“Desolate and empty is the sea.”

Translation by Michael North

This line too, just like those at the beginning of the passage, is taken from Richard Wagner's Tristan und Isolde (1865). These words are sung in the third act by dying Tristan who awaits in vain the arrival by sea of his beloved Isolde.

The Golden Bough is comparative study of mythology and religion, written by the Scottish anthropologist Sir James George Frazer. It was first published in 1890. The influence of The Golden Bough on contemporary European literature and thought has been substantial.

Eliot has acknowledged indebtedness to Frazer in his first note to The Waste Land. Specifically, the author claims to have used especially the two volumes Adonis, Attis, Osiris, and recognises that anyone who is acquainted with these works will immediately recognise in the poem certain references to vegetation ceremonies.

"Le garcon délabré qui n’a rien à faire / Que de se gratter les doigts et se pencher sur mon épaule: / “Dans mon pays il fera temps pluvieux, / Du vent, du grand soleil, et de la pluie; / C’est ce qu’on appelle le jour de lessive des gueux.” / (Bavard, baveux, à la croupe arrondie, / Je te prie, au moins, ne bave pas dans la soupe). / “Les saules trempés, et des bourgeons sur les ronces— / C’est là, dans une averse, qu’on s’abrite. / J’avais septtans, elle était plus petite. / Elle etait toute mouillée, je lui ai donné des primavères.” / Les tâches de son gilet montent au chiffre de trente-huit. / “Je la chatouillais, pour la faire rire. / J’éprouvais un instant de puissance et de délire.” / Mais alors, vieux lubrique, a cet âge… / “Monsieur, le fait est dur. / Il est venu, nous peloter, un gros chien; / Moi j’avais peur, je l’ai quittee a mi-chemin. / C’est dommage.” / Mais alors, tu as ton vautour! / Va t’en te décrotter les rides du visage; / Tiens, ma fourchette, décrasse-toi le crâne. / De quel droit payes-tu des expériences comme moi? / Tiens, voilà dix sous, pour la salle-de-bains. / Phlébas, le Phénicien, pendant quinze jours noyé, / Oubliait les cris des mouettes et la houle de Cornouaille, / Et les profits et les pertes, et la cargaison d’etain: / Un courant de sous-mer l’emporta tres loin, / Le repassant aux étapes de sa vie antérieure. / Figurez-vous donc, c’etait un sort penible; / Cependant, ce fut jadis un bel homme, de haute taille."

“The waiter idle and dilapidated / With nothing to do but scratch and lean over my shoulder / Says: / "In my country the rain is colder / And the sun hotter and the ground more desiccated / and desecrated". / Voluminous and spuminous with a leguminous / and cannimaculated vest-front and pantfront / and a graveyperpulchafied yesterdays napkin in a loop / over his elbow / (I hope he will not sputter into the soup) / "Down in a ditch under the willow trees / Where you go to get out of the rain / I tried in vain, / I mean I was interrupted / She was all wet with the deluge and her calico skirt / stuck to her buttocks and belly, / I put my hand up and she giggled", / You old cut-up, / "At the age of eight what can one do, sir, / she was younger / Besides I'd no sooner got started than a big poodle / Came sniffing about and scared me pealess", / Your head is not flealess / now at any rate, go scrape the cheese off your pate / and dig the slush out of your crowsfeet, / take sixpence and get washed, God damn / what a fate / You crapulous vapulous relic, you ambulating offence / To have had an experience / so nearly parallel, with, . . . . / Go away, / I was about to say mine, / I shall dine / elsewhere in future, / to cleanse this suture. / Phlebas the Phenicien, fairest of men, / Straight and tall, having been born in a caul / Lost luck at forty, and lay drowned / Two long weeks in sea water, tossed of the / streams under sea, carried of currents / Forgetful of the gains / forgetful of the long days of sea fare / Forgetful of mew's crying and the foam swept coast / of Cornwall, / Born back at last, after days / to the ports and stays of his young life, / A fair man, ports of his former seafare thither at last.”

