Waste+Land+Translations

**The Waste Land**-- The original title of the poem was "He Do the Police in Different Voices," a line taken from the Charles Dickens novel Our Mutual Friend: "'For I aint, you must know,' said Betty, 'much of a hand at reading writing-hand, though I can read my Bible and most print. And I do love a newspaper. You mightn't think it, but Sloppy is a beautiful reader of a newspaper. He do the Police in different voices.'" Though the line is rather innocuous, the "different voices" was supposed to represent the unique voices of //The Waste Land//'s many inhabitants.

The current title is taken from Thomas Malory's L'Morte d'Arthur. The name is can also be found in Jessie Weston's //From Ritual to Romance// (North 35).

There was also a poem published the previous decade with an almost identical title and similar tone, with which Eliot may have been familiar: Madison Cawein's [|"Waste Land."]


 * //"Nam Sibyllam quidem Cumis ego ipse oculis meis//**
 * //vidi in ampulla pendere, et cum illi pueri dicerent://**
 * //Sibylla ti theleis; respondebat illa: apothanein thelo."//****--** "For I myself once saw with my own eyes the Sibyl hanging in a cage, and when the boys asked her, 'Sibyl, what do you want?' she answered 'I want to die.'"

For more on the Sibyl, click here.


 * il miglior fabbro.-- "**The better craftsman." Ezra Pound and Eliot were communicating from during 1921 and 1922 on the composition of the poem. Under Pound's guidance, Eliot excised half of the original poem. This quote, not included until a 1923 publication, was in gratitude for Pound's extensive editing. In keeping with the allusive content of The Waste Land, the line itself is taken from Dante, who wrote it in honor of Arnaut Daniel, a Troubadour and one of Pound's favorite poets. (Southam 71)


 * I.** __**BURIAL OF THE DEAD**__-- Taken from the Anglican Book of Common Prayer (North 5).

//**April is the cruelest month**//-- This line was originally preceded by a length section of verse giving an account of a night of drinking in a Boston pub, but Ezra Pound removed the section, which he felt got in the way of the poem’s message.


 * Starnbergersee--** German for "The Starnberger Sea." It refers to a lake in Munich, Germany, a city in which Eliot visited in August 1911 (Southam 73).


 * Hofgarten--** a park also located in Munich, Germany.

//**Bin gar keine Russin, stamm' aus Litauen, echt deutsch.--**// "I//'//m not Russian at all, I come from Lithuania, pure German."


 * he took me out on a sled--** Eliot's inspiration for this sledding episode was taken from a conversation he had with the Countess Marie Larisch (North 5)

//**Frisch weht der Wind**// //**Der Heimat zu**// //**Mein Irisch Kind,**// //**Wo weilest du?--**// "Fresh blows the Wind/ to the homeland./ My Irish child,/ where are you dwelling?" Taken from Richard Wagner's //Tristan and Isolde.//


 * You gave me hyacinths first a year ago**;-- An allusion to Hyacinthus, a lover of Apollo who was tragically killed.

//**Od' und leer das Meer.--**// "Desolate and empty is the sea." Also from //Tristan and Isolde.//


 * Madame Sosostris--** Although it is common for footnotes to link Madame Sosostris to the Aldous Huxley novel //Chrome Yellow,// Lawrence Rainey discovered an error in this connection. He traces the origins of the mistake to Grover Smith, who received a letter from Eliot himself that stated he was reasonably sure he had borrowed the name from Huxley's novel. Rainey goes on to write, "Eliot . . . had probably drafted the scene with Madame Sosostris by early February 1921 and had certainly completed the typescript of parts I and II sometime in mid-May . . . did not even begin to write his novel until the beginning of June" (Rainey 80). The erroneous note became widely accepted and appears in many editions of the poem.


 * //mon semblable.- mon frère!//**-- "my likeness, my brother!" The final line of the poem "Au Lecteur" from Charles Baudelaire's //Les Fleurs du Mal// (1857). Baudelaire was part of the French symbolist movement, which Eliot was introduced to during his time in France, where he studied at the Sorbonne, and greatly influenced his writing.


 * II. __THE FIRE SERMON__**--


 * //Et O ces voix d'enfants, chantant dans la coupole!//**-- And, O, these children's voices singing in the dome!


 * V. __WHAT THE THUNDER SAID__**

//**Here is no water but only rock**//-- Eliot once wrote to Ford Maddox Ford saying these thirty fugal lines were the only worthwhile section of //The Waste Land.//


 * //Poi s'ascose nel foco che gli affina//**
 * //Quando fiam ceu chelidon//**-- Then he hid himself in the refining fire/ When shall I become like a swallow

//**Le Prince d'Aquitaine a la tour abolie**//-- The prince of Aquitaine in the ruined tower

//**Shantih shantih shantih**//-- In his notes, Eliot writes that the nearest equivalent of this word is, "the peace which passeth understanding is our equivalent to this word."


 * __NOTES__**


 * 60. Fourmillante cité, cite pleine de rêves,**
 * Où le spectre en plein jour raccroche le passant.**

Teeming city, full of dreams, where in broad Daylight the specter grips the passer-by!

63. **si lunga tratta**
 * di gente, ch'io non avrei mai creduto**
 * che morte tanta n'avesse disfatta.**

So long a train of people, that i should not have believed that death had undone so many.

64. **Quivi, secondo che per ascoltare,**
 * non avea pianto, ma' che di sospiri,**
 * che l'aura eterna facevan tremare.**

Here, there was to be heard no complaint but the sighs, which caused the eternal air to tremble.


 * Works Cited **

//Our Mutual Friend// by Charles Dickens: []

** Ed. North, Michael. The Waste Land: T. S. Eliot. 1st Ed. New York : W. W. Norton & Company, 2001. **

**﻿**Southam, B. C. A Guide to the Selected Poems of T.S. Eliot. New York : Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1968.

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