Introduction of Fourth Section "Death by Water":
In fourth section “Death by Water,” Eliot shows the significance of water as a means of purification and re - birth. There are two associations - one from Shakespeare’s The Tempest and the other from the ancient Egyptian myth of the god of fertility. The death of Phlebas, the Greek sailor, is an example of people who devote themselves to worldly pursuits. Their youth and strength ultimately will be consumed by death.
The poet tells the story of Phlebas, a young and handsome sailor who was drowned after leading a boring business career. He was caught in a whirlpool and passed through various stages. There is no chance of re - birth for the sailor who represents the modern man, because there is no desire to follow spiritual values. The rejection of higher values is the cause of the inevitable decay of modern civilization.
Summary of the Fourth Section of the Poem:
Tiresias addresses the materialists as Christians or Jews and says that they are turning the steering wheel of the ships (of their bodies) in the ocean (of worldly activities). They are looking towards the side of old age, the side from where the wind of Death blows. Tiresias asks the materialist men to consider the fate of Phlebas who was handsome and tall as any one of them. Phlebas was a Phoenician merchant - sailor who was dead a fortnight ago. He ignored the cry of sea - gulls and also disregarded the deep sea of life and remained engrossed only in thoughts of material gains and losses. Then a current of the stream of death running under the sea (of life) separated his mortal body from his soul in the midst of whispers. When he entered the whirlpool of death his body rose up and sank down and the visions of his youth and old age flashed through his mind.
Introduction of Fifth Section What the Thunder Said:
The moral of the fifth section “What the Thunder Said” is contained in the message proclaimed by thunder for the liberation of society from spiritual barrenness there is a need of effort for the realisation of the spiritual goal. The first example is of the mythical journey of the knight to Chapel Perilous in the time of Fisher King who was successful in removing the curse from his land. The second is the Biblic Journey of Christ's disciples to Emmaus when they were accompanied by Christ in disguise and who disclosed his identity to conform the truth of his resurrection. In contrast to the two journeys mentioned above, we have the march of uprooted humanity driven by war and by communist revolution to no particular destination and to no peace in the end.
The poet gives his own personal impression. It is impossible to change and reform the whole world. Where do we begin then? The poet thinks that he must start with himself. He must try for self - purification. Reconstruction of man's spirit is possible only through detachment and selflessness. His prescription of the three remedies (Da, Da, Da) may seem as the cry of a mad man, but this is the only way of gaining spiritual peace and bliss. The poet believes that man's salvation is possible if each individual looks after his own self - purification. He ends the poem on a hope of optimism.
Summary of the Fifth Section of the Poem:
One night, in the red light of their torches, some Jews watched the anxious faces of garden - dwellers to ascertain which of them was Christ. When the Jews arrested Christ, and took him away to prison, his followers were overpowered by silence and the garden was overcast with frost. Later Christ was subjected to much physical torture in stony prison cells. When the Roman Governor found Christ innocent, and intended to release him from the prison, the Jews did a lot of slogan shouting. When he was ordered to be crucified, his followers made a lot of cry. These cries shook the prison and also the Governor's palace. When he had been crucified there was a great thunder over the distant mountains. Christ, who was living as a representative of religion was now dead. The Christians who were spiritually alive are now dying as Christians. Little religious faith is left in them. In the land of the Waste Land, there is no water, but only pieces of stones. It is a rocky place with no water and the road here is sandy. It moves by turns and twists among the mountains which are also rocky and which have no water.
If there were water here, we should stop here for a while and drink the water. But among the rocks, one cannot stop or think. Sweaty labour is dry for the soul. Here human feet are in the dust or sand. Tiresias wishes water to be there among the rocky mountains of the Waste Land. But here the big mouth of decaying man is as good as dead for prayer to God. It cannot utter words of selfless love. In this Waste Land, one cannot have any rest or comfort. In their minds, there is no silence of meditation, but only dry, unfruitful thundering clouds of fear and anxiety. In these mountains, there is not even solitude, but the inhabitant of this place only perceives excited, gloomily angry and silent faces. These faces peep out of the poor cottages and express cynical contempt for the man concerned. If there were water along and a little less of climbing or if there were water along with climbing or some water coming from a spring situated in the rocks, if they could ever hear the sound of water instead of song of the cicada or the sound of the dry grass dancing in the wind, or they could hear the sound of hermit - thrush singing in the pine trees because her song resembles the sound of water dripping drop by drop, it could be tolerated. But unfortunately, there is no water to be found anywhere in the mountains.
Tiresias asks the materialist as to who is that person that always walks beside him. When Tiresias counts the number, he finds only two bodies of the materialist and of his own. But when he looks at the moonlit road ahead, he finds one more figure walking besides the materialist. He notices a gliding shadow, wrapped in a brown cloak. As it is hooded, it is difficult to say whether it is a man or a woman.