(T. S. Eliot’s « Dans le Restaurant », from Poems 1920)

Translation by Ezra Pound

“Fresh blows the wind / To the homeland / My Irish child / Where do you wait?”

Translation by Michael North

These lines come from Richard Wagner's Tristan und Isolde (1865) a music drama in three acts loosely based on the medieval 12th-century romance Tristan and Iseult by Gottfried von Strassburg. Specifically, in the drama they are sung in the first act by a seaman thinking about the girl he loves who awaits him at home.

The figure of Marie is usually identified with the Countess Marie Louise Larisch von Moennich, a niece and lady-in-waiting of Empress Elisabeth of Austria. Indeed, the source for this passage appears to be either the Countess' autobiography, entitled My Past, or a conversation between Eliot and the Countess herself.

"‘I am not Russian at all; I come from Lithuania; I am a real German."

Translation: https://tseliot.com/poetry/the-waste-land/read/the-burial-of-the-dead

The reference here is to The Princess a blank verse narrative poem written by Alfred Tennyson and published in 1847.

Follows an extract of the poem:

"O Swallow, Swallow, flying, flying South, / Fly to her, and fall upon her gilded eaves, / And tell her, tell her, what I tell to thee. // O tell her, Swallow, thou that knowest each, / That bright and fierce and fickle is the South, / And dark and true and tender is the North. // O Swallow, Swallow, if I could follow, and light / Upon her lattice, I would pipe and trill, / And cheep and twitter twenty million loves. // O were I thou that she might take me in, / And lay me on her bosom, and her heart / Would rock the snowy cradle till I died. // Why lingereth she to clothe her heart with love, / Delaying as the tender ash delays / To clothe herself, when all the woods are green? // O tell her, Swallow, that thy brood is flown: / Say to her, I do but wanton in the South, / But in the North long since my nest is made. // O tell her, brief is life but love is long, / And brief the sun of summer in the North,/ And brief the moon of beauty in the South. // O Swallow, flying from the golden woods, / Fly to her, and pipe and woo her, and make her mine, / And tell her, tell her, that I follow thee."

(Tennyson’s The Princess, IV, 75 - 98)

This is a reference to Dante’s Divine Comedy, a long allegoric poem published in c.1321 which describes the author’ s journey through Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven. Indeed, in the notes, the author quotes a passage from the Purgatory.

Follow the lines quoted by Eliot and their English translation:

“Ricorditi di me, che son la Pia; / “Siena mi fe’, disfecemi Maremma.”

“may you remember me, who am La Pia; / Siena made—Maremma unmade—me:"

(Dante’s Divine Comedy, PG V 133)

translation: https://digitaldante.columbia.edu/dante/divine-comedy/purgatorio/purgatorio-5/

The speaker in Dante's poem is Pia de' Tolomei, gentlewoman from Siena who was murdered by her own husband. Eliot changes the topographic references but keeps the structure and the underlying violence of the Dantesque verses.

This is a reference to Queen Elizabeth I and her alleged longtime lover, Lord Robert Dudley, the Earl of Leicester. Indeed, in the notes, Eliot quotes a passage from a 1561 letter to King Philip from the Spanish Ambassador and bishop Alvaro de la Quadra.

Follows the passage cited by the author:

“In the afternoon we were in a barge, watching the games on the river. (The queen) was alone with Lord Robert and myself on the poop, when they began to talk nonsense, and went so far that Lord Robert at last said, as I was on the spot there was no reason why they should not be married if the queen pleased.”

