A Devoted Son - Anita Desai

A Devoted Son

                       - Anita Desai

When the results appeared in the morning papers, Rakesh scanned them barefoot and in his pajamas, at the garden gate, then went up the steps to the verandah where his father sat sipping his morning tea and bowed down to touch his feet.

“A first division, son?” his father asked, beaming, reaching for the papers.

“At the top of the list, papa,” Rakesh murmured, as if awed. “First in the country.”

Bedlam broke loose then. The family whooped and danced. The whole day long visitors streamed into the small yellow house at the end of the road to congratulate the parents of this Wunderkind, to slap Rakesh on the back and fill the house and garden with the sounds and colors of a festival. There were garlands and halwa, party clothes and gifts (enough fountain pens to last years, even a watch or two), nerves and temper and joy, all in a multi-coloured whirl of pride and great shining vistas newly opened: Rakesh was the first son in the family to receive an education, so much had been sacrificed in order to send him to school and then medical college, and at last the fruits of their sacrifice had arrived, golden and glorious.

To everyone who came to him to say “Mubarak, Varmaji, your son has brought you glory,” the father said, “Yes, and do you know what is the first thing he did when he saw the results this morning? He came and touched my feet. He bowed down and touched my feet.” This moved many of the women in the crowd so much that they were seen to raise the ends of their saris and dab at their tears while the men reached out for the betel-leaves and sweetmeats that were offered around on trays and shook their heads in wonder and approval of such exemplary filial behavior. “One does not often see such behavior in sons anymore,” they all agreed, a little enviously perhaps. Leaving the house, some of the women said, sniffing, “At least on such an occasion they might have served pure ghee sweets,” and some of the men said, “Don’t you think old Varma was giving himself airs? He needn’t think we don’t remember that he comes from the vegetable market himself, his father used to sell vegetables, and he has never seen the inside of a school.” But there was more envy than rancor in their voices and it was, of course, inevitable—not every son in that shabby little colony at the edge of the city was destined to shine as Rakesh shone, and who knew that better than the parents themselves?

And that was only the beginning, the first step in a great, sweeping ascent to the radiant heights of fame and fortune. The thesis he wrote for his M.D. brought Rakesh still greater glory, if only in select medical circles. He won a scholarship. He went to the USA (that was what his father learnt to call it and taught the whole family to say—not America, which was what the ignorant neighbours called it, but, with a grand familiarity, “the USA”) where he pursued his career in the most prestigious of all hospitals and won encomiums from his American colleagues which were relayed to his admiring and glowing family. What was more, he came back, he actually returned to that small yellow house in the once-new but increasingly shabby colony, right at the end of the road where the rubbish vans tipped out their stinking contents for pigs to nose in and rag-pickers to build their shacks on, all steaming and smoking just outside the neat wire fences and well tended gardens. To this Rakesh returned and the first thing he did on entering the house was to slip out of the embraces of his sisters and brothers and bow down and touch his father’s feet.

As for his mother, she gloated chiefly over the strange fact that he had not married in America, had not brought home a foreign wife as all her neighbours had warned her he would, for wasn’t that what all Indian boys went abroad for? Instead he agreed, almost without argument, to marry a girl she had picked out for him in her own village, the daughter of a childhood friend, a plump and uneducated girl, it was true, but so old-fashioned, so placid, so complaisant that she slipped into the household and settled in like a charm, seemingly too lazy and too good-natured to even try and make Rakesh leave home and set up independently, as any other girl might have done. What was more, she was pretty—really pretty, in a plump, pudding way that only gave way to fat—soft, spreading fat, like warm wax—after the birth of their first baby, a son, and then what did it matter?

For some years Rakesh worked in the city hospital, quickly rising to the top of the administrative organization, and was made a director before he left to set up his own clinic. He took his parents in his car—a new, sky-blue Ambassador with a rear window full of stickers and charms revolving on strings—to see the clinic when it was built, and the large sign-board over the door on which his name was printed in letters of red, with a row of degrees and qualifications to follow it like so many little black slaves of the regent. Thereafter his fame seemed to grow just a little dimmer—or maybe it was only that everyone in town had grown accustomed to it at last—but it was also the beginning of his fortune for he now became known not only as the best but also the richest doctor in town.

However, all this was not accomplished in the wink of an eye. Naturally not. It was the achievement of a lifetime and it took up Rakesh’s whole life. At the time he set up his clinic his father had grown into an old man and retired from his post at the kerosene dealer’s depot at which he had worked for forty years, and his mother died soon after, giving up the ghost with a sigh that sounded positively happy, for it was her own son who ministered to her in her last illness and who sat pressing her feet at the last moment—such a son as few women had borne.

For it had to be admitted—and the most unsuccessful and most rancorous of neighbours eventually did so—that Rakesh was not only a devoted son and a miraculously good-natured man who contrived somehow to obey his parents and humour his wife and show concern equally for his children and his patients, but there was actually a brain inside this beautifully polished and formed body of good manners and kind nature and, in between ministering to his family and playing host to many friends and coaxing them all into feeling happy and grateful and content, he had actually trained his hands as well and emerged an excellent doctor, a really fine surgeon. How one man—and a man born to illiterate parents, his father having worked for a kerosene dealer and his mother having spent her life in a kitchen—had achieved, combined and conducted such a medley of virtues, no one could fathom , but all acknowledged his talent and skill.

It was a strange fact, however, that talent and skill, if displayed for too long, cease to dazzle. It came to pass that the most admiring of all eyes eventually faded and no longer blinked at his glory. Having retired from work and having lost his wife, the old father very quickly went to pieces, as they say. He developed so many complaints and fell ill so frequently and with such mysterious diseases that even his son could no longer make out when it was something of significance and when it was merely a peevish whim. He sat huddled on his string bed most of the day and developed an exasperating habit of stretching out suddenly and lying absolutely still, allowing the whole family to fly around him in a flap, wailing and weeping, and then suddenly sitting up, stiff and gaunt, and spitting out a big gob of betel-juice as if to mock their behavior.

He did this once too often: there had been a big party in the house, a birthday party for the youngest son, and the celebrations had to be suddenly hushed, covered up and hustled out of the way when the daughter-in-law discovered, or thought she discovered, that the old man, stretched out from end to end of his string bed, had lost his pulse; the party broke up, dissolved, even turned into a band of mourners, when the old man sat up and the distraught daughter-in-law received a gob of red spittle right on the hem of her organza sari. After that no one much cared if he sat up cross-legged on his bed, hawking and spitting, or lay down flat and turned grey as a corpse. Except, of course, for that pearl amongst pearls, his son Rakesh.

