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译注释序
《荒原》的翻译，在学界和广大读者的接受中，历来以赵萝蕤先生的“直译法”版本为第一等。但赵先生限于时代和信息，在“直译”中未能体现T·S·艾略特兼具俚俗和雅驯的语言风貌。且艾略特作为现代主义大诗人，又自我评价为古典主义者，诗文在流畅的前提下，旁征博引，暗喻重重，竟成双关——这一特质自然为这首诗的翻译工作带来了许多障碍。显然这种障碍不仅仅来自于语言本身，在其行文逻辑上也颇难把握，并且横滞于文化差异间，这种惑幻导致了先前的诸版本皆存在讹误和纰漏。
因此，我这一版《荒原》首先考证、研究了艾略特文本丰富的隐喻和典故，尽可能找寻其典故来源，力争严谨俱信。并在这一基础上关注了诗歌文本可能存在的多重能指，相对应的在汉语语言上使用更具有多义性的词句；其次，结合本人诗歌创作经验，力求诗歌文本优美可读，具备诗性。
《荒原》作为二十世纪现代诗歌中最为重要、最为经典的作品，学界内许多研究者并未对其具体意象阅读、调查，仅仅根据旧译文、错译文进行解读，是错误且不负责任的。因此，我认为对外国诗歌作品进行研究，推翻旧译、错译是至关重要的第一步。
故而此版译本，确定了五大翻译原则。
形式严谨。严格按照艾略特原诗的分行和断句，并仔细辨析其中的上下文逻辑组织语序，使译文更加流畅、自然，符合中文阅读习惯。并着重关注特殊、重复出现的词汇（例如“nothing”“APRIL”等）进行特殊处理。
内容严谨。艾略特本人对荒原进行了数次的注释，并对其中一些意象出处进行了说明。虽仍无法覆盖全部的意象，但指明读者可参照洁茜·L·韦斯顿《圣杯传奇：从仪式到浪漫》（剑桥版）一书进行探索和解读。此外，诸多西方人熟知的文化现象，如童谣《伦敦桥要塌啦》、先知西比尔、宁芙（希腊神话中的小妖精）、忒瑞西阿斯（可参考注释124）等，对于中文读者稍显陌生，均在此版译本中进行了详尽的注释说明。同理诗中部分涉及典故的段落，也做出了相应的特殊处理。
使用介于文言白话之间，结实的诗文风格。《荒原》一诗混杂了多种角色的声音，以及历代圣贤的作品化用，其诗歌文本亦是对英语文学本身的发展和继承。故而译文风格应介于文言与白话之间；此外艾略特作为现代派先驱，和庞德有极深的交游，不难看出艾略特诗歌语言受其影响，省略了许多介词、连词，形成了意象突出，惜字如金，坚固结实的诗文风格。故而译文风格也须注重言辞简雅。
语言多变。《荒原》使用了英语、德语、法语、意大利语、拉丁语、希腊语、梵语七种语言，为区分其差异性，突出多语种形成的陌生化，特别使用乐府诗、戏腔、方言、俚语、原文等语言方式和不同字体进行区分。
参照音韵。在不破坏文意和诗意的前提下，对一定存在韵律的段落进行修饰。力求在中译本朗诵时具备相应的声韵美。
尽管先辈诸版存在一定的讹误，但仍然作为后继者的我作出此版翻译提供了许多宝贵的指引和借鉴。这里特别对赵萝蕤先生、赵毅衡先生、汤永宽先生、裘小龙先生、穆旦先生致以崇高的敬意！并特别感谢豆瓣博主特粉，她2020年重译版本《荒原》加入了更多的注释，我使用了其中部分注释，帮助我厘清了许多疑难问题。
《荒原》发表至今正好百年，一百年间，这样一部传世杰作影响了无数的东西方诗人、作家、艺术家——然而一百年的今天，国内学界仍有部分研究者认为《荒原》这样一部严谨、明确的作品是不可解读的、风格迷幻的，这毫无疑问是遗憾的。
同时，百年时光，艾略特在《荒原》中发出对工业化、战争、历史公共事件的诘问——一种虚无感和精神的荒芜笼罩人类世界，我们该如何面对，如何解决？在现如今后疫情时代、娱乐至死和复杂的国际局势下，仍然显得颇具力量：大数据和云技术形成精致的信息茧房，一种明确且如影随形的虚无主义不停萦绕在所有当代人精神世界上空，显然我们也仍然可以从《荒原》中得到并不过时的反思和思考。在这一基础上，当代汉语诗歌的写作，似乎仍然无法全然摆脱由艾略特、庞德、金斯堡、奥登、策兰这些优秀诗人创作所形成的诗学范式，一方面或许汉语诗歌已然真正进入世界文学的话语场域；另一方面，如何突破这一桎梏，也成为了所有汉语诗歌写作者必须要去面对的重要课题。重读、重译、重审艾略特的《荒原》，希望能为作为读者的你，作为学者的你，特别是作为创作者的你，送来一阵陈旧却又崭新的风。
最后，特别感谢中国人民大学曾艳兵教授、盐城师范学院孔建平教授、陈义海教授对我翻译工作的支持和指导。以及诗人方瓶、离隹、叙矣、李靖与我进行多番讨论，并指出许多翻译漏洞，帮助我加以修正。
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附：艾略特荒原英文原诗及原注
The Waste Land
T·S·Eliot
“Nam Sibyllam quidem Cumis ego ipse oculis meis vidi
in ampulla pendere, et Cum illi pueri dicerent: Σιβυλλα
τι θελεις; respondebat illa: αποθανειν θελω.”
For Ezra Pound
il miglior fabbro.
I. The Burial of the Dead
APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding1
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.
Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee
With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade,
And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten,10
And drank coffee, and talked for an hour.