(V. Froude, Elizabeth, Vol. I, ch. iv)

The reference here is to Wagner’s tetralogy, The Ring of the Nibelung, (in German: Der Ring des Nibelungen) a cycle of four German-language epic music dramas composed over the course of about twenty-six years, from 1848 to 1874. The four parts that constitute the Ring cycle are, in sequence: Das Rheingold (The Rhinegold), Die Walküre (The Valkyrie), Siegfried, Götterdämmerung (Twilight of the Gods). In the notes, Eliot refers specifically to the Götterdämmerung, in which the Rhine-maidens, who in The Waste Land become the Thames-daughters, lament the theft of the river's gold. Their phonetic wailing, "Weialala leia / Wallala leialala" (277-78), comes nowhere in the opera. Something similar is, however, found in Wagner’s Das Rheingold.

This is a reference to the Odyssey (Ancient Greek: Ὀδύσσεια), one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. The Poem follows the Greek hero Odysseus, king of Ithaca, and his journey home after the Trojan War.

In this instance, Eliot refers to the passage in which Odysseus consults Tiresias in Hades.

Follows an extract from the original and its translation:

“- ἦλθε δ' ἐπὶ ψυχὴ Θηβαίου Τειρεσίαο, / χρύσεον σκῆπτρον ἔχων, ἐμὲ δ' ἔγνω καὶ προσέειπε· / - 'διογενὲς Λαερτιάδη, πολυμήχαν' Ὀδυσσεῦ, / τίπτ' αὖτ', ὦ δύστηνε, λιπὼν φάος ἠελίοιο / ἤλυθες, ὄφρα ἴδῃ νέκυας καὶ ἀτερπέα χῶρον; / ἀλλ' ἀποχάζεο βόθρου, ἄπισχε δὲ φάσγανον ὀξύ, / αἵματος ὄφρα πίω καί τοι νημερτέα εἴπω.' / - ὣς φάτ', ἐγὼ δ' ἀναχασσάμενος ξίφος ἀργυρόηλον / κουλεῷ ἐγκατέπηξ'. ὁ δ' ἐπεὶ πίεν αἷμα κελαινόν, / καὶ τότε δή μ' ἐπέεσσι προσηύδα μάντις ἀμύμων· / - 'νόστον δίζηαι μελιηδέα, φαίδιμ' Ὀδυσσεῦ· / τὸν δέ τοι ἀργαλέον θήσει θεός.”

“Then the ghost of Theban Teiresias appeared, carrying his golden staff, ad he knew me, and spoke: “Odysseus, man of many resources, scion of Zeus, son of Laertes, how now, luckless man? Why have you left the sunlight, to view the dead in this joyless place? Move back from the trench and turn aside your blade so I may drink the blood, and prophesy truth to you.” At this, I drew back and sheathed my silver-embossed sword. When he had drunk the black blood, the infallible seer spoke and said: “Noble Odysseus, you ask about your sweet homecoming, but the god will make it a bitter journey.””

(Odyssey, XI, ll. 90-101)

Translated by A. S. Kline

This is a reference to tragedy by Sophocles' tragedy, Oedipus Rex, which was first performed c. 429 BC. The action of the play concerns Oedipus's search for the murderer of Laius in order to end a plague ravaging Thebes, unaware that he himself is the culprit. In this tragedy, the character of Tiresias, as a soothsayer, reveals to Oedipus that he, besides being guilty of patricide, is also unknowingly guilty of incest, and it is because of his incestuous marriage with his mother Jocasta that the city of Thebes is rendered barren and desolate.

Follows an extract from the original and its translation:

“Λέγω δέ σοι· τὸν ἄνδρα τοῦτον ὃν πάλαι / ζητεῖς ἀπειλῶν κἀνακηρύσσων φόνον / τὸν Λαΐειον, οὗτός ἐστιν ἐνθάδε, / ξένος λόγῳ μέτοικος, εἶτα δ' ἐγγενὴς / φανήσεται Θηβαῖος, οὐδ' ἡσθήσεται / τῇ ξυμφορᾷ· τυφλὸς γὰρ ἐκ δεδορκότος / καὶ πτωχὸς ἀντὶ πλουσίου ξένην ἔπι / σκήπτρῳ προδεικνὺς γαῖαν ἐμπορεύσεται. / Φανήσεται δὲ παισὶ τοῖς αὑτοῦ ξυνὼν / ἀδελφὸς αὑτὸς καὶ πατήρ, κἀξ ἧς ἔφυ / γυναικὸς υἱὸς καὶ πόσις, καὶ τοῦ πατρὸς / ὁμοσπόρος τε καὶ φονεύς. Καὶ ταῦτ' ἰὼν / εἴσω λογίζου· κἂν λάβῃς μ' ἐψευσμένον, / φάσκειν ἔμ' ἤδη μαντικῇ μηδὲν φρονεῖν.”