It was Rakesh who brought him his morning tea, not in one of the china cups from which the rest of the family drank, but in the old man’s favorite brass tumbler, and sat at the edge of his bed, comfortable and relaxed with the string of his pajamas dangling out from under his fine lawn night-shirt, and discussed or, rather, read out the morning news to his father. It made no difference to him that his father made no response apart from spitting. It was Rakesh, too, who, on returning from the clinic in the evening, persuaded the old man to come out of his room, as bare and desolate as a cell, and take the evening air out in the garden, beautifully arranging the pillows and bolsters on the divan in the corner of the open verandah. On summer nights he saw to it that the servants carried out the old man’s bed onto the lawn and himself helped his father down the steps and onto the bed, soothing him and settling him down for a night under the stars.

All this was very gratifying for the old man. What was not so gratifying was that he even undertook to supervise his father’s diet. One day when the father was really sick, having ordered his daughter-in-law to make him a dish of soojie halwa and eaten it with a saucerful of cream, Rakesh marched into the room, not with his usual respectful step but with the confident and rather contemptuous stride of the famous doctor, and declared, “No more halwa for you, papa. We must be sensible, at your age. If you must have something sweet, Veena will cook you a little cheer, that’s light, just a little rice and milk. But nothing fried, nothing rich. We can’t have this happening again.”

The old man who had been lying stretched out on his bed, weak and feeble after a day’s illness, gave a start at the very sound, the tone of these words. He opened his eyes—rather, they fell open with shock—and he stared at his son with disbelief that darkened quickly to reproach. A son who actually refused his father the food he craved? No, it was unheard of, it was incredible. But Rakesh had turned his back to him and was cleaning up the litter of bottles and packets on the medicine shelf and did not notice while Veena slipped silently out of the room with a little smirk that only the old man saw, and hated.

Halwa was only the first item to be crossed off the old man’s diet. One delicacy after the other went—everything fried to begin with, then everything sweet, and eventually everything, everything that the old man enjoyed.

The meals that arrived for him on the shining stainless steel tray twice a day were frugal to say the least—dry bread, boiled lentils, boiled vegetables and, if there were a bit of chicken or fish, that was boiled too. If he called for another helping—in a cracked voice that quavered theatrically—Rakesh himself would come to the door, gaze at him sadly and shake his head, saying, “Now, papa, we must be careful, we can’t risk another illness, you know,” and although the daughter-in-law kept tactfully out of the way, the old man could just see her smirk sliding merrily through the air. He tried to bribe his grandchildren into buying him sweets (and how he missed his wife now, that generous, indulgent and illiterate cook), whispering, “Here’s fifty paise,” as he stuffed the coins into a tight, hot fist. “Run down to the shop at the crossroads and buy me thirty paise worth of jalebis, and you can spend the remaining twenty paise on yourself. Eh? Understand? Will you do that?” He got away with it once or twice but then was found out, the conspirator was scolded by his father and smacked by his mother and Rakesh came storming into the room, almost tearing his hair as he shouted through compressed lips, “Now papa, are you trying to turn my little son into a liar? Quite apart from spoiling your own stomach, you are spoiling him as well—you are encouraging him to lie to his own parents. You should have heard the lies he told his mother when she saw him bringing back those jalebis wrapped up in filthy newspaper. I don’t allow anyone in my house to buy sweets in the bazaar, papa, surely you know that. There’s cholera in the city, typhoid, gastroenteritis—I see these cases daily in the hospital, how can I allow my own family to run such risks?” The old man sighed and lay down in the corpse position. But that worried no one any longer.

There was only one pleasure left in the old man now (his son’s early morning visits and readings from the newspaper could no longer be called that) and those were visits from elderly neighbours. These were not frequent as his contemporaries were mostly as decrepit and helpless as he and few could walk the length of the road to visit him anymore. Old Bhatia, next door, however, who was still spry enough to refuse, adamantly, to bathe in the tiled bathroom indoors and to insist on carrying out his brass mug and towel, in all seasons and usually at impossible hours, into the yard and bathe noisily under the garden tap, would look over the hedge to see if Varma were out on his verandah and would call to him and talk while he wrapped his dhoti about him and dried the sparse hair on his head, shivering with enjoyable exaggeration. Of course these conversations, bawled across the hedge by two rather deaf old men conscious of having their entire households overhearing them, were not very satisfactory but Bhatia occasionally came out of his yard, walked down the bit of road and came in at Varma’s gate to collapse onto the stone plinth built under the temple tree. If Rakesh was at home he would help his father down the steps into the garden and arrange him on his night bed under the tree and leave the two old men to chew betel-leaves and discuss the ills of their individual bodies with combined passion.

“At least you have a doctor in the house to look after you,” sighed Bhatia, having vividly described his martyrdom to piles.

“Look after me?” cried Varma, his voice cracking like an ancient clay jar. “He—he does not even give me enough to eat.”

“What?” said Bhatia, the white hairs in his ears twitching. “Doesn’t give you enough to eat? Your own son?”

“My own son. If I ask him for one more piece of bread, he says no, papa, I weighed out the eat myself and I can’t allow you to have more than two hundred grams of cereal a day. He weighs the food he gives me, Bhatia—he has scales to weigh it on. That is what it has come to.”

“Never,” murmured Bhatia in disbelief. “Is it possible, even in this evil age, for a son to refuse his father food?”

“Let me tell you,” Varma whispered eagerly. “Today the family was having fried fish—I could smell it. I called to my daughter-in-law to bring me a piece. She came to the door and said no. . . .”

“Said no?” It was Bhatia’s voice that cracked. A drongo shot out of the tree and sped away. “No?”

“No, she said no, Rakesh has ordered her to give me nothing fried. No butter, he says, no oil. . . .”

“No butter? No oil? How does he expect his father to live?”

Old Varma nodded with melancholy triumph. “That is how he treats me—after I have brought him up, given him an education, made him a great doctor. Great doctor! This is the way great doctors treat their fathers, Bhatia,” for the son’s sterling personality and character now underwent a curious sea change. Outwardly all might be the same but the interpretation had altered: his masterly efficiency was nothing but cold heartlessness, his authority was only tyranny in disguise.

