Blogging the Wasteland II [Bryan]

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 place 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 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 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

Bryan Comments: Thus begins my favorite section of the Wasteland, "Section V: What The Thunder Said." Obviously, we have a reference to the Crucifixion here: "the agony in stony places," "prison and palace and reverberation," "the frosty silence in the gardens," and so forth. After the agony, we are presented with travelers on a path. The poem at this point captures the emptiness of their despair by using the image of dryness. The sweat is dry and the path is sandy. There are rocks that cannot "spit" and dry thunder "without rain." There is, we are told, "not even silence in these mountains" (one of my favorite lines). The land itself seems to thirst for refreshment, for life.

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

Bryan comments: Here we enter the minds of the travelers, who see the dryness, feels their thirst, and wish for something different. It is as if the travelers start to see a cool pool of water. They can almost hear the water dripping and the birds singing. "But," back to reality they remind themselves that "there is no water."

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?

Bryan comments: Suddenly, there is the realization of a mysterious stranger on the road. The stranger does not appear suddenly, but has been "always walking beside you." The identity of the stranger is kept hidden -- he (or she) is hooded, wrapped in the brown mantle. The presence of the stranger is difficult to verify. When we count, we can only seem to count the two of us. Yet there is always a third, walking with us. Is the stranger an illusion, like the water? Or do we have the promise of the stranger, a friend, who helps us walk the Wasteland? The parallels to the famous Road to Emmaus story in the Bible are fairly clear here: Hopeless travelers walking on a road after a tragedy encounter the disguised Jesus who offers salvation.

What is that sound high in the air
Murmur 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

Bryan comments: At this point, Eliot resumes his critique of the "unreal city" that he began in the first section. London, as with all other great cities, will fall to the sound of "maternal lamentation" (again, a reference to the Crucifixion). Instead of one hooded stranger walking always beside us, we now have hooded minions mindlessly swarming over the dry, cracked land. Are these hordes a hopeful promise that such friends are everywhere? Not really: the description of these people as "swarming hordes" makes them seem undesirable, like insects. Are these people distractions, then, from the real hooded companion who walks always beside us? Is it an admission that the true "friend" will be difficult to recognize? Is Eliot offering us hope in a hooded stranger, but then admitting that truth (and true friendship) will be difficult to recognize? Yes, I think so. Section V is a picture of hope permeated by doubt; true companionship, and salvation in such friendship, is available, but it is hard to recognize through the smog of the unreal city.