I played this at full volume in the warehouse last night after everyone had gone home. As the lights timed out and switched off Eliot's voice filled the darkness. It was the best part of the whole shitty fucking day.
THE JOURNEY OF THE MAGI A cold coming we had of it, Just the worst time of the year For a journey, and such a long journey: The ways deep and the weather sharp, The very dead of winter.' And the camels galled, sorefooted, refractory, Lying down in the melting snow. There were times we regretted The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces, And the silken girls bringing sherbet. Then the camel men cursing and grumbling and running away, and wanting their liquor and women, And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters, And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly And the villages dirty and charging high prices: A hard time we had of it. At the end we preferred to travel all night, Sleeping in snatches, With the voices singing in our ears, saying That this was all folly. Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley, Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation; With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness, And three trees on the low sky, And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow. Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel, Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver, And feet kicking the empty wine-skins. But there was no information, and so we continued And arriving at evening, not a moment too soon Finding the place; it was (you might say) satisfactory. All this was a long time ago, I remember, And I would do it again, but set down This set down This: were we led all that way for Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death, But had thought they were different; this Birth was Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death. We returned to our places, these Kingdoms, But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation, With an alien people clutching their gods. I should be glad of another death
The epigraph from Measure for Measure: Thou hast nor youth nor age, But, as it were, an after-dinner's sleep, Dreaming on both; for all thy blessed youth 35 Becomes as aged, and doth beg the alms Of palsied eld; and when thou art old and rich, Thou hast neither heat, affection, limb, nor beauty, To make thy riches pleasant. What's yet in this That bears the name of life? Yet in this life 40 Lie hid moe thousand deaths: yet death we fear, That makes these odds all even. (It's deep Bro' :We fear the unknown more than the known, without reason. So apply reason)
His German pronunciation is dreadful. Jeremy Irons version is far superior to Eliot 's thin, monotonous bleat. And his French is worse than his German..!
i don't think he's very good at reading his own poems lol. if you didn't know english you would have no idea what emotion the poem is going for by his reading
Actually, he read it with utmost perfection. If he kept the same pace all through out people would stop listening out of boredom. It’s also emphasis used wisely
Though many others have recorded this ground breaking poem, none come close to hearing the voice of the poet himself. I have kept this recording close to me for over 40 years and I've never grown tired of it.
4:30 This is the land which ye Shall divide by lot. And neither division nor unity Matters. This is the land. We have our inheritance. 分けるとか一緒にするとかは問題ではない これがその土地だ 我らは受け継いだのだ
Thou hast nor youth nor age But as it were an after dinner sleep Dreaming of both. Here I am, an old man in a dry month, Being read to by a boy, waiting for rain. I was neither at the hot gates Nor fought in the warm rain Nor knee deep in the salt marsh, heaving a cutlass, Bitten by flies, fought. My house is a decayed house, And the Jew squats on the window sill, the owner, Spawned in some estaminet of Antwerp, Blistered in Brussels, patched and peeled in London. The goat coughs at night in the field overhead; Rocks, moss, stonecrop, iron, merds. The woman keeps the kitchen, makes tea, Sneezes at evening, poking the peevish gutter. I an old man, A dull head among windy spaces. Signs are taken for wonders. ‘We would see a sign!’ The word within a word, unable to speak a word, Swaddled with darkness. In the juvescence of the year Came Christ the tiger In depraved May, dogwood and chestnut, flowering judas, To be eaten, to be divided, to be drunk Among whispers; by Mr. Silvero With caressing hands, at Limoges Who walked all night in the next room; By Hakagawa, bowing among the Titians; By Madame de Tornquist, in the dark room Shifting the candles; Fräulein von Kulp Who turned in the hall, one hand on the door. Vacant shuttles Weave the wind. I have no ghosts, An old man in a draughty house Under a windy knob. After such knowledge, what forgiveness? Think now History has many cunning passages, contrived corridors And issues, deceives with whispering ambitions, Guides us by vanities. Think now She gives when our attention is distracted And what she gives, gives with such supple confusions That the giving famishes the craving. Gives too late What’s not believed in, or is still believed, In memory only, reconsidered passion. Gives too soon Into weak hands, what’s thought can be dispensed with Till the refusal propagates a fear. Think Neither fear nor courage saves us. Unnatural vices Are fathered by our heroism. Virtues Are forced upon us by our impudent crimes. These tears are shaken from the wrath-bearing tree. The tiger springs in the new year. Us he devours. Think at last We have not reached conclusion, when I Stiffen in a rented house. Think at last I have not made this show purposelessly And it is not by any concitation Of the backward devils. I would meet you upon this honestly. I that was near your heart was removed therefrom To lose beauty in terror, terror in inquisition. I have lost my passion: why should I need to keep it Since what is kept must be adulterated? I have lost my sight, smell, hearing, taste and touch: How should I use it for your closer contact? These with a thousand small deliberations Protract the profit of their chilled delirium, Excite the membrane, when the sense has cooled, With pungent sauces, multiply variety In a wilderness of mirrors. What will the spider do Suspend its operations, will the weevil Delay? De Bailhache, Fresca, Mrs. Cammel, whirled Beyond the circuit of the shuddering Bear In fractured atoms. Gull against the wind, in the windy straits Of Belle Isle, or running on the Horn, White feathers in the snow, the Gulf claims, And an old man driven by the Trades To a sleepy corner. Tenants of the house, Thoughts of a dry brain in a dry season.
Over 600,000 CoVd19 deaths and counting when it could have been prevented: Trump lies turned America into a suffering 'waste land' of death, across the entire nation. When it could have been prevented. There's a finality to death, people needed care the system was broken: no PPE, no ventilators nor ICU beds, no vaccines meant 1.5 years in hell.
It is shameful to see T S Eliot getting three likes for this audio. The modern generation has lost its interest in the interests which were sources of inspiration during our olden and golden days
1 second ago April was our cruellest covid month full of death and isolation,stay at home,protect the NHS,SAVE LIVES said the hollow men who tested no one in care homes
The last stanza of this poem is the most beautiful use of language in all of literature. 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
he is quite uptight during the first chant but it's very funny to hear him loosen up a bit by the middle of the second chant, even doing the drunken 'good nights'
Curious. Even to an American aware of Eliot's Anglophilia, these modernist lines have never sounded in the voice of an Oxford don. I should have known, however, that What the Thunder Said was meant for a High Church enunciation, though the minimal wording suggested dissipation. Interesting the clash between Eliot's ambitions and the reader's.
Contents: 00:02 - I. The Burial of the Dead 05:00 - II. A Game of Chess 10:22 - III. The Fire Sermon 18:15 - IV. Death by Water 18:55 - V. What the Thunder Said Epigraph: "Nam Sibyllam quidem Cumis ego ipse oculis meis vidi in ampulla pendere, et cum illi pueri dicerent: respondebat illa: Σιβυλλατι θελεις; respondebat illa: αποθανειν θελω." For Ezra Pound il miglior fabbro.