There was cold comfort in complaining to neighbours and, on such a miserable diet, Varma found himself slipping, weakening and soon becoming a genuinely sick man. Powders and pills and mixtures were not only brought in when dealing with a crisis like an upset stomach but became a regular part of his diet—became his diet, complained Varma, supplanting the natural foods he craved. There were pills to regulate his bowel movements, pills to bring down his blood pressure, pills to deal with his arthritis and, eventually, pills to keep his heart beating. In between there were panicky rushes to the hospital, some humiliating experience with the stomach pump and enema, which left him frightened and helpless. He cried easily, shrivelling up on his bed, but if he complained of a pain or even a vague, grey fear in the night, Rakesh would simply open another bottle of pills and force him to take one. “I have my duty to you papa,” he said when his father begged to be let off.

“Let me be,” Varma begged, turning his face away from the pills on the outstretched hand. “Let me die. It would be better. I do not want to live only to eat your medicines.”

“Papa, be reasonable.”

“I leave that to you,” the father cried with sudden spirit. “Leave me alone, let me die now, I cannot live like this.”

“Lying all day on his pillows, fed every few hours by his daughter-in-law’s own hand, visited by every member of his family daily—and then he says he does not want to live ‘like this,’” Rakesh was heard to say, laughing, to someone outside the door.

“Deprived of food,” screamed the old man on the bed, “his wishes ignored, taunted by his daughter-in-law, laughed at by his grandchildren—that is how I live.” But he was very old and weak and all anyone heard was an incoherent croak, some expressive grunts and cries of genuine pain. Only once, when old Bhatia had come to see him and they sat together under the temple tree, they heard him cry, “God is calling me—and they won’t let me go.”

The quantities of vitamins and tonics he was made to take were not altogether useless. They kept him alive and even gave him a kind of strength that made him hang on long after he ceased to wish to hang on. It was as though he were straining at a rope, trying to break it, and it would not break, it was still strong. He only hurt himself, trying.

In the evening, that summer, the servants would come into his cell, grip his bed, one at each end, and carry it out to the verandah, there sitting it down with a thump that jarred every tooth in his head. In answer to his agonized complaints they said the doctor sahib had told them he must take the evening air and the evening air they would make him take—thump. Then Veena, that smiling, hypocritical pudding in a rustling sari, would appear and pile up the pillows under his head till he was propped up stiffly into a sitting position that made his head swim and his back ache.

“Let me lie down,” he begged. “I can’t sit up any more.”

“Try, papa, Rakesh said you can if you try,” she said, and drifted away to the other end of the verandah where her transistor radio vibrated to the lovesick tunes from the cinema that she listened to all day.

So there he sat, like some stiff corpse, terrified, gazing out on the lawn where his grandsons played cricket, in danger of getting one of their hard-spun balls in his eye, and at the gate that opened onto the dusty and rubbish-heaped lane but still bore, proudly, a newly touched-up signboard that bore his son’s name and qualifications, his own name having vanished from the gate long ago.

At last the sky-blue Ambassador arrived, the cricket game broke up in haste, the car drove in smartly and the doctor, the great doctor, all in white, stepped out. Someone ran up to take his bag from him, others to escort him up the steps. “Will you have tea?” his wife called, turning down the transistor set. “Or a Coca-Cola? Shall I fry you some samosas?” But he did not reply or even glance in her direction. Ever a devoted son, he went first to the corner where his father sat gazing, stricken, at some undefined spot in the dusty yellow air that swam before him. He did not turn his head to look at his son. But he stopped gobbling air with his uncontrolled lips and set his jaw as hard as a sick and very old man could set it.

“Papa,” his son said, tenderly, sitting down on the edge of the bed and reaching out to press his feet.

Old Varma tucked his feet under him, out of the way, and continued to gaze stubbornly into the yellow air of the summer evening.

“Papa, I’m home.”

Varma’s hand jerked suddenly, in a sharp, derisive movement, but he did not speak.

“How are you feeling, papa?”

Then Varma turned and looked at his son. His face was so out of control and all in pieces that the multitude of expressions that crossed it could not make up a whole and convey to the famous man exactly what his father thought of him, his skill, and his art.

“I’m dying,” he croaked. “Let me die, I tell you.”

“Papa, you’re joking,” his son smiled at him, lovingly. “I’ve brought you a new tonic to make you feel better. You must take it, it will make you feel stronger again. Here it is. Promise me you will take it regularly, papa.”

Varma’s mouth worked as hard as though he still had a gob of betel in it (his supply of betel had been cut off years ago). Then he spat out some words, as sharp and bitter as poison, into his son’s face. “Keep your tonic—I want none—I want none—I won’t take any more of—of your medicines. None. Never,” and he swept the bottle out of his son’s hand with a wave of his own, suddenly grand, suddenly effective.

His son jumped, for the bottle was smashed and thick brown syrup had splashed up, staining his white trousers. His wife let out a cry and came running. All around the old man was hubbub once again, noise, attention.

He gave one push to the pillows at his back and dislodged them so he could sink down on his back, quite flat again. He closed his eyes and pointed his chin at the ceiling, like some dire prophet, groaning, “God is calling me—now let me go.”

Summary

Introduction

            Anita Desai is a famous Indian writer.  She has written many novels in English.  Almost all her stories talks about ordinary Indian life and characters.  A Devoted Son is a short story about the relationship between a father and a son.

Rakesh’s Achievements

            Rakesh is the protagonist of the story.  His father’s name is Varma.  The story opens announcing Rakesh’s achievement as the first rank holder in medical studies at national level.  His father feels proud of his son.  He shares with others the fact that Rakesh touched his feet as soon as he saw the results in the paper.  The neighbours celebrate this occasion.  Rakesh moves to U.S. and does his higher education there.  He gets back to India to the same old house, situated in a dirty locality.  He comes to India and falls in his father’s feet.  This surprises the father and the neighbours.  Rakesh’s mother feels happy because Rakesh does not come with a white girl.  Rakesh then worked in a city hospital, grew well in the administrative organization and he left the hospital as a director and built his own hospital.  He took his parents to his clinic in a blue ambassador.  His name spread all over the place and he became famous and rich.

