Classics and the Western Canon discussion
Discussion: T. S. Eliot's Poetry
>
TWL V What the Thunder Said
date
newest »
newest »
After the torchlight red on sweaty facesAfter 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 patience
Here is no water but only rockRock 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 sit
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 spring
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 drop
But there is no water
"There is not even silence in the mountainsBut dry sterile thunder without rain"
that has always been one of my favorite lines
Laurel wrote: "He who was living is now deadWe who were living are now dying
With a little patience
.."
Eliot seems to be deliberately vague about who "He" was, Jesus, Phlebas, or Everyman?
The passages that follow have obvious references to the Bible, but not in a salvatory way.
Nemo wrote: "Laurel wrote: "He who was living is now deadWe who were living are now dying
With a little patience
.."
Eliot seems to be deliberate vague about who "He" was, Jesus, Phlebas, or Everyman?
The p..."
By ending the second line with 'gardens' rather than 'garden,' he signals that he is bleeding more than incident/person.
Mary wrote: ""There is not even silence in the mountainsBut dry sterile thunder without rain"
that has always been one of my favorite lines"
Yes, very evocative, Mary..
Laurel wrote: "By ending the second line with 'gardens' rather than 'garden,' he signals that he is bleeding more than incident/person. ""We who were living are now dying" also implies that it is possible for those who are no longer living to die again another way. The implication is that we live and die in more than one sense.
The first stanza brings up a lot of the same images as the first section of the poem. Compare: "Winter kept us warm... what are the roots that clutch? What branches grow out of this stony rubbish?... I was neither living nor dead, and I knew nothing" with "After the frosty silence in the gardens After the agony in stony places,we who were living are now dying"The voice changes from "I" to "we" which is probably significant but it also implies that the living has happened (even though it was not recognized as living at the time.)
What the thunder said: Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata/Sanskrit: Give. Sympathize. Control. My thoughts:
Datta- give- relates to the first section of the poem where hyacinths are given (Burial of the Dead).
Dayadhvam- sympathize- regards the emotionless sex scene (A Game of Chess). As Don pointed out in our discussion on that section, there seem to be"two sections, unbalanced in size, one over-decorated upper class (or with pretentious), one lower class and crude. What holds them together besides the poet's consciousness?" My answer Don, sympathy for the state of humanity. We're all in this waste land together even if we feel fragmented sometimes.
Damyata- Control- from the Fire Sermon. Warning us to control your passions or burn up what sustains you. because, in the event that Carthage gets burned to the ground there is nothing to do but begin again. The thunder says not to fear death by water; but to give, sympathize, and control and perhaps we will get a second chance.
If there were waterAnd no rock
If there were rock
And also water
And water
A spring
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 drop
But there is no water
This sounds like the daydream or fantasy of a parched person, ended abruptly in the last line.
Tk wrote: "If there were waterAnd no rock
If there were rock
And also water
And water
A spring
A pool among the rock
If there were the sound of water only
Not the cicada
And dry grass singing
But sound of wa..."
Sure does, Tk!
Who is the third who walks always beside you?When I count, there are only you and I together
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?
the first time I read about that third, it reminded me of the Road to Emmaus.But I have since heard of people in high stress situations having the firm and unshakable belief that they were escorted by another person, and that this may have been an influence.
I''m reminded of the story of Daniel in the burning furnace in Daniel 3.24 Then King Nebuchadnezzar was astonished; and he rose in haste and spoke, saying to his counselors, “Did we not cast three men bound into the midst of the fire?”
They answered and said to the king, “True, O king.”
25 “Look!” he answered, “I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire; and they are not hurt, and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God.”
26 Then Nebuchadnezzar went near the mouth of the burning fiery furnace and spoke, saying, “Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego, servants of the Most High God, come out, and come here.” Then Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego came from the midst of the fire.
27 And the satraps, administrators, governors, and the king’s counselors gathered together, and they saw these men on whose bodies the fire had no power; the hair of their head was not singed nor were their garments affected, and the smell of fire was not on them.
References to the Rock and Water in the Bible. Too numerous to list them all.
Tremble, O earth, at the presence of the Lord,
At the presence of the God of Jacob,
Who turned the rock into a pool of water,
The flint into a fountain of waters.
Psalm 114:7,8
He split the rocks in the wilderness,
And gave them drink in abundance like the depths.
He also brought streams out of the rock,
And caused waters to run down like rivers.
