"Empty and desolate is the sea". Taken from Wagner's "Tristan and Isolde".

"My fellow, my brother!" from Baudelaire's poem "Au Lecteur" (To the Reader) in "Les Fleurs du Mal."

The great naval victory of the Romans over the Carthaginians in the First Punic War.

City church.

Links London Bridge to the centre of the City of London.

Dante, Inferno iii, 55–7 (the unhappy spirits), quoting ‘si lunga tratta/di gente, ch’io non avrei mai creduto,/che morte tanta n’avesse disfatta’ (‘such a long stream of people, that I should never have believed that death had undone so many’).

"Les Sept Vieillards’ (‘The Seven Old Men’) by Charles Baudelaire, here it's London.

Madame Sosostris.

Tarot card.

Frequently associated with Leonardo Da Vinci's paintings.

Tarot card.

From Shakespeare's "The tempest", a passage in which the spirit of Ariel is singing to Ferdinand about his father's drowning.

Tarot card which symbolizes a traveller struggling with water.

Crome Yellow (1921) by Aldous Huxley. Madame Sosostris is a fortune teller and tarot reader.

Symbol for fertility rituals.

"Fresh blows the wind to home, my Irish child, where are you lingering?" From Wagner, "Tristan and Isolde".

Only the present exists, the shadow of the past is behind and the shadow of the evening can't be met yet.

Both life and the poem, whose nature is fragmented

Eliot’s note refers us to Ezekiel ii, I. God addresses his prophet, ‘Son of man, stand upon thy feet, and I will speak unto thee.’ Ezekiel is told of his mission, to preach the coming of the Messiah to a rebellious, unbelieving people.

Eliot took inspiration from the sledding incident of the Countess Marie Larisch.

"I'm not Russian at all, I come from Lithuania, pure German" Marie is recalling her childhood.

A public garden in Munich.

Lake-resort south of Munich, visited by Eliot in August 1911.

Forgetful because it covers, it conceals everything.

"The better craftsman". Eliot and Pound were not only collaborators, but also friends. This passage refers to Dante Alighieri's tribute to the Provencal poet Arnauld Daniel in Canto 26 of the Purgatorio.

The Cumaean Sibyl was the priestess of Apollo who was located at the Oracle of Cumae. Granted a wish from Apollo, the sibyl, who is confined to a jar because her body is starting to melt, she had asked for as many years of life as there are grains in a handful of sand.

The word "Sibyl" derives from the Greek word "sibylla" meaning prophetess.

This passage is taken from Petronius Arbiter's Satyricon.

Sanskrit word, "peace".

Thomas Kyd's "The Spanish Tragedie".

"The Prince of Aquitaine, of the ruined tower", a line which Eliot refers to its source in the sonnet ‘El Desdichado’ (‘The Disinherited’) by Gérard de Nerval.

A line from the anonymous poem Pervigilium Veneris, which ends with a reference to Philomela.

Last line of Canto 26 of Dante's Purgatorio, in which he meets Arnauld Daniel.

Nursery rhyme.

Hero of Shakespeare's play.

Imperative, "control".

Count Ugolino, XXXIII of Dante's Inferno.

Imperative "be compassionate".

Paolo and Francesca, second circle of Dante's Inferno.

Imperative "give".

Holy mountain in the Himalaya range.

River Ganges.

The betrayal of Judas.

Bertrand Russell told Eliot that he had dreamt of London collapsing.

The church bells of London.

The image of the knights looking for the Holy Grail is introduced.

Jesus, God or perhaps Tiresias.

God’s instruction to Moses, to relieve the thirst of the Israelites, having led them through the desert.

The first scene of the last part of the poem represents the cruxification of Christ.

According to the Bible, the earth shook when Christ died.

This passage reminds the reader that death will take us all and nothing will be left of us.

Not Jewish.

Energy that brings destruction.

It was written while Eliot was at Dr Vittoz’s sanatorium in Lausanne from mid-November to late December 1921.

Eliot refers to "The Vicar of Wakefield" by Oliver Goldsmith.

Every single gesture is mechanic, both the prophet and the narrating voice know what will happen becuase it's inevitable.

Near the river at London Bridge.

Street in London.

Reference to "The Tempest."

Breasts of animals.

Commercial hotel in London.

Everyday.

London Street.

The lament of the Rhine-Maidens in Wagner's Die Götterdämmerung.

Church in London.

The Thames River at Greenwich, downstream from London. The Isle of Dogs is the name given to the riverbank opposite Greenwich.

Homer’s Tiresias in Hades, where he is consulted by Odysseus.

"Cost, insurance and freight". The documents of ownership and transport would be handed to the purchaser in exchange for a bank draft payable on sight.

Blind prophet who lived both as a woman and a man.

Undergarments.

London suburb.

The history of the relationship between Elizabeth I and her cousin Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester.

The only living being is associated with rubbish.

Hotel in Brighton.

Legend of Tereus and Philomela.

Turkish.

Moorgate is at the heart of the financial district of the City.

Two riverside districts, on the Thames west of London.

"And O those children's voices, singing in the cupola!" "Parsifal" by Paul Verlaine.

"To His Coy Mistress" by Andrew Marvell.

A character in the "Sweeney" poems by Eliot.

Only sounds are heard, he can't see anything in front of him.

"The Tempest" Ferdinand is thinking of his father.

The French name for Lake Geneva.

To find redemption, the Fisher King seeks the fish, synonymous with the Grail. If he ever will fish something is doubtful.

"Prothalamion" by Edmund Spenser, in which he celebrates love.

Seaside resort on the Thames.

The Confessions of St Augustine.

Sense of drought, desolation.

Begun in spring 1921. Eliot incorporated in constructing "The Waste Land", this is considered to be the first part he wrote with a sense of the poem as a whole in mind. The Fire Sermon was preached by the Buddha against the fires of lust, anger, envy and the other passions that consume men.

Farewell words of Ophelia, in her madness, to the ladies of the court of the King of Denmark

"Thanks" in Cockney.

Pharmacist.

Abortion pills.

The barman is telling everyone to get out.

Released from military service.

Folk song.

"The Tempest."

The sound of the nightingale.

Mentions of abuse.

In medieval art, the dolphin was associated with love.

The panels of a coffered ceiling.

The first ecounter of Enea and Didone in Virgil's "Aeneid".

Shakespeare's "Antony and Cleopatra".

God of love.

Satyrical play of Thomas Middleton "A game at chess".

The Fisherman King.