Rakesh’s Old Father

            Rakesh’s mother dies peacefully when her son does her an operation.  After her death, Varma becomes lonely and sick.  He acts strangely.  Sometimes he sits erect, sometimes he lays flat without any movements, and suddenly he rises up and spits beetle juice.  In spite of all indifferent activities, Rakesh read newspaper to his father in all mornings took him to the garden in the evenings and made him sleep in the lawn during summer nights.

Treatment Given by Dr. Rakesh

            Varma becomes old and Dr. Rakesh prescribes him more medicines.  He asks his father not to eat halwa and other sweets.  He orders his wife to give him tasteless food.  He wishes his father to live a long life with him.  He takes care of his father.  He is devoted to his father and his health.  He behaves strict to his father in diet.  He cuts almost all food items.  The father becomes much older and then medicines become his only food.  Rakesh takes care of his father to the best possible.

The Reactions of the Old Man

            Varma hates to see his devoted son as a doctor.  He does not like Rakesh ordering and restricting his diet.  He wishes to eat lots or at least eat the food that he loves most.  He persuades his daughter-in-law and his grand children to get him some sweet but Rakesh objects that.  This heightens his anger.  He complains about his son’s behavior of not providing food to his father to his neighbour friends.  Varma feels totally upset with his son’s attitudes towards his diet.  By the end of the story, he dies with a sad soul.  He does not part Rakesh happily as his mother does.


Summary 2

“A Devoted Son” is a short story by Anita Desai. The story appears in the collection, Games at Twilight and Other Stories. Desai’s collection of stories was published in 1978 by Vintage and received widespread popular praise. The stories, including “A Devoted Son,” reflect contemporary urban life in India and the characters are from all walks of life. Desai has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize three times and she served as the Emerita John E. Buchard Professor of Humanities at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her daughter, Kiran Desai, is a Booker Prize winner.

“The Devoted Son” centres around Dr. Rakesh. He comes from a poor Indian village. His father, Varma, works as a vegetable vendor, and spent many years dreaming of having an educated son. Rakesh is the first in the family to get any education. When Rakesh finishes his medical examinations with top marks—the highest in the country—this is cause for celebration.

Varma tells everyone who’ll listen about Rakesh’s grades and how it means he can go to medical school in America. Neighbours come to pay their respects and wish them well, but some townsfolk worry this will make Rakesh conceited and forget where he comes from. Varma isn’t worried about this, however—he’s proud to have a son known now by everyone.

Rakesh spends a lot of time in America finishing his degree. He completes it with ease and has job offers at prestigious US hospitals. Awards he wins are sent back to his family for them to keep and admire. It’s Rakesh’s way of keeping in touch with them until he can return home.

Although Rakesh loves America and is admired by his colleagues for his aptitude, he loves his family more. He always planned on returning home, and this hasn’t changed. As soon as he has enough experience and money behind him, he returns home with the intention of working in his hometown.

His parents, however, aren’t so happy with his life choices. They don’t understand why he wants to come home and leave all this behind. They also don’t understand why he chooses to marry a village girl with no education—Varma believes he should have bigger dreams. This is the first real sign of conflict within the family unit. Rakesh refuses to listen to his parents, and he marries the girl.

He then starts working at the city hospital, which is quite different from the hospitals he’s used to working in. Rakesh, however, wants to work here and make a difference in his town. He quickly rises to the position of director, to the awe and joy of his entire family. Through all of this, Rakesh never seems conceited or ungrateful. There’s always a sense that he remembers who he is, and that he won’t let this go. When he has a son of his own, his life is complete.

Sadly, it’s not long before this that his mother passes away. Varma takes it especially hard. Rakesh is pleased he at least made her proud before she died, but he worries for his father and how he’ll cope. Now that Rakesh has a family of his own, he doesn’t have as much time to dedicate to Varma, but he does what he can as his father’s health declines. He doesn’t want to lose any time he has left with him, and he puts his medical skills to good use.

Rakesh imposes a ban on sweets for Varma, to look after his stomach. However, Varma tries to get them through Rakesh’s son, which enrages Rakesh. He worries that his father will make his grandson less honourable than Rakesh. Tensions rise between father and son, and Rakesh starts resenting how much time he spends looking after him—although he keeps doing it. For example, when everyone fears Varma is near death, they postpone a birthday party, only for Varma to be entirely fine. Rakesh wonders if he’s doing it deliberately for attention.

However, Rakesh doesn’t give up on his father—instead, he becomes more devoted to him. He wants his son to have a good relationship with Varma, just as he did as a boy. Varma tells Rakesh and his wife that he doesn’t like them, but even then, Rakesh looks out for him. As relationships deteriorate, Rakesh must choose whether to stay devoted to his father or leave him to die on his own.

Rakesh chooses to help his father. Desai’s message here is that we’re all faced with similar choices eventually, and we shouldn’t forget to look after our elders the way they once looked after us. Although Rakesh can’t make his father better, and he’s struggling to keep his own life under control, he doesn’t abandon him. He shows Varma the same faith once shown to him when he wanted to become a doctor. When Rakesh must finally let Varma go, right at the end, he knows he did all he could for him.

Journey of the Magi T S ELIOT summary

The Journey of the Magi--T. S. Eliot

Throughout his life, T. S. Eliot struggled with religion and belief.  Born and brought up in a Unitarian1 family, he was surrounded by a particular kind of religious ideology. When he joined Harvard, he began to get interested in Buddhism. But Eliot’s search did not end with Buddhism. His quest eventually led him to a full conversion to High Anglicanism in 1927.

“The Journey of the Magi”, was written in 1927 after Eliot’s conversion to Anglicanism. Thus the poem forms a landmark in the spiritual journey of Eliot. In the poem, Eliot retells the story of the Magi who travelled to Palestine to visit the newborn Jesus according to the Gospel of Matthew. As per the Gospel, the Magi were the three wise men namely Balthazar— King of Chaldea, Gaspor—King of Ethopia, and Melchoir—King of Nubia. They came to Bethlehem to pay homage to infant Christ presenting him with gifts of gold, myrrh, and frankincense. The poem is a narrative told from the point of view of one of the Magi. It expresses the theme of alienation and a feeling of helplessness in a world that has changed.

'A cold coming we had of it,

Just the worst time of the year

For a journey, and such a long journey:

The ways deep and the weather sharp,

The very dead of winter.'