“The man you have been seeking all this time, / while proclaiming threats and issuing orders / about the one who murdered Laius— / that man is here. According to reports, / he is a stranger who lives here in Thebes. / But he will prove to be a native Theban. / From that change he will derive no pleasure. / He will be blind, although he now can see. / He will be a poor, although he now is rich. / He will set off for a foreign country, / groping the ground before him with a stick. / And he will turn out to be the brother / of the children in his house—their father, too, / both at once, and the husband and the son / of the very woman who gave birth to him. / He sowed the same womb as his father / and murdered him. Go in and think on this. / If you discover I have spoken falsely, / you can say I lack all skill in prophecy.”

(Sophocles', Oedipus Rex 449-462)

Translated by Ian Johnston

In the notes, Eliot defines Tiresias as the most important figure in the entire poem. Indeed, although he is a mere spectator, what Tiresias sees constitutes the essence of the entire poem. Moreover, the author quotes an entire passage in Latin from Ovid's Metamorphoses, specifically from the 3rd book, where the story of Tiresias is told.

Follows the extract in Latin and its translation:

“Cum Iunone iocos et 'maior vestra profecto est, / quam quae contingit maribus' dixisse 'voluptas.' / Illa negat. Placuit quae sit sententia docti / quaerere Tiresiae: Venus huic erat utraque nota. / Nam duo magnorum viridi coeuntia silva / corpora serpentum baculi violaverat ictu / deque viro factus (mirabile) femina septem / egerat autumnos; octavo rursus eosdem / vidit, et 'est vestrae si tanta potentia plagae' / dixit, 'ut auctoris sortem in contraria mutet, / nunc quoque vos feriam.' Percussis anguibus isdem / forma prior rediit, genetivaque venit imago. / Arbiter hic igitur sumptus de lite iocosa / dicta Iovis firmat: gravius Saturnia iusto / nec pro materia fertur doluisse suique / iudicis aeterna damnavit lumina nocte; / at pater omnipotens (neque enim licet inrita cuiquam / facta dei fecisse deo) pro lumine adempto / scire futura dedit poenamque levavit honore.”

“Exchanging pleasantries, with Juno, said ‘You gain more than we do from the pleasures of love.’ She denied it. They agreed to ask learned Tiresias for his opinion. He had known Venus in both ways. Once, with a blow of his stick, he had disturbed two large snakes mating in the green forest, and, marvellous to tell, he was changed from a man to a woman, and lived as such for seven years. In the eighth year he saw the same snakes again and said ‘Since there is such power in plaguing you that it changes the giver of a blow to the opposite sex, I will strike you again, now.’ He struck the snakes and regained his former shape, and returned to the sex he was born with. As the arbiter of the light-hearted dispute he confirmed Jupiter’s words. Saturnia, it is said, was more deeply upset than was justified and than the dispute warranted, and damned the one who had made the judgement to eternal night. But, since no god has the right to void what another god has done, the all-powerful father of the gods gave Tiresias knowledge of the future, in exchange for his lost sight, and lightened the punishment with honour.”

(Ovid's Metamorphoses, Book III, 320-338)

Translated by A. S. Kline

This is a reference to John Milton's Paradise Lost(1667) an epic poem in blank verse about the biblical story of the fall of man.