Bin gar kine Russin, stamm’ aus Litauen, echt deutsch.
And when we were children, staying at the archduke’s,
My cousin’s, he took me out on a sled,
And I was frightened. He said, Marie,
Marie, hold on tight. And down we went.
In the mountains, there you feel free.
I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.
What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow19
Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,20
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,23
And the dry stone no sound of water. Only
There is shadow under this red rock,
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),
And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.30
Frisch weht der Wind31
Der Heimat zu,
Mein Irisch Kind,
Wo weilest du?
“You gave me hyacinths first a year ago;
“They called me the hyacinth girl.”
–Yet when we came back, late, from the Hyacinth garden,
Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not
Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither
Living nor dead, and I knew nothing,40
Looking into the heart of light, the silence.
Oed’ und leer das Meer.42
Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyante,
Had a bad cold, nevertheless
Is known to be the wisest woman in Europe,
With a wicked pack of cards. Here, said she,
Is your card, the drowned Phoenician Sailor,
(Those are pearls that were his eyes. Look!)
Here is Belladonna, the Lady of the Rocks,
The lady of situations.50
Here is the man with three staves, and here the Wheel,
And here is the one-eyed merchant, and this card
Which is blank, is something he carries on his back,
Which I am forbidden to see. I do not find
The Hanged Man. Fear death by water.
I see crowds of people, walking round in a ring.
Thank you. If you see dear Mrs. Equitone,
Tell her I bring the horoscope myself:
One must be so careful these days.
Unreal City,60
Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,
A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,
I had not thought death had undone so many.63
Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled,64
And each man fixed his eyes before his feet.
Flowed up the hill and down King William Street,
To where Saint Mary Woolnoth kept the hours
With a dead sound on the final stroke of nine.68
There I saw one I knew, and stopped him, crying: “Stetson!
“You who were with me in the ships at Mylae!70
“That corpse you planted last year in your garden,
“Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year?
“Or has the sudden frost disturbed its bed?
