"Death by Water" Annotations
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Go back to [[Shoring Up Fragments Against Our Ruin: Quotations and Allusions]] | Go back to [[Shoring Up Fragments Against Our Ruin: Quotations and Allusions]] | ||
| − | + | ==Stanza 1-2== | |
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| + | ===Title=== | ||
| − | A current under sea | + | The title refers the reader back to Madame Sosostris' card reading in part one, "The Burial of the Dead" (see [["The Burial of the Dead" Annotations]] for more information). She bids her client to "fear death by water." |
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| + | An important point to note is that this section is really just a translation of a poem eliot had written 1916-1917 "Dans le Restaurant." Many early commentators thought that this section was based upon an understanding of a ritual in the Adonis section of Jessie Weston's ''From Ritual to Romance.'' In this ritual, as spread by sailors from Phoenicia (like Phlebas, possibly), a head made of papyrus was sent across the sea to celebrate the spring and the wedding of Aphrodite and Adonis. This would make the second stanza the experience of the head. '''However,''' Weston's book was only published in 1920, 3-4 years after Eliot had initially written the poem--an interesting mystery. | ||
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| + | ===Lines 312-318, Ancient History=== | ||
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| + | Phlebas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead, | ||
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| + | Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep sea swell | ||
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| + | And the profit and loss. | ||
| + | A current under sea | ||
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Picked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell | Picked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell | ||
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He passed the stages of his age and youth | He passed the stages of his age and youth | ||
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Entering the whirlpool. | Entering the whirlpool. | ||
| + | "Phlebas" may be name derived from the latin adjective "flebilis" meaning "lamentable, to be wept over," which only makes sense if he's a fortnight dead. Phoenicians are historically best known for their rich trade network, and so this passage shows a man who probably lived to make money, dies at the hands of cruel nature. | ||
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| + | ==Stanza 3== | ||
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| + | ===Lines 319-321, Bible=== | ||
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| + | <html> | ||
| + | <iframe width="950" height="475" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" src="https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msa=0&msid=205087301525898876143.0004cff84ad195f04218b&hl=en&ie=UTF8&t=p&ll=41.883876,12.461243&spn=0.015176,0.040727&z=15&output=embed"></iframe><br /><small>View <a href="https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msa=0&msid=205087301525898876143.0004cff84ad195f04218b&hl=en&ie=UTF8&t=p&ll=41.883876,12.461243&spn=0.015176,0.040727&z=15&source=embed" style="color:#0000FF;text-align:left">Death by Water</a> in a larger map</small> | ||
| + | </html> | ||
Gentile or Jew | Gentile or Jew | ||
| − | O you who turn the wheel and look to windward, | + | |
| + | O you who turn the wheel and look to windward, | ||
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Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you. | Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you. | ||
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| + | "Gentile or Jew" refers the reader to [[Romans 3]]: 9-12 | ||
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| + | ::::9. What shall we conclude then? Do we have any advantage? Not at all! For we have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles | ||
| + | ::::alike are all under the power of sin. | ||
| + | ::::10. As it is written: | ||
| + | ::::“There is no one righteous, not even one; | ||
| + | ::::11. there is no one who understands; | ||
| + | ::::there is no one who seeks God. | ||
| + | ::::12. All have turned away, | ||
| + | ::::they have together become worthless; | ||
| + | ::::there is no one who does good, | ||
| + | ::::not even one.” | ||
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| + | Everyone is alike in their rejection of God, and in their sin. Everyone is thus condemned. | ||