Eliot made the reference explicit in his notes. This is the scene that presented itself before Satan when he first arrives at the borders of Eden.

"So on he fares, and to the border comes / Of Eden, where delicious Paradise, / Now nearer, crowns with her enclosure green, / As with a rural mound, the champaign head / Of a steep wilderness, whose hairy sides / With thicket overgrown, grotesque and wild, / Access denied; and overhead up grew / Insuperable height of loftiest shade, / Cedar, and pine, and fir, and branching palm, / A sylvan scene, and, as the ranks ascend, / Shade above shade, a woody theatre / Of stateliest view. Yet higher than their tops / The verdurous wall of Paradise up sprung; / Which to our general sire gave prospect large / Into his nether empire neighbouring round."

(Milton's Paradise Lost, Book IV, ll. 131 - 145)

“Ovid’s story is objective, carefully balancing an action and a counteraction – male aggression followed by female revenge. […] Dante’s version, which Eliot knew well, is unsympathetic to the sisters. In the Purgatorio, he points to them as examples of wrath, but ignores Tereus’ crimes against them. Eliot’s version moves in the opposite direction, lingering on Philomel as victim.”

(Brooker, Jewel Spears. "Mimetic desire and the return to origins in The Waste Land". Gender, Desire, and Sexuality in T. S. Eliot. Ed. Cassandra Laity and Nancy K. Gish. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004. 130-149.)

Indeed, Philomel’s sister, Procne, appears in Dante’s Divine Comedy, a long allegoric poem published in c.1321 which describes the author’ s journey through Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven. Specifically, Procne is evoked as Dante goes through the third terrace of the Purgatory, where the souls of the wrathful are enveloped in thick, black smoke.

Follows an extract of the original text and its translation:

“De l’empiezza di lei che mutò forma / ne l’uccel ch’a cantar più si diletta, / ne l’imagine mia apparve l’orma;.”

“Within my fantasy I saw impressed / the savagery of one who then, transformed, / became the bird that most delights in song;”

(Dante’s Divine Comedy, PG XVII 19-21)

translation: https://digitaldante.columbia.edu/dante/divine-comedy/purgatorio/purgatorio-17/

The Metamorphoses (in Latin Metamorphosĕon libri XV) is an epic-mythological poem by Publius Ovid Naso, completed around 8 AD. Through this work, which focuses on the phenomenon of metamorphoses, Ovid perfected in verse and transmitted to posterity the most famous stories of ancient mythology.

The story of Philomel is told in the 6th book of the Metamorphoses.

Follows an extract of the Latin passage and its translation:

“Mox ubi mens rediit, passos laniata capillos, / lugenti similis caesis plangore lacertis / intendens palmas 'o diris barbare factis, / o crudelis' ait, 'nec te mandata parentis / cum lacrimis movere piis nec cura sororis / nec mea virginitas nec coniugialia iura? / Omnia turbasti; paelex ego facta sororis, / tu geminus coniunx, hostis mihi debita Procne! / Quin animam hanc, ne quod facinus tibi, perfide, restet, / eripis? Atque utinam fecisses ante nefandos / concubitus: vacuas habuissem criminis umbras. / Si tamen haec superi cernunt, si numina divum / sunt aliquid, si non perierunt omnia mecum, / quandocumque mihi poenas dabis! Ipsa pudore / proiecto tua facta loquar: si copia detur, / in populos veniam; si silvis clausa tenebor, / inplebo silvas et conscia saxa movebo; / audiet haec aether et si deus ullus in illo est!' / Talibus ira feri postquam commota tyranni / nec minor hac metus est, causa stimulatus utraque, / quo fuit accinctus, vagina liberat ensem / arreptamque coma fixis post terga lacertis / vincla pati cogit; iugulum Philomela parabat / spemque suae mortis viso conceperat ense: / ille indignantem et nomen patris usque vocantem / luctantemque loqui conprensam forcipe linguam / abstulit ense fero. Radix micat ultima linguae, / ipsa iacet terraeque tremens inmurmurat atrae, / utque salire solet mutilatae cauda colubrae, / palpitat et moriens dominae vestigia quaerit. / Hoc quoque post facinus (vix ausim credere) fertur / saepe sua lacerum repetisse libidine corpus.”