The first five lines are taken from the Nativity Sermon given by Lancelot Andrews3 in 1622. A cold coming they had of it at this time of the year, just the worst time of the year to take a journey, and specially a long journey. The ways deep, the weather sharp, the days short, the sun farthest off, “the very dead of winter."

And the camels galled, sorefooted, refractory, [Galled= rude behaviour,  refractory= difficult to control]                                                                                                                                                                                          

 Lying down in the melting snow.                                                                              

There were times we regretted                                                                                                   

The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,                                                               

And the silken girls bringing sherbet. (anachronism--at the time of Christ there was no sherbet)

The magus is narrating the difficulties in the journey. The camels were rude, sore-footed and difficult to control. They often lied down in the snow and refused to get up. Those were the times they regretted the journey. They thought about the comforts of their palaces during such occasions.

Then the camel men cursing and grumbling

and running away, and wanting their liquor and women,      

And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,                                            

And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly                                                           

And the villages dirty and charging high prices:                                                                        

 A hard time we had of it.

Eliot is removing all Romantic notions about the journey of the Magi. What he gives here seems to be the realistic picture of the times. The camel men were also difficult to control. They cursed and grumbled and ran away. They wanted their liquor and women. The night fires went out and there were no shelters for them. The cities were inimical and the towns were unfriendly. The villages were dirty and charged high prices. The magi had a very hard journey.

At the end we preferred to travel all night,                                                           

Sleeping in snatches, With the voices singing in our ears, saying                                        

That this was all folly.      

The Magi ‘preferred to travel all night’ and faced agonising moments of self doubt: ‘voices singing in our ears saying that this was all folly’ before they finally reached a temperate valley. The poem now becomes symbolic rather than realistic.   

Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,                                           

Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;                                                                

With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness,                                     

And three trees on the low sky,                                                                                     

And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.

Low sky= not very high. Temperate= moderate The arrival of the Magi at the place of Nativity, whose symbolism has been anticipated by the fresh vegetation and the mill "beating the darkness," is only a "satisfactory" experience. The second half of the poem abounds in symbolism with the temperate valley signifying the change in their lives that followed the arduous journey. They come across a ‘running stream’ and a water mill beating the darkness. The stream and the water-mill stand for a promising future. Water-mill beating the darkness stands for the driving away of superstitions. Three trees stand for the three crosses on the Calvary. White horse represents the second coming of Christ as victor.

Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,                                                  

Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,                                                 

And feet kicking the empty wine-skins.                                                                                

But there was no information, and so we continued                                

And arriving at evening, not a moment too soon                                                             

Finding the place; it was (you might say) satisfactory.

Pieces of silver stands for Judas betraying Christ for 30 pieces of silver. Hands dicing may stand for Judas dicing or for the Romans dicing for the dress of Christ after he was crucified. The entire stanza is filled with biblical imagery regarding the story of Christ and His death and resurrection, such as "three trees on the low sky," and "Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver".

All this was a long time ago, I remember,                                       

And I would do it again, but set down                                                                This set down                                                                                                        This: were we led all that way for                                                                          Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly                                                        We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,                                  But had thought they were different; this Birth was                                                Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.

The narrator has seen and yet he does not fully understand; he accepts the fact of Birth but is perplexed by its similarity to a Death, and to death which he has seen before. Were they led there for Birth or for Death? Or, perhaps, for neither? Or to make a choice between Birth and Death? And whose Birth or Death was it? Their own, or Another's? The tone is one of utter confusion. Any change is painful and the Magi knew that they could no longer live in the world they lived till then. Hence the new birth was like a death for them. Similarly in the birth of Jesus also there is death as it is pre-ordained. Jesus was born to redeem the sins of humanity.

We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,                                                          But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,                                              With an alien people clutching their gods.                                                            I should be glad of another death.

Uncertainty leaves him mystified and unaroused to the full splendour of the strange epiphany. So he and his fellows have come back to their own Kingdoms, where, they lived among their people who believed still in their old religion. The poem ends with a note of resignation. The Magi are witness to a divine drama enacted by the Almighty. They knew that the world will be no more the same after the Birth. But they are unable to comprehend the changes that has taken place in their humdrum lives. Death would be more welcome than the uncertainty that surrounds them.

The birth of the Christ was the death of the world of magic, astrology, and paganism. The speaker, recalling his journey in old age, says that after that birth his world had died, and he had little left to do but wait for his own end. The last line, \"I should be glad of another death\" can have different meanings. One interpretation could be that Eliot is referring to Jesus\' death, aside from his own, or another rebirth (when someone converts to Christianity, they are \"reborn\"; the old man dies and the new man is born). Or it could refer to the death of religions when Jesus was born.

In the last stanza the speaker stops telling the story of their journey and tells what they learned from it. He talks of the nature of birth and death and decides that though they left to see a birth, the birth of Christ, it was like a death to them because after that everything changed. The last lines state it best: "We returned to our places, these Kingdoms, / But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation, / With an alien people clutching their gods. / I should be glad of another death". This poem is classic Eliot, and like his other works, it leaves you with the feeling that while something important has happened, something has also been lost. Journey of the Magi" is an allegory of the spiritual journey.  In renunciation, man cannot find happiness as the thought of sensual enjoyment is still there in his mind.

Notes

1. Unitarian: A Christian sect which believes that God is one entity and not three persons in one being. Christ is viewed as human rather than a deity. Unitarians also reject the notion of original sin. S.T. Coleridge was a famous Unitarian.

2. High Anglicanism:  the doctrine and practice of the Church of England and other Anglican Churches. They base their Christian faith on the Bible, traditions of the apostolic Church, apostolic succession.

3.   Lancelot Andrewes—(1555 to 1626). He was a prominent Anglican bishop during the reign of Elizabeth I and James I.  He also oversaw the translation of the King James Bible. The first five lines are taken from his sermon on Christmas, 1622.  

This notes is taken from :

http://sreekumarenglishliterature.blogspot.in/2016/10/the-journey-of-magi-t-s-eliot.html

Stanza by Stanza Analysis of Journey of the Magi

Journey of the Magi is both monologue and metaphor. Eliot wrote it to substantiate his own conversion to Anglo-Catholicism and to emphasise the profound spiritual and cultural changes that occur when certain events take place.

The speaker's voice is that of a magus, one of the three travelling 'wise men' or Persian priests (or Zoroastrian astrologers) and the narrative is split into three separate sections:

Stanza 1 - the frustration and doubt of such a journey.

