."

From this thread, the context of vegetation and human conceptions of mortality must also be heavily scrutinized. The Golden Bough supplies this analysis, noting that

... vegetable life [was] personified as a god who annually died and rose again from the dead. In name and detail the rites varied from place to place; in substance they were the same.

and that

[humans] believed that the tie between the animal and the vegetable world was even closer than it really is.

In some ways, the idea of vegetation as a proxy of immortality shines through in Frazer's ideas, allowing the human to confront—rather, escape—its mortality through the notion of resurrection, or rebirth, after death. This is later affirmed through the legend of Osiris, whose resurrection tried to be recreated frequently among the Egyptians, in hopes of a "new individual life beyond the grave." When resurrection isn't stated explicitly, the idea of a miraculous birth is, such as that of Attis—whose "birth, like that of many other heroes, is said to have been miraculous"—or, more importantly, Eliot's "lilacs out of the dead land." A logical pattern can be inferred here. If deities can be given life miraculously, as well as Earthly vegetation, then so might human beings. In essence, this illustrates not only the land's abandonment but the life so desperate to escape such an abandonment.

This culminates in the idea of surrendering oneself to death—of a need for that life "beyond the grave." This is exactly what happens in the story of the Sangreal. In the first rendition, the tale describes King Hurlame's murder of King Labor, and the resulting

[increase of] neither corn, nor grass, nor well-nigh no fruit, nor in the water was no fish; wherefore men call it...the waste land, for that dolorous stroke.

The "waste land" is a consequence of the loss of life; it's an abandoning of the land from life without a successful attempt of that life to return. In the final version, however, death presents itself in a much different light: Galahad offered his life to Jesu Christ, and

suddenly his soul departed to Jesu Christ, and a great multitude of angels bare his soul up to heaven... And then it came right to the Vessel, and took it and the spear, and so bare it up to heaven. Sithen was there never man so hardy to say that he had seen the Sangreal.

In a way, the abandonment has flipped—life is now abandoning the land, instead of vice-versa, and therefore the land is no longer "waste." To prevent land's abandonment of life, life must abandon the land. This is the ideal "land," the ideal universe, at least from a religious perspective; this is an escape from the "waste land." The concept of "hardiness" also seems to be interesting, as hardiness can be used to describe plants that are fighting to live in harsh conditions. Au contraire, Galahad, who is portrayed as equally hardy, "fought to die" in a sense.

Perhaps T.S. Eliot takes stock of this context and contorts it to suit his bleak depiction of April, labelling it as "the cruellest month" in the iconic line, and providing imagery of "Dull roots with spring rain" three lines later. Eliot has provided this contrast of "dullness" and "wetness" in the past. In "Gerontion," for example, he refers to the perspective of an old man as "a dry brain in a dry season." In like manner, "dull roots" and "spring rain" may be a juxtaposition of old age and youth—or, more importantly, of life and death. The timing of the poem, not long after the end of World War I, may help to explain this stark change in tone regarding the creation of life after death—of resurrection. Given the tremendous amount of death in the war, as well as a culture far less pious, outlooks on morality would inevitably have been vastly different. The war represented a merciless taking of life—an abandoning of life by the land, and subsequently, a "waste land."