“Oh keep the Dog far hence, that’s friend to men,74
“Or with his nails he’ll dig it up again!
“You! hypocrite lecteur!—mon semblable—mon frère!”76
II. A Game of Chess
The Chair she sat in, like a burnished throne,77
Glowed on the marble, where the glass
Held up by standards wrought with fruited vines
From which a golden Cupidon peeped out80
(Another hid his eyes behind his wing)
Doubled the flames of seven branched candelabra
Reflecting light upon the table as
The glitter of her jewels rose to meet it,
From satin cases poured in rich profusion;
In vials of ivory and coloured glass
Unstoppered, lurked her strange synthetic perfumes,
Unguent, powdered, or liquid—troubled, confused
And drowned the sense in odours; stirred by the air
That freshened from the window, these ascended90
In fattening the prolonged candle-flames,
Flung their smoke into the laquearia,92
Stirring the pattern on the coffered ceiling.
Huge sea-wood-fed with copper
Burned green and orange, framed by the coloured stone,
In which sad light a carvèd dolphin swam.
Above the antique mantel was displayed.
As though a window gave upon the sylvan scene98
The change of Philomel, by the barbarous king
So rudely forced; yet there the nightingale100
Filled all the desert with inviolable voice
And still she cried, and still the world pursues,
“Jug Jug” to dirty ears.
And other withered stumps of time
Were told upon the walls; staring forms
Leaned out, leaning, hushing the room enclosed.
Footsteps shuffled on the stair.
Under the firelight, under the brush, her hair
Spread out in fiery points
Clawed into words, then would be savagely still.110
“My nerves are bad to-night. Yes, bad. Stay with me.
“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 think we are in rats’ alley115
Where the dead men lost their bones.
“What is that noise?”
The wind under the door.118
“What is that noise now? What is the wind doing?”
Nothing again nothing.120
“Do
“You know nothing? Do you see nothing? Do you remember
“Nothing?”
I remember
Those are pearls that were his eyes.
“Are you alive, or not? Is there nothing in your head?”126
But
O O O O that Shakespearean Rag—
It’s so elegant
So intelligent130
“What shall I do now? What shall I do?”
“I shall rush out as I am, and walk the street
“With my hair down, so. What shall we do to-morrow?
“What shall we ever do?”
The hot water at ten.
And if it rains, a closed car at four.
And we shall play a game of chess,
Pressing lidless eyes and waiting for a knock upon the door.138
When Lil’s husband got demobbed, I said—
I didn’t mince my words, I said to her myself,140
HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
Now Albert’s coming back, make yourself a bit smart.
He’ll want to know what you done with that money he gave you
To get yourself some teeth. He did, I was there.
You have them all out, Lil, and get a nice set,
He said, I swear, I can’t bear to look at you.
And no more can’t I, I said, and think of poor Albert,
He’s been in the army four years, he wants a good time,
And if you don’t give it him, there’s others will, I said.
Oh is there, she said. Something o’ that, I said.150
Then I’ll know who to thank, she said, and give me a straight look.
HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
If you don’t like it you can get on with it, I said,
Others can pick and choose if you can’t.
But if Albert makes off, it won’t be for lack of telling.
You ought to be ashamed, I said, to look so antique.
(And her only thirty-one.)
I can’t help it, she said, pulling a long face,
It’s them pills I took, to bring it off, she said.
(She’s had five already, and nearly died of young George.)160
The chemist said it would be alright, but I’ve never been the same.
You are a proper fool, I said.
Well, if Albert won’t leave you alone, there it is, I said,
What you get married for if you don’t want children?
HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
Well, that Sunday Albert was home, they had a hot gammon,
And they asked me in to dinner, to get the beauty of it hot—
HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
Goodnight Bill. Goodnight Lou. Goodnight May. Goodnight.170
Ta ta. Goodnight. Goodnight.