Stanza 2 - the anticipation and understated satisfaction upon arrival.

Stanza 3 - the reflection on birth and death and alienation.

Stanza 1

        The first five lines are adapted from an actual sermon given by Bishop Lancelot Andrewes in 1622. Eliot took them and shaped them into this wintry opening, with long vowels, enjambment, some repetition and a feeling of slight dread.

        An inauspicious start then. This first stanza is a tale of woe. Just note the language:

cold coming...worst time...such a long journey...The ways deep/weather sharp...The very dead of winter...galled, sorefooted, refractory (stubborn)...we regretted...cursing and grumbling...

On and on through the whole 20 lines. It's interesting to see how Eliot reinforces this idea of difficulty by repeating line openings...And the...And the...And the...this use of anaphora works really well, reflecting the plod of the camels and the monotony of the journey.

        A feeling of hardship and challenge emerges as the stanza progresses, but note that the magi had also experienced the high life for a while - relaxing in summer palaces - perhaps at the start of their journey, or back in their homeland, when blue skies and silken girls with sherbet (historically, a Persian soft drink) made life enjoyable.

        So the magi had to endure the challenges of real life as they journeyed on. They were tested to the limit and in the end decided to travel at night to avoid the sordid unpleasantries of cities and towns.

        Some think this part of the journey a kind of purification, similar to that of the 16th century Spanish mystic St John of the Cross who wrote his poem Dark Night of the Soul, about existential crisis, desolation and fulfilment.

        The speaker certainly had doubts about their 'mission' - thinking it foolish (all folly) - and the voices could have been their own, or those from dreams and nightmares.

Stanza 2

        This second stanza brings some relief and represents the second stage of the spiritual process. However, these lines also bring into question the idea of time. The magi arrive at dawn, seeking information (on the whereabouts of the birth?) and manage to get there in the evening, not a moment too soon, which is an odd phrase.

        In between the speaker describes the various things they come across which are all symbolically related to the future life of the Christ figure.

        There is much allusion, from the three trees (crucifixion on Calvary) to the wine-skins (the Parable) the meanings are clear.

        It's as if the speaker is having a premonition, yet doesn't know the significance.

        And that curious half-line - it was (you may say) satisfactory.- suggests that the speaker wasn't too impressed with the place of birth, was even a little disappointed. Perhaps this also refers to the idea that the place, although important, isn't as crucial to change as the journey itself.

Stanza 3

        Here the magi looks back, reflecting on the event itself, and coming to the conclusion that in birth there is always death. They learnt a hard lesson, one that is personal yet also universal.

        

        Note the syntax stretching and narrowing as the speaker puts the experience into perspective and asks that most potent of questions: Birth or Death?

        Out of the old comes the new and with it the death in the birth. Spiritual, cultural and psychic processes all undergo change and transformation. What was once familiar now seems alien.

Life is a journey, a struggle, but all humans have to go through it, often reaching moments in their lives when a threshold has to be gotten over. Sometimes new understanding has to take place in order for this to happen.

Journey of the Magi by T. S. Eliot: Summary and Critical Analysis

The poem Journey of the Magi is based on the theme of the Bible. It is full of religious feeling. The visit of the Three Wise Men of East to Palestine at the time of Christ's birth has been described in a very realistic way. The wise men started their journey in the extreme cold of the winter to reach the place of Christ's birth to offer presents to him.

In the course of their journey they got many hardships and suffering. In spite of this they continued their journey throughout the night. In the way they did not get shelter and food. The snowy way made their camel tired. The idea of beautiful girls who were not present to entertain them is also very imaginative and artistic. Again with the non co-operation of people in the way is also very heart-touching. The wise men did not get any help from the people of cities and town. They were hostile and unfriendly to them. This shows that those people lacked farsightedness about the importance of Christ's birth.

In the course of a journey, they saw a temperate valley with natural vegetation and beauty which lessened their tiredness. This is full of nature description and proves that Eliot was a nature poet also. The sounds of the stream and water-mill and smell of vegetation were very pleasant to the Magi and the readers. The white horse galloped in the meadow is also very symbolic and it points out the speed of the horse with his rider. The Magi reached a tavern where they did not get co-operation of those six men who were busy in gambling society. The Magi reached their destination and offered their present to Christ. This is a religious achievement of T.S. Eliot.

The poet wants to emphasize that the birth and death of Christ were different from the common people. His birth was hard and bitter agony of the human race, like death. He was crucified for the redemption of humanity from sins and bondages. The description of three trees on the low sky symbolizes the future Crucifixion of Christ because he was crucified near the three trees. The poet takes a sense of relief and appreciates the quality of Christ and his extraordinary death. The language of the poem is very measured. The poet has achieved grand success as an artist. The poem is very symbolic and full of religious touch.

"Journey of the Magi" is an allegory of the spiritual journey in which the flesh still craves for sensual enjoyment. The details of the journey of the three wise men from the east bound for Jerusalem to honor the newborn Jesus are the "objective correlatives" of the spiritual experiences of the journey from the kingdom of the world to the kingdom of heaven, which entails the death of the old physical self and the birth of a new spiritual one. It is a long hazardous journey in "the worst time of the year" in the "very dead of winter", when the body needs protection and seeks sensual pleasure.

The Magi are a composite symbol of the spiritual quest. While one of them reminisces the journey undertaken by them, he longingly recollects their indulgence in sensual pleasure. He says that while they were going to Emmaus, they felt drawn to the fleshly enjoyments, the lack of which tortured them and in such a moment of spiritual crisis, they regretted to have obeyed the call of the spirit.

However, the quester survives the long journey in the night and at dawn he is in a "temperate valley" where everything is pleasant. It is the dawn of spiritual exhilaration; the different aspects of nature signify the new images of life; the "running stream" symbolizes the rhythmic flow of life; the "water-mill beating the darkness" suggests the doubt being driven away; the galloping away of "the white horse" in the meadow symbolizes upward movement of the spirit. At this stage the quester becomes conscious of the betrayal of the man of belief at the hands of those who are without any belief. In this kingdom of spirit he visualizes the three crosses on Calvary, one of Christ and the other two of the two "male-factors". He also has the vision of Christ riding a white horse and of Judas betraying Christ for thirty pieces of silver, and the Roman dicing for the robes of Christ after the Crucifixion. These memories of the misdeeds of men without belief engage his mind for a while and he realized that the secret of his quest is not revealed to him as yet and so he continues his exploration. At the end of the day he finds himself in a place from where he looks back to the region, he has traversed and feels satisfied with the advance he has made.