"After a brief while, when she had come to her senses, she dragged at her dishevelled hair, and like a mourner, clawed at her arms, beating them against her breasts. Hands outstretched, she shouted ‘Oh, you savage. Oh, what an evil, cruel, thing you have done. Did you care nothing for my father’s trust, sealed with holy tears, my sister’s affection, my own virginity, your marriage vows? You have confounded everything. I have been forced to become my sister’s rival. You are joined to both. Now Procne will be my enemy! Why not rob me of life as well, you traitor, so that no crime escapes you? If only you had done it before that impious act. Then my shade would have been free of guilt. Yet, if the gods above witness such things, if the powers of heaven mean anything, if all is not lost, as I am, then one day you will pay me for this! I, without shame, will tell what you have done. If I get the chance it will be in front of everyone. If I am kept imprisoned in these woods, I will fill the woods with it, and move the stones, that know of my guilt, to pity. The skies will hear of it, and any god that may be there!’ The king’s anger was stirred by these words, and his fear also. Goaded by both, he freed the sword from its sheath by his side, and seizing her hair gathered it together, to use as a tie, to tether her arms behind her back. Philomela, seeing the sword, and hoping only for death, offered up her throat. But he severed her tongue with his savage blade, holding it with pincers, as she struggled to speak in her indignation, calling out her father’s name repeatedly. Her tongue’s root was left quivering, while the rest of it lay on the dark soil, vibrating and trembling, and, as though it were the tail of a mutilated snake moving, it writhed, as if, in dying, it was searching for some sign of her. They say (though I scarcely dare credit it) that even after this crime, he still assailed her wounded body, repeatedly, in his lust."

(Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Book 6, ll. 531-562)

Translated by A. S. Kline

This line is a verbatim quote from William Shakespeare's drama Hamlet (1599–1601). The character who is speaking is Ophelia, a young noblewoman of Denmark, potential wife of Prince Hamlet, who, due to Hamlet's actions, ends up in a state of madness that ultimately leads to her drowning.

"I hope all will be well. We must be patient: but I / cannot choose but weep, to think they should lay him / i' the cold ground. My brother shall know of it: / and so I thank you for your good counsel. Come, my / coach! Good night, ladies; good night, sweet ladies; / good night, good night."

(Shakespeare's Hamlet, IV, 5, 71-72)

This line was added at a later time at the suggestion of Eliot’s first wife, Vivienne Haigh-Wood Eliot.

Ulysses is a modernist novel by the Irish writer James Joyce, first published in volume edition in 1922. The novel chronicles the experiences of three Dubliners over the course of a single day, 16 June 1904.

At the time, the novel was considered obscene as it depicted explicitly scenes like depicting childbirth, defecation, menstruation, masturbation, etc. Indeed, the aim of the author was to depict all human experiences, whether sexual, bodily, or emetic.

Specifically, the defection episode cited here occurs in chapter 4:

"He kicked open the crazy door of the jakes. Better be careful not to get these trousers dirty for the funeral. He went in, bowing his head under the low lintel. Leaving the door ajar, amid the stench of mouldy limewash and stale cobwebs he undid his braces. Before sitting down he peered through a chink up at the nextdoor window. The king was in his counting house. Nobody. Asquat on the cuckstool he folded out his paper turning its pages over on his bared knees. […] Quietly he read, restraining himself, the first column and, yielding but resisting, began the second. Midway, his last resistance yielding, he allowed his bowels to ease themselves quietly as he read, reading still patiently, that slight constipation of yesterday quite gone. Hope it's not too big bring on piles again. No, just right. So. Ah! […] He tore away half the prize story sharply and wiped himself with it. Then he girded up his trousers, braced and buttoned himself. He pulled back the jerky shaky door of the jakes and came forth from the gloom into the air."