Good night, ladies, good night, sweet ladies, good night, good night.
III. The Fire Sermon
The river’s tent is broken: the last fingers of leaf
Clutch and sink into the wet bank. The wind
Crosses the brown land, unheard. The nymphs are departed.
Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song.176
The river bears no empty bottles, sandwich papers,
Silk handkerchiefs, cardboard boxes, cigarette ends
Or other testimony of summer nights. The nymphs are departed.
And their friends, the loitering heirs of city directors;180
Departed, have left no addresses.
By the waters of Leman I sat down and wept. . .
Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my song,
Sweet Thames, run softly, for I speak not loud or long.
But at my back in a cold blast I hear
The rattle of the bones, and chuckle spread from ear to ear.
A rat crept softly through the vegetation
Dragging its slimy belly on the bank
While I was fishing in the dull canal
On a winter evening round behind the gashouse190
Musing upon the king my brother’s wreck
And on the king my father’s death before him.192
White bodies naked on the low damp ground
And bones cast in a little low dry garret,
Rattled by the rat’s foot only, year to year.
But at my back from time to time I hear196
The sound of horns and motors, which shall bring197
Sweeney to Mrs. Porter in the spring.
O the moon shone bright on Mrs. Porter199
And on her daughter200
They wash their feet in soda water
Et O ces voix d’enfants, chantant dans la coupole!202
Twit twit twit
Jug jug jug jug jug jug
So rudely forc’d.
Tereu
Unreal City
Under the brown fog of a winter noon
Mr. Eugenides, the Smyrna merchant
Unshaven, with a pocket full of currants210
C.i.f. London: doCuments at sight,
Asked me in demotic French
To luncheon at the Cannon Street Hotel
Followed by a weekend at the Metropole.
At the violet hour, when the eyes and back
Turn upward from the desk, when the human engine waits
Like a taxi throbbing waiting,
I Tiresias, though blind, throbbing between two lives,218
Old man with wrinkled female breasts, can see
At the violet hour, the evening hour that strives220
Homeward, and brings the sailor home from sea,221
The typist home at teatime, clears her breakfast, lights
Her stove, and lays out food in tins.
Out of the window perilously spread
Her drying combinations touched by the sun’s last rays,
On the divan are piled (at night her bed)
Stockings, slippers, camisoles, and stays.
I Tiresias, old man with wrinkled dugs
Perceived the scene, and foretold the rest—
I too awaited the expected guest.230
He, the young man carbuncular, arrives,
A small house agent’s clerk, with one bold stare,
One of the low on whom assurance sits
As a silk hat on a Bradford millionaire,
The time is now propitious, as he guesses,
The meal is ended, she is bored and tired,
Endeavours to engage her in caresses
Which still are unreproved, if undesired.
Flushed and decided, he assaults at once;
Exploring hands encounter no defence;240
His vanity requires no response,
And makes a welcome of indifference.
(And I Tiresias have foresuffered all
Enacted on this same divan or bed;
I who have sat by Thebes below the wall
And walked among the lowest of the dead.)
Bestows one final patronising kiss,
And gropes his way, finding the stairs unlit. . .
She turns and looks a moment in the glass,
Hardly aware of her departed lover;250
Her brain allows one half-formed thought to pass:
“Well now that’s done: and I’m glad it’s over.”
When lovely woman stoops to folly and253
Paces about her room again, alone,
She smoothes her hair with automatic hand,
And puts a record on the gramophone.
“This music crept by me upon the waters”257
And along the Strand, up Queen Victoria Street.
O City city, I can sometimes hear
Beside a public bar in Lower Thames Street,260
The pleasant whining of a mandoline
And a clatter and a chatter from within
Where fishmen lounge at noon: where the walls
Of Magnus Martyr hold264
Inexplicable splendour of Ionian white and gold.
The river sweats266
Oil and tar
The barges drift
With the turning tide
Red sails270
Wide
To leeward, swing on the heavy spar.