The positive gain of the journey is the affirmation of the belief that for the spiritual rejuvenation the overcoming of the sensual aspect of life is essential. "Journey of the Magi" is inspired by the story in the Gospel according to St. Matthew. One of the Magi recounts the arduous journey they undertook to witness the Birth which was 'hard and bitter agony' for them. The journey is beset with the same kinds of temptations as are hinted at in "Ash Wednesday", and similar regrets for the summer palaces or slopes, the terraces, and the silken girls bringing sherbet. The New Birth does not bring unalloyed joy because the transition from the old to the new is accompanied by pain. It is a kind of experience referred to by Jung in his Psychological Types: 'The birth of the deliverer is equivalent to a great catastrophe since a new and powerful life issues forth just when no life or force or new development was anticipated'.

 A Short Analysis of T. S. Eliot’s ‘Journey of the Magi’

‘Journey of the Magi’ by T. S. Eliot (1888-1965) was the first of a series of poems written by the poet for his employer, the publisher Faber and Faber, composed for special booklets or greetings cards which were issued in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Eliot wrote ‘Journey of the Magi’ in 1927, on a single day, one Sunday after church. You can read the poem here. Below we offer some notes towards an analysis of this difficult and elusive poem, with particular focus on its meaning and imagery.

‘Journey of the Magi’ is told from the perspective of one of the Magi (commonly known as the ‘Three Wise Men’, though the Bible makes no mention of their number or gender) visiting the infant Christ. The poem examines the implications that the advent of Christ had for the other religions of the time, chiefly the Zoroastrianism of the Magi themselves. Eliot converted to Christianity in 1927, the same year he wrote ‘Journey of the Magi’, so this is an apt poem for him to have written shortly after his acceptance into the Church of England.

According to Eliot’s second wife, Valerie, he wrote the poem very quickly: ‘I had been thinking about it in church,’ he told her years later, ‘and when I got home I opened a half-bottle of Booth’s Gin, poured myself a drink, and began to write. By lunchtime, the poem, and the half-bottle of gin, were both finished.’ The title of the poem is significant, not least Eliot’s use of the word ‘Magi’: think about its very foreignness and its ambiguity (the term originally denoted Persian Zoroastrian priests, but had come to carry the more general meaning of ‘astrologers’ – or, if you like, magicians). This foreign and alien quality is obviously related to what the poem is about: namely, one group of people becoming alienated by the coming of another group, the people who will, in time, follow the new religion of Christianity which will lead to the death of the religions the Magi, or astrologers, follow. The Magi are like the ‘hollow men’ of Eliot’s poem of that title from two years before: together, they find they are alienated from the rest of the world, in some sort of between-existence or limbo (because the world is in a transition between their old Zoroastrian faith and the new, emerging faith of Christianity which will supersede it).

Journey of the Magi Here is a brief summary of ‘Journey of the Magi’.

The opening quotation comes from one of Bishop Lancelot Andrewes’ Nativity sermons, preached at Christmas during the 1620s. The speaker, one of the Magi, talks about the difficulties encountered by the Magi during the course of their journey to see the infant Christ. It is unconventional to focus on the details of the journey: their longing for home (and for the ‘silken girls’ bringing the sweet drink known as ‘sherbet’), their doubts about the point of the journey they’re undertaking, the unfriendly people in the villages where they stop over for the night, and so on. Eventually, the Magi arrive at the place where the infant Christ is to be found. The poem ends with the poem’s speaker reflecting on the journey years later, saying that if he had the chance he would do it again, but he would add that we remains unsure about the precise significance of the journey and what they found when they arrived. Was it the birth of a new world (Christianity) or the death of an old one (i.e. the Magi’s own world)? The speaker then reveals that, since he returned home following his visit to see the infant Christ, he and his peers have felt uneasy living among his people, who now seem to be ‘an alien people clutching their gods’ (in contrast to the worshippers of the newly arrived Jesus, who worship one god only, in the form of the Messiah). The speaker ends by telling us that he is resigned to die now, glad of ‘another death’ (his own) to complement the death of his cultural and religious beliefs, which have been destroyed by his witnessing the baby Jesus.

There are several things which are odd about Eliot’s poem. First, for a poem titled ‘Journey of the Magi’, there is no mention of the star which – the Gospels and a million children’s nativity plays tell us – guided the Magi to the spot where Christ lay in a manger. Second, the actual nativity scene itself is elided from the narrative: the Magi travel to the place where Christ is to be found, locate it, and then suddenly the speaker of the poem is looking back on the journey years later as an old man. Jesus himself is absent from the poem. Is this because this part of the story is familiar to us, but the Magi themselves are not – or specifically, how the Magi would have felt about seeing their deeply-held beliefs cast into doubt by this new Messiah? Yet surely one way to convince us of the impact of this new-born deity on the lives of these Persian astrologers would have been to show us how they reacted when faced with the baby Christ. There are several possible reasons why Eliot would have chosen to leave Jesus out of the poem, but they all raise additional questions.

Note also how the imagery foreshadows Christ’s later life and crucifixion: the three trees suggesting Christ’s crucifixion, between two thieves on the mountain; the vine, to which Jesus will liken himself; the pieces of silver foreshadowing the thirty pieces of silver Judas Iscariot will receive for betraying him; the wine-skins foreshadowing the wine that Jesus would beseech his disciples to drink in memory of him at the Last Supper. These details are significant not least because the speaker is a priest or astrologer, someone who is trained to look for significance in the things around him, to read and interpret signs as symbols or omens. But he fails to pick up on what they foreshadow; we, however, living in a Christian (or even a post-Christian) society, can read their significance. At the end, the speaker is left feeling jaded and lost by the advent of Christ: he wonders whether Christ’s birth has been a good thing, since his arrival in the world signaled the death of his religion and the religion of his people. Now, he and his fellow Magi are world-weary and welcome the end.