Suddenly he hears a strange murmur of grief in the sky. He also has a strange vision before his mind's eye. Instantly he asks himself what is the strange sound high up in the atmosphere. He then tells himself that it seems to be a murmur of lamentation made by some mother. Then he asks who the crowds of hooded people are. They are swarming along endless plains which are ringed by the flat horizon only. Many of them are stumbling into the narrow openings in the earth. Then Tiresias perceives the vision of a city. It may be Jerusalem, Athens, Alexandria, Vienna, or unreal London. Tiresias perceives that the City stands over the mountains. Suddenly it makes a sharp sudden sound, bursts in the bluish purple air, so that its towers are seen falling, and then it reforms.
In the third vision, Tiresias notices a woman with long black hair. She draws her hair out tight with her left hand and begins to play the fiddle on them with her right hand, as if it were a fiddle stick and they were fiddle - strings. She thus produces whisper music on them. Then Tiresias notices some bats with baby faces in the bluish purple light. The bats are seen flying and whistling, with heads downwards, climbing down a blackened wall. Then Tiresias notices some upside down towers in the air. The tolling bells of these towers which have kept the hours signify the end of unreal life.
Then Tiresias sees a vision of a decayed valley in the midst of the mountains covered with faint moonlight. He finds himself in the midst of tumbled graves over which grass seems to be singing on account of the blowing wind. There the chapel is empty, and is the only home of the wind. It has no windows. The door swings when the wind blows. The dry bones scattered near the tumbled graves cannot frighten anyone because the chapel is empty. Only a cock is seen on the roof - tree, producing the sound “co co rico co co rico”. Then there is a flash of lightning followed by a damp gust of wind which brings rain.
Tiresias says that the water level of the Ganga had already sunk because of severe drought. The leaves of trees were drooping. All wanted rain. But while the black clouds of rain gathered over a place of the Himalayas, which was far distant from the hermitages of Rishies. A pupil in a hermitage asked his Guru what were the deeds and the thoughts which made man good and noble. Just then there was in the clouded sky a peal of three thunders- “Da, da, da.” The thunders were so loud that the jungle creatures crouched and remained humped in silence for some moments. Soon the Guru replied that the constituents of good and noble life were da, da, and da. He also explained the meaning of three “da's”.
Tiresias further tells that the meaning of the first “da” is “data”, i.e., to give or charity. He asks the materialist what we have given in life. Addressing the materialist as his friend, Tiresias tells him that it is only in moments of great emotional excitement that the daring heroes sacrificed themselves. Such sacrifices are impulsive, and not based on prudential calculations. Worldly wisdom or prudence cannot make a martyr retrace his steps. It is only as a result of sacrifices of such martyrs that humanity has survived spiritually and morally. The record of such life is not to be found in Obituaries or epitaphs covered with cobwebs by the charitable spider, or in the sealed testaments the seals of which are broken by lean solicitors before the heirs in private empty rooms.
Then there is, Tiresias adds, the second “Da”. It stands for Dayadhvam, meaning Compassion. Now, Compassion, as he has heard, is the Key to open the locked door of good and noble life. Tiresias then advises the materialist to enter the door of good and noble life through Compassion, which was also the one - time door of Christianity (described as Agape), and turn from materialism to Christ once and for all. Lying in his prison - cell of selfishness, each of us thinks of the key to his freedom from the prison of his problems. But while a person thinks of the key for himself alone, he establishes a prison - cell of selfishness for himself. When a person has lived all his life in the prison of selfishness, his soul is like a broken Coriolanus. And the broken Coriolanus is revived to a momentary glory only by the vague voices of his ethereal Indriyas pointing to the images of his future worlds in the death - bed dream state.
The third “da” stands for “Damyata” which means “self-control”. Tiresias further tells that the spiritualist's boat of body and mind sails gaily in the ocean of life. The voyage of life becomes smooth and easy for those who have learned to control their passions. The sea of his mind is also calm. Tiresias tells the materialist that if he had acted obediently according to the controlling powers of yoga, his heart would have responded gaily to his act of invitation to Samadhi.
The poet, returning to his own self from that of Tiresias, asks himself whether he will be able to set his land in order. He says that having turned his back to the materialistic philosophy of the waste land, he recently sat thinking and fishing for a decision as to his course of action in the present state of spiritual decay, since the British spiritual culture was falling down and down. Then suddenly, three poetic passages flashed through his mind. The first meaning “Please remember my pains”, the second, “When shall I be heard?” and the third (which advised him to swallow his breath in Pranayama), “Forestall for me the great sorrow of the prince of Aquitaine of the ruined tower”.
The poet remarks that he set those fragments against the causes of his ruin (i.e., his appetites for sexual pleasures, wealth, financial success, etc.). He also promised his soul that he should equip it with requisite virtue for its next world. But he is sorry to say that his Self (i.e., Atman) is frantic with appetites again. So, he has to begin his spiritual career again with Datta (i.e., Charity), Dayadhvam (i.e., Compassion), and Damyata (i.e., yogie Self – control). May God give us the mental peace which leads to enlightenment.
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