|
Gerontion (1)
Thou hast nor youth nor age (2)
But as it were an after dinner sleep
Dreaming of both. (3)
Here (4) I am, an old man in a dry month (5),
Being read to by a boy (6), waiting for rain.
I was neither at the hot gates (7)
Nor fought in the warm rain (8)
Nor knee deep in the salt marsh, heaving a cutlass (9),
Bitten by flies, fought (10).
My house is a decayed house,
And the Jew squats on the window sill, the owner (11),
Spawned in some estaminet of Antwerp (12),
Blistered in Brussels, patched and peeled in London (13).
The goat coughs at night in the field overhead;
Rocks, moss, stonecrop, iron, merds (14).
The woman keeps the kitchen, makes tea,
Sneezes at evening, poking the peevish gutter (15).
I an old man,
A dull head among windy spaces (16).
Signs are taken for wonders. "We would see a sign (17)":
The word (18) within a word, unable to speak a word,
Swaddled with darkness. In the juvescence of the year
Came Christ the tiger (19)
In depraved May (20), dogwood and chestnut (21), flowering Judas (22),
To be eaten, to be divided, to be drunk (23)
Among whispers (24); by Mr. Silvero (25)
With caressing hands, at Limoges
Who walked all night in the next room;
By Hakagawa, bowing (26) among the Titians (27);
By Madame de Tornquist, in the dark room
Shifting the candles; Fraulein von Kulp
Who turned in the hall, one hand on the door. Vacant
Shuttles (28)
Weave the wind (29). I have no ghosts (30),
An old man in a draughty (31) house
Under a windy knob (32).
After such knowledge (33), what forgiveness (34)? Think now
History has many cunning passages (35), contrived corridors (36)
And issues (37), deceives with whispering ambitions,
Guides us by vanities. Think (38) now
She (39) gives when our attention is distracted (40)
And what she gives, gives with such supple confusions (41)
That the giving famishes the craving (42). Gives too late
What's not believed in (43), or if still believed,
In memory only, reconsidered passion. Gives too soon
Into weak hands (44), what's thought can be dispensed with (45)
Till the refusal propagates a fear (46). Think
Neither fear nor courage saves us (47). Unnatural vices
Are fathered by our heroism (48). Virtues
Are forced upon us by our impudent crimes (49).
These tears (50) are shaken from the wrath-bearing tree (51).
The tiger springs in the new year. Us he devours (52). Think at last
We have not reached conclusion, when I
Stiffen in a rented house. Think at last
I have not made this show (53) purposelessly
And it is not by any concitation (54)
Of the backward (55) devils.
I would meet you upon this honestly (56).
I that was near your heart was removed (57) therefrom (58)
To lose beauty in terror, terror in inquisition (59).
I have lost my passion: why should I need to keep it
Since what is kept must be adulterated (60)?
I have lost my sight, smell, hearing, taste and touch:
How should I use it for your closer contact (61)?
These (62) with a thousand small deliberations (63)
Protract the profit of their chilled delirium (64),
Excite the membrane (65), when the sense has cooled (66),
With pungent sauces (67), multiply variety
In a wilderness of mirrors (68). 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 (69)
In fractured atoms. Gull against the wind, in the windy straits
Of Belle Isle (70), or running on the Horn (71),
White feathers in the snow, the Gulf claims (72),
And an old man driven by the Trades (73)
To a sleepy corner.
Tenants of the house,
Thoughts of a dry brain in a dry season.
(1) Greek little old man. He is going to change from an old man thinking at the
Inn to mankind.
(2) Neither youth nor old age is of importance since both are futile and man will
end up dead.
(3) Lines spoken by the duke of Vienna to describe death in Shakespeare’s
Measure for Measure.
(4) An Inn.
(5) A month in the spring, yet one which bears no rain.
(6) A boy is reading something to him.
(7) An allusion to Thermopylae, the mountain pass where the Spartans heroically
resisted the Persians (480 B.C.E.).
(8) Referring to Waterloo, the war in which Napoleon was defeated.
(9) Lifting and swinging a sword.
(10) Nor fought.
(11) The Jew is sitting on the windowsill and he is the owner of the Inn, which
was mentioned in 4.
(12) Spawned denotes production in great numbers, thus it most probably
indicates the Jew’s insignificant birth, implying his birth is not very important.
(13) Allusions to symptoms and cures for venereal disease.
(14) Human’s waste.
(15) Apparently something has badly blocked the drain, the peevish gutter, and
the woman is struggling to remove it with a stick or something like it.
(16) The wind is blowing in the house. There is another reference to the word “drafty” in line
32.
(17) Refers to the biblical story of the Jews asking Christ to provide them with a
sign indicating his being a messenger of God. Although Jesus does that, they do
not believe him and claim, “we would see a sign”, meaning they were asking for
another sign.
(18) The word indicates Logos in the bible.
(19) Note the way Eliot defines Christ: tiger rather than a lamb.
(20) Depraved May and dry month in the first line mean a rainless month in
the spring.
(21) The names of two trees.
(22) In addition to being a tree, it also refers to the biblical character Judas.
(23) It alludes to the Holy Communion, Eucharist, where Jesus’ blood and flesh
were consumed.
(24) Besides being the whispers of people praying at the last supper, they carry the
sexual overtones of the coming lines.
(25) The names of some people at the Inn.
(26) Bow /bou/: to bend over.
(27) Titian /t Ish?n/: Vecelli Tiziano (1488-1576), Italian painter. Titians refers to
his paintings.
(28) A device used in weaving to carry the woof thread back and forth.
(29) Meaning no one is using it. Note the similarity between the movement of the
shuttle with that of one of the people at the Inn at night, both of which are vain.
Apparently there is a sexual game going on in the place.
(30) One of the most problematic sentences in the poem. It might mean that the
old man does not have any illusions or does not care about anything since he
believes everything is futile.
(31) Windy, also in line 16 "windy places"
(32) The hill beside which the Inn is located, and it is windy.
(33) The understanding of the fact that people who were supposed to be praying at
the Holy Communion are basically sinners. The setting of the people gathering in
the Communion repeats itself at the Inn with the tenants of the house.
(34) Lack of forgiveness goes with Christ’s being a tiger not a lamb; his being
disillusioned with man.
(35) Like a maze.
(36) An allusion to the Polish corridors constructed during WW I.
(37) Maybe a way out of the maze.
(38) Think is imperative here addressing mankind.
(39) History.
(40) When we are thinking about or considering other issues in life. The poem
suggests that this is the nature of history.
(41) With a lot of confusion.
(42) Meaning we are perpetually left looking for it.
(43) That blessing, or whatever it is, is granted from a metaphysical source which
is given at a wrong time, so that the person does not even consider or think about
that.
(44) They cannot understand it.
(45) The man can get rid of it.
(46) The man is frightened because; since he thinks he might be losing a great non-
compensatory opportunity.
(47) The courage to refuse history.
(48) Our crimes are turned into virtues.
(49) We meant to commit a big crime but eventually it ended up in a virtuous
deed.
(50) Despair.
(51) The fact that the tree is wrath-bearing collocates with Christ’s being a tiger.
The tree is highly symbolic and also bears a religious connotation.
(52) Doomsday.
(53) The whole life of mankind.
(54) Stirring up.
(55) Old.
(56) I am honest about this with you.
(57) I got separated.
(58) From your heart.
(59) Inquisition refers to historians’ knowledge.
(60) Abased, devalued.
(61) To get close to you.
(62) These stories; those of Christ and history itself.
(63) Careful considerations.
(64) They talk about history in order to kill time, to warm the chill.
(65) To stir feelings or make them strong.
(66) Because we are old.
(67) Sauces refer to history and it is pungent; meaning it is distressing: to put that
simply is to say it is not pleasant.
(68) The confusion is so high that we are lost. The multiply variety goes back to
the history’s many passages and corridors.
(69) Shuddering Bear is a group of stars in the galaxy, which are spread or to put
that in Eliot’s term it is “fractured.” This sentence means that the people he has
mentioned are dead.
(70) An Island in the North Atlantic.
(71) Heading towards the south.
(72) Also in the north Atlantic.
(73) Trade winds.
(74) The old man is joining history.
Analysis
Gerontion is history and presents through the eyes of a little old man who steps
beyond the territory of his skin and becomes mankind, thus giving the reader a
broader picture of the issues. The past and present game outweighs the poem but
the history he talks about is not the glorious past. That is to say a golden past
never existed.
Like most of Eliot’s poems, this one also starts with three lines from
Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure, uttered by Vienna to describe death. It
properly matches the old man’s attitude regarding the whole history; the entire
gamut of past and present. No matter how old one is, life is futile. It is not merely
the present that seems vain, but the past is likewise vain. Both are like “an after
dinner sleep dreaming of both.”
The story begins with the old man introducing the setting to us for the up coming
purposeful show he intends to relate to the reader. There is an old man sitting at
an Inn, a decayed one, listening to what a boy is reading to him; his company is a
group of other tenants. He admits that he has not attended “the hot gates,” “the
warm rain” or heaved cutlass at a sea; the first two of which allude to two famous
old wars: those of Thermopylae and Waterloo. After he mentions these wars,
realizing the fact that the wars are not honorably mentioned is not very difficult.
The three of them are labeled as the hot gates, the warm rain, kneeing deep in the
salt marsh and being bitten by flies. All of a sudden, he shifts back to his
unpleasant present situation. His “house is a decayed” one. The Jew, the owner of
the house is sitting on the windowsill, and a bit of his life is narrated to us. His
insignificant birth and his difficult life in the past are both gloomy. Moreover, as
it seems, it is not only the old man’s condition that is harsh. Other tenants are
suffering the same situation. An instance would be the woman who keeps the
kitchen and is struggling to unclog the gutter.
In stanza three, there is a huge leap to a biblical past. The reader is told of Christ
and the sinful Judases who totally disillusioned him and turned him from a lamb
into a tiger. In the next stanza, the beginning lines are related to the present, yet
their allusions to the past are undeniable. “To be eaten, to be divided, to be
drunk” refers to the Holy Communion in which the sinners consumed Christ’s
flesh and blood. The whispers in the third line of the stanza, besides referring to
the prayers, hold the sexual overtones of the coming lines. The adulterine
relationship of the people moving from one room to another, like the movement
of the vacant shuttles, is futile.
The old man questions that after all those sins committed by mankind how
the entire humanity could be forgiven. What’s more, the whole history seems to
be confused and confusing since it never gives on time, and when it gives, it is
too late to be appreciated. Bad deeds are done for a heroic purpose and virtues
were meant to be vices. The old man is no longer the little old man in the first
stanza. He has turned into mankind. He tells us that we should be waiting for
Doomsday to be devoured by the tiger not saved in the resurrection. In the
coming stanza, he addresses the reader, saying hat he has not made this show all
purposelessly. But apparently there is not a firm conclusion to it. The past is
retold, according to him, to “excite the membrane, when the sense has cooled.”
History is used only to kill time for old men who are running out of steam, and
nothing beyond that. And finally in the last two stanzas, the first one of which is
highly symbolic, he dies and finishes the story as a gull heading southward.
Gerontion fluctuates between two poles of history and present; yet the past is
something to “excite the membrane;” to kill the time. There is nothing astounding
about the history that the old talks about. He admits that he has not taken part in wars,
yet he never regrets it. Actually, there is nothing pleasant about the present either
and he knows he is going to die like the names he mentions at the end of the
poem who have turned into “fractured atoms” in the sky. Consequently he dies in
the last stanza, symbolized as a gull heading south.
Maryam Akbari
|