Psalm 78:15,16
In contrast to the message of hope and salvation conveyed in those Biblical passages, however, I get the sense that religions, despite their shadowy and mythical figures of rebirth, bring no relief nor peace to the narrator/poet, but rather intensifiy his feeling of death and despair, like the cruel month of April. Neither nature, nor sex, nor literature, nor culture, nor religion, nothing, can revive him. Let the dead lie buried, if not rest in peace.
What is that sound high in the airMurmur of maternal lamentation
Who are those hooded hordes swarming
Over endless plains, stumbling in cracked earth
Ringed by the flat horizon only
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 tightAnd fiddled whisper music on those strings
And bats with baby faces in the violet light
Whistled, and beat their wings
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.
Only a cock stood on the rooftree
Co co rico co co rico
In a flash of lightning. Then a damp gust
Bringing rain
Eliot is supposed to have been inspired by Bosch for his descriptions.https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=The_G...
For me it seems this section seems to be overflowing with Biblical allusions, mixed in with possible war images and the continual despair at modern city life.
As with so much of this work, his allusions all seem to be built on top of each other.
I read that Eliot apparently had a 'black cock' which would be a reference to the bird that was sacrificed in order to remove bad spirits. Did he remove the 'black' for reasons of rhythm or meaning?
When I first read it I thought of the cockerel crowing when Peter denied Jesus, which matches this bleak poem where everyone is caught up in world which ignores spirituality. Or even the Holy Grail quest where the final test of the knight is the doubts about the existence of God.
But I do remember from 'Hamlet' that the cock is associated with daybreak and the banishment of ghosts.
"When I first read it I thought of the cockerel crowing when Peter denied Jesus, which matches this bleak poem where everyone is caught up in world which ignores spirituality. Or even the Holy Grail quest where the final test of the knight is the doubts about the existence of God.But I do remember from 'Hamlet' that the cock is associated with daybreak and the banishment of ghosts."
Beautiful, Clari!
Ganga was sunken, and the limp leavesWaited for rain, while the black clouds
Gathered far distant, over Himavant.
The jungle crouched, humped in silence.
Then spoke the thunder
DA
Datta: what have we given?
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 spider
Or under seals broken by the lean solicitor
In our empty rooms
DA
Dayadhvam: I have heard the key
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 responded
Gaily, when invited, beating obedient
To controlling hands
I sat upon the shore
Fishing, with the arid plain behind me
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 affina
Quando fiam uti chelidon—O swallow swallow
Le Prince d’Aquitaine à la tour abolie
These fragments I have shored against my ruins
Why then Ile fit you. Hieronymo’s mad againe.
Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata.
Shantih shantih shantih
Laurel wrote: "What did the thunder say?""There is not even silence in the mountains
But dry sterile thunder without rain"
Does it matter what the thunder said, if it was sterile and without rain?
Laurel wrote: "What did the thunder say?"DAdattaDAdayadhvamDAdamyata.... It sounds like thunder, doesn't it?
Nemo wrote: ""There is not even silence in the mountainsBut dry sterile thunder without rain"
Does it matter what the thunder said, if it was sterile and without rain? "
But there is also: "In a flash of lightning. Then a damp gust
Bringing rain"
Ashley wrote: "What holds them together besides the poet's consciousness?" My answer Don, sympathy for the state of humanity."Yes! Is is easy for me to forget, when thinking too hard, the pain of the people in those situations.
This last section has me bouncing back & forth between emotions of despair (imagine that in a poem titled The Wasteland) and hope & back to despair. The beginning as Ashley pointed out early on does evoke the images seen in the first section of the poem (and boy with the comments Ashley @#10, all I could say was WOW!) But also with all the talk of perhaps allusions to the Passion of Christ, it also had me visualizing Gethsemane "silence in the garden", "stony places" and "agony". The section describing a desert with rocks w/ & w/o water gave me a feeling of searching, hoping for that oasis in the desert. Hallucinations or reality. I agreed with Mary about the Road to Emmaus. The person who appears evokes the time when Christ appeared to his followers on the road. A verification of the resurrection or illusion? Yet Eliot returns to a horrible vision of universal ruin in the desert. the decay of civilization? Or individuals death without resurrection. Have to say I had a visceral reaction to the "falling towers". As an American it still brings back the unreality & horror of 9/11.
‘What the Thunder Said’, the section which Eliot, in a letter to Bertrand Russell, declared ‘is not the best part, but the only part that justifies the whole”
Reading http://youtu.be/JxgfzD9iwFs