The barges wash
Drifting logs
Down Greenwich reach
Past the Isle of Dogs,
Weialala leia
Wallala leialala
Elizabeth and Leicester279
Beating oars280
The stern was formed
A gilded shell
Red and gold
The brisk swell
Rippled both shores
Southwest wind
Carried down stream
The peal of bells
White towers
Weialala leia290
Wallala leialala
“Trams and dusty trees.
Highbury bore me. “Richmond and Kew293
Undid me. By Richmond I raised my knees
Supine on the floor of a narrow canoe.”
“My feet are at Moorgate, and my heart
Under my feet. After the event
He wept. He promised ‘a new start.’
I made no comment. What should I resent?”
“On Margate Sands.300
I can connect
Nothing with nothing.
The broken fingernails of dirty hands.
My people humble people who expect
Nothing.”
la la
To Carthage then I came307
Burning burning burning burning308
O Lord Thou pluckest me out309
O Lord Thou pluckest310
burning
IV. Death by Water
Phlebas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead,
Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep sea swell
And the profit and loss.
A current under sea
Picked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell
He passed the stages of his age and youth
Entering the whirlpool.
Gentile or Jew
O you who turn the wheel and look to windward,320
Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you.
V. What the Thunder Said
After the torchlight red on sweaty faces
After the frosty silence in the gardens
After the agony in stony places
The shouting and the crying
Prison and palace and reverberation
Of thunder of spring over distant mountains
He who was living is now dead
We who were living are now dying
With a little patience330
Here is no water but only rock
Rock and no water and the sandy road
The road winding above among the mountains
Which are mountains of rock without water
If there were water we should stop and drink
Amongst the rock one cannot stop or think
Sweat is dry and feet are in the sand
If there were only water amongst the rock
Dead mountain mouth of carious teeth that cannot spit
Here one can neither stand nor lie nor sit340
There is not even silence in the mountains
But dry sterile thunder without rain
There is not even solitude in the mountains
But red sullen faces sneer and snarl
From doors of mudcracked houses
If there were water
And no rock
If there were rock
And also water
And water
A spring350
A pool among the rock
If there were the sound of water only
Not the cicada
And dry grass singing
But sound of water over a rock
Where the hermit-thrush sings in the pine trees
Drip drop drip drop drop drop drop357
But there is no water
Who is the third who walks always beside you?
When I count, there are only you and I together360
But when I look ahead up the white road
There is always another one walking beside you
Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded
I do not know whether a man or a woman
—But who is that on the other side of you?
What is that sound high in the air366
Murmur of maternal lamentation
Who are those hooded hordes swarming
Over endless plains, stumbling in cracked earth
Ringed by the flat horizon only370
What is the city over the mountains
Cracks and reforms and bursts in the violet air
Falling towers Jerusalem Athens Alexandria
Vienna London
Unreal
A woman drew her long black hair out tight
And fiddled whisper music on those strings
And bats with baby faces in the violet light
Whistled, and beat their wings380
And crawled head downward down a blackened wall
And upside down in air were towers
Tolling reminiscent bells, that kept the hours
And voices singing out of empty cisterns and exhausted wells.
In this decayed hole among the mountains
In the faint moonlight, the grass is singing
Over the tumbled graves, about the chapel
There is the empty chapel, only the wind’s home
It has no windows, and the door swings,
Dry bones can harm no one.390
Only a cock stood on the rooftree
Co co rico co co rico
In a flash of lightning. Then a damp gust
Bringing rain
Ganga was sunken, and the limp leaves
Waited for rain, while the black clouds
Gathered far distant, over Himavant.
The jungle crouched, humped in silence,
Then spoke the thunder
DA400
Datta: what have we given?401
My friend, blood shaking my heart
The awful daring of a moment’s surrender
Which an age of prudence can never retract
By this, and this only, we have existed
Which is not to be found in our obituaries
Or in memories draped by the beneficent spider407
Or under seals broken by the lean solicitor
In our empty rooms
DA410
Dayadhvam: I have heard the key411
Turn in the door once and turn once only
We think of the key, each in his prison
Thinking of the key, each confirms a prison
Only at nightfall, aethereal rumours
Revive for a moment a broken Coriolanus
DA
Damyata: The boat responded
Gaily, to the hand expert with sail and oar
The sea was calm, your heart would have responded420
Gaily, when invited, beating obedient
To controlling hands
I sat upon the shore
Fishing, with the arid plain behind me424
Shall I at least set my lands in order?
London Bridge is falling down falling down falling down
Poi s’ascose nel foco che gli affina427
Quando fiam uti chelidon—O swallow swallow428
Le Prince d’Aquitaine à la tour abolie429
These fragments I have shored against my ruins430
Why then Ile fit you. Hieronymo’s mad againe.431
Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata.
Shantih shantih shantih433
NOTES ON “THE WASTE LAND”
Not only the title, but the plan and a good deal of the incidental symbolism of the poem were suggested by Miss Jessie L. Weston’s book on the Grail legend: From Ritual to Romance (Macmillan). Indeed, so deeply am I indebted, Miss Weston’s book will elucidate the difficulties of the poem much better than my notes can do; and I recommend it (apart from the great interest of the book itself) to any who think such elucidation of the poem worth the trouble. To another work of anthropology I am indebted in general, one which has influenced our generation profoundly; I mean The Golden Bough; I have used especially the two volumes Adonis, Attis, Osiris. Anyone who is acquainted with these works will immediately recognise in the poem certain references to vegetation ceremonies.
I. The Burial of the Dead
Line 20. Cf. Ezekiel II, i.
23. Cf. Ecclesiastes XII, v.
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 cité, cité pleine de rêves,
“Où le spectre en plein jour raccroche le passant.”
63. Cf. Inferno III, 55-57:
“si Iunga tratta
di gente, ch’io non avrei mai creduto
che morte tanta n’avesse disfatta.”
64, Cf. Inferno IV, 25-27:
“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, I. 190.
92. Laquearia. V. Aeneid, I, 726:
dependent Iychni laquearibus aureis incensi, et noctem flammis funalia vincunt.
98. Sylvan scene, V. Milton, Paradise Lost, IV, 140.
99. V. Ovid, Metamorphoses, VI, Philomela.
100. C£ Part III, I. 204.
115. Cf, Part III, I. 195.
118. Cf. Webster: “Is the wind in that door still?”
126. Cf, Part I, I. 37,48.
138. Cf. the game of chess in Middleton’s Women beware Women.
176. V. Spencer, 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.
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, se1ler of currants, melts into the Phoenician Sailor, and the latter is not wholly distinct from Ferdinand Prince of Naples, so a1l 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 yestrae 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 Iicetinrita cuiquam
Facta dei fecisse deo) pro Iumine 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 Demolillon 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 tum. V. Götterdämmerung, III, i: the Rhine-daughters.
279. V. Froude, Elizabeth, Vol. I, ch. iv, letter of De Quadra to Philip of Spain:
“In the aflemoon we were in a barge, watching the games on the river. (The queen) was alonne 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 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 Wahnam Abgrund entlang und singt dazu, singt betrunken und hymnisch wie Dmitri Karamasoff sang. Ueber diese Lieder lacht der Burger beleidigt, der Heilige und Seher hört sie mit Tränen.”
402. “Datta, dayadhvam, damyata” (Give, sympathise, 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.”
Aho 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 experiences falls within my alike, every sphere is opaque to the others which surround it. . . . In for each is peculiar and private to that soul.”
425. V. Weston: From Ritual to Romance; chapter on the Fisher King.
428. V. Purgatorio, XXXVI, 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.
“The Waste Land” – 1922 Edition