(Joyce's Ulysses, Chapter 4 - "Calypso")

Eliot also came to regret this decision as he stated in the introduction he wrote for the 1928 edition of Pound’s Selected Poems: "Pound [...] induced me to destroy what I thought an excellent set of couplets, ‘for’, said he, ‘Pope has done this so well that you cannot do it better; and if you mean this as a burlesque, you had better suppress it, for you cannot parody Pope unless you can write better verse than Pope—and you can't’."

The Rape of the Lock is a mock-heroic narrative poem written by Alexander Pope, first published 1712. This poem satirises a minor incident of life, by comparing it to the epic world of the gods. The passage referred to by Eliot is in the first canto of the poem, specifically verses 121-148:

And now, unveil'd, the toilet stands display'd, / Each silver vase in mystic order laid. / First, rob'd in white, the nymph intent adores / With head uncover'd, the cosmetic pow'rs. / A heav'nly image in the glass appears, / To that she bends, to that her eyes she rears; / Th' inferior priestess, at her altar's side, / Trembling, begins the sacred rites of pride. / Unnumber'd treasures ope at once, and here / The various off'rings of the world appear; / From each she nicely culls with curious toil, / And decks the goddess with the glitt'ring spoil. / This casket India's glowing gems unlocks, / And all Arabia breathes from yonder box. / The tortoise here and elephant unite, / Transform'd to combs, the speckled and the white. / Here files of pins extend their shining rows, / Puffs, powders, patches, bibles, billet-doux. / Now awful beauty puts on all its arms; / The fair each moment rises in her charms, / Repairs her smiles, awakens ev'ry grace, / And calls forth all the wonders of her face; / Sees by degrees a purer blush arise, / And keener lightnings quicken in her eyes. / The busy Sylphs surround their darling care; / These set the head, and those divide the hair, / Some fold the sleeve, whilst others plait the gown; / And Betty's prais'd for labours not her own.

(Pope’s The Rape of the Lock, Canto I, ll. 121 - 148)

The Satyricon is a novel in prose from 60 AD, attributed to the Latin author Petronius Arbiter. The fragmentary nature of the text that has survived into the modern age has compromised the complete understanding of the work. The plot centers on the vicissitudes of Encolpius, a young, educated and idle student of rhetoric, his servant Gítone, with whom he has an affair, and his treacherous friend-enemy Ascilto.

In the Satyricon, the story of the Cumaean Sibyl is told by Trimalchio during the banquet he held. The epigraph in The Waste Land is a direct quotation from section 48 of the Latin work.

The Aeneid (in Latin Aeneis) is an epic poem written by the Latin poet Publius Virgilius Maron between 29 BC and 19 BC. It narrates the legendary story of the Trojan hero Aeneas, who managed to escape after the fall of the city of Troy, and who travelled around the Mediterranean until he landed in Latium, becoming the progenitor of the Roman people.

The Sibyl appears in the sixth book of the Aeneid, which concludes the first half of the poem. Aeneas has just arrived on the Italian coast and goes straight to Apollo's temple, where he questions the Cumaean Sibyl about the future.

Follows an extract of the Latin passage and its translation:

"At pius Aeneas arces, quibus altus Apollo / praesidet, horrendaeque procul secreta Sibyllae / antrum inmane petit, magnam cui mentem animumque / Delius inspirat vates aperitque futura."

"Aeneas, servant of the gods, ascends the templed hill where lofty Phoebus reigns, and that far-off, inviolable shrine of dread Sibylla, in stupendous cave, over whose deep soul the god of Delos breathes prophetic gifts, unfolding things to come."

(Virgil's Aeneid, book VI, lines 9 -12)

Translated by Theodore C. Williams

The Metamorphoses (in Latin Metamorphosĕon libri XV) is an epic-mythological poem by Publius Ovid Naso, completed around 8 AD. Through this work, which focuses on the phenomenon of metamorphoses, Ovid perfected in verse and transmitted to posterity the most famous stories of ancient mythology.

The story of the Cumaean Sibyl is told in the 14th book of the Metamorphoses.

Follows an extract of the Latin passage and its translation:

"Respicit hunc vates et suspiratibus haustis / 'nec dea sum,' dixit 'nec sacri turis honore / <br /> humanum dignare caput, neu nescius erres, / lux aeterna mihi carituraque fine dabatur, / si mea virginitas Phoebo patuisset amanti. / Dum tamen hanc sperat, dum praecorrumpere donis / me cupit, "elige," ait "virgo Cumaea, quid optes: / <br /> optatis potiere tuis." Ego pulveris hausti / ostendens cumulum, quot haberet corpora pulvis, / tot mihi natales contingere vana rogavi; / excidit, ut peterem iuvenes quoque protinus annos. / Hos tamen ille mihi dabat aeternamque iuventam, / <br /> si Venerem paterer: contempto munere Phoebi / innuba permaneo; sed iam felicior aetas / terga dedit, tremuloque gradu venit aegra senectus,/ quae patienda diu est."

“The prophetess looked on him and with sighs, “I am no goddess,” she replied, “nor is it well to honor any mortal head with tribute of the holy frankincense. And, that you may not err through ignorance, I tell you life eternal without end was offered to me, if I would but yield virginity to Phoebus for his love. And, while he hoped for this and in desire offered to bribe me for my virtue, first with gifts, he said, ‘Maiden of Cumae choose whatever you may wish, and you shall gain all that you wish.’ I pointed to a heap of dust collected there, and foolishly replied, ‘As many birthdays must be given to me as there are particles of sand.’ For I forgot to wish them days of changeless youth. He gave long life and offered youth besides, if I would grant his wish. This I refused, I live unwedded still. My happier time has fled away, now comes with tottering step infirm old age, which I shall long endure.”

(Ovid's Metamorphosis, book XIV, lines 129-144)

Translated by A. S. Kline

Epigraph: ‘Yes, and I myself with my own eyes even saw the Sybil hanging in a cage; and when the boys cried at her: “Sybil, Sybil, what do you want?” “I would that I were dead”, she caused to answer.’ (This is the translation in Eliot’s own edition.)

"O quam te memorem virgo... / Stand on the highest pavement of the stair— / Lean on a garden urn— / Weave, weave the sunlight in your hair— / Clasp your flowers to you with a pained surprise— / Fling them to the ground and turn / With a fugitive resentment in your eyes: / But weave, weave the sunlight in your hair. / So I would have had him leave, / So I would have had her stand and grieve, / So he would have left / As the soul leaves the body torn and bruised, / As the mind deserts the body it has used. / I should find / Some way incomparably light and deft, / Some way we both should understand, / Simple and faithless as a smile and shake of the hand. / She turned away, but with the autumn weather / Compelled my imagination many days, / Many days and many hours: / Her hair over her arms and her arms full of flowers. / And I wonder how they should have been together! / I should have lost a gesture and a pose. / Sometimes these cogitations still amaze / The troubled midnight and the noon’s repose."

(Eliot's "La Figlia Che Piange", Prufrock and Other Observations, 1917)

Portrait of a Lady is one of the two main Boston poems written by Eliot. first published in 1915 in Others: A Magazine of the New Verse. It was published again in 1916 in Others: An Anthology of the New Verse, in 1917 (without the epigraph) in The New Poetry: An Anthology, and finally in his 1917 collection of poems, Prufrock and Other Observations

The poem tells the story of a failed friendship in three episodes, occurring over a period of ten months. The themes treated are very similar to those presented in the passage of the lady of the boudoir in The Waste Land, for example that of the crisis of communication.

Here is a link to read the entire poem: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44213/portrait-of-a-lady-56d22338932de