‘Journey of the Magi’ is partly about belonging, about social, tribal, and religious belonging: the speaker of the poem reflects sadly that the coming of Christ has rendered his own gods and his own tribe effete, displaced, destined to be overtaken by the advent of Christ – and, with him, Christianity. It is tempting to see the poem – written in the year Eliot converted to Anglo-Catholicism – as a metaphor for Eliot’s own feelings concerning secularism and the Christian religion, Christianity having itself been rendered effete in the face of Darwin, modern physics, and secular philosophy. The poem, about a people’s conversion from one religion to another, is equally bound up with Eliot’s own conversion. However, a more nuanced reading invites us to see the poem as an account of the ways in which every religious and ethnic identity is in some sense threatened, at some time or in some place, by other, more dominant groups and identities. A possible allusion to Othello’s ‘Set you down this’ (his dying words in Shakespeare’s play) points up the religious and ethnic differences which underlie the poem’s setting: Othello, like Eliot, had converted to Christianity, since he was a Muslim moor who converted when he joined the Christian world of Venice. (It should be noted, though, that there is an alternative source for these lines in Eliot’s poem: in one of his sermons, Lancelot Andrewes writes, ‘Secondly, set down this’. As with many allusions in Eliot’s poetry, there are several possible sources which Eliot may be calling into play.)

The poem, then, is not just about religious identity but about broader issues of ethnic and cultural identity, too. Note how the poem doesn’t mention Christ’s name anywhere, or that the infant they are travelling to see is Jesus: it doesn’t need to be said. Then recall the foreignness of ‘Magi’ in that title. The Magi are already ‘other’, the alien ones or outsiders: when the speaker tells us at the end that they returned to ‘our places, these Kingdoms’, it is tempting to see the poem as in some sense a development of ‘The Hollow Men’, which was also about a group of men feeling lost and empty in a ‘kingdom’ where they appear to long for death.

It is undoubtedly this multifaceted quality to the poem which helped it to become one of the nation’s favourite poems in 1996 (it was no. 44 on the list – one higher than the childhood favourite by Edward Lear, ‘The Owl and the Pussycat’). ‘Journey of the Magi’ is a more accessible poem than some of T. S. Eliot’s other work, yet it remains a challenging piece of poetry in many ways. It is only through analysing some of its images and more curious details that we can begin to appreciate it at a deeper level.

Journey of the Magi Summary and Analysis of Journey of the Magi

The title of the poem refers to a “journey.” This word means an act of traveling from one place to another, but also, in a metaphorical sense, the long and often difficult process of personal change and development.

"Journey of the Magi" begins with a quotation from a Christmas sermon, which establishes the initial choral voice of the poem: the Persian kings who crossed the desert in winter to honor the birth of the baby Jesus. In the quotation, the magi, speaking in a plural "we," describe how the journey was difficult for them physically, emotionally, and spiritually. This quotation leads into a longer description of the difficulties of the journey.

The second stanza begins with a new dramatic beat: The dark night of the soul has passed, and it is now the dawn of a new day, literally and spiritually. The Magi descend into the fertile Judean valley. This stanza is full of Biblical allusions. The Magi find the manger where Jesus was born.

The third stanza switches to the voice of a singular Magus, who is reminiscing about the journey. (In retrospect, this could mean that the entire poem was written from a first-person perspective, but there was no way to know that before this point). He evaluates the experience, deciding that he “would do it again,” but then wonders at the paradox that the birth of Jesus was also a death. This death refers to both the death of Christ and the death of the old religious order, including the magical power of the Magus. He ends the poem wishing for another death, which represents both suicidal despair and an anticipation of Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection, ushering in a new Christian era.

Analysis 

"Journey of the Magi" opens with a quote about a journey, and it's a cold and difficult one. From the title of the poem, we can guess that this is the journey of the Three Kings (or Three Wise Men, or Magi) to the birthplace of Jesus. After the opening quote, the poem elaborates on the difficulties of travel, including grumpy camels, wishing for home (home being warm, palatial, and full of girls and servants), fires going out, unfriendly and expensive towns, and a distinct lack of places to sleep. The speaker notes that the Magi preferred to just travel all night for these reasons, and that through their travels, a little voice in their heads kept suggesting that maybe this whole thing was all for nothing.

Then, the narrator goes on to tell of the Magi's arrival in Bethlehem, a place he describes as "a temperate valley" (21). They still can't find any info about where they were supposed to go from the villagers, however, so they eventually have to find the stable in which they were to witness the birth of the baby Jesus. The trio arrives just in time.

The last part of the poem is more blatantly the Magus reminiscing about the story ("all this was a long time ago, I remember" [32]), and in his recollection he seems to be doubtful about whether or not the birth was a good or a bad thing, replacing as it would his own religion and culture. In fact, at the end of the poem he seems to regard it as a bad thing indeed, with the Magus wishing for his own death alongside the death of his peoples' old religion and ways.

Stanza 1

Lines 1-5

"A cold coming we had of it,

Just the worst time of the year

For a journey, and such a long journey:

The ways deep and the weather sharp,

The very dead of winter."

v  Bizarre. The opening lines are in quotes, as though the speaker of the poem is actually quoting someone else. Why would this be so?

v  A little Googling and, lo and behold, these opening lines are a quote. From a really old (1622) Nativity sermon by one Lancelot Andrewes.

v  Lancelot Andrewes, as it turns out, was a prominent scholar and clergyman in the Church of England during the reigns of Elizabeth I and James I, respectively. Andrewes oversaw the translation of the King James Bible (which is still, today, one of the most popular translations of the book), and was famous for his sermons.

v  Stuff on Early Modern preachers aside, these lines, along with the title, set up for us what this poem is going to be about—that is, the Magis' trek to Bethlehem, where Jesus is about to be born.

v  The implication is that they're coming from a ways away (the Magi, as far as we can tell, are probably from around Persia, pretty far east of present-day Israel), and that the weather is particularly nasty because they're making this important journey in the dead of winter. Christmas? Well that's December 25.

v  This makes sense.

v  A note on this poem's somewhat complicated narrative technique before we get any further: as the scholar Daniel Harris has noted, the voice here is referring to something that he can't possibly know about. How could a Magus, presumably traveling in the year one, know to quote a sermon from the year 1622?

v  This kind of thing keeps happening throughout the poem. The New Testament, which is written way after the Magi die, is referenced a few times, as is Christ's death. We call this technique anachronism.

v  Harris notes that this broadens the scope of the poem-as-narration, i.e., that it's told by a Magus, sure, but there's also something beyond the Magus that is also telling the story, a ghostly present-figure, who can quote a sermon from 1622. We'll go ahead and agree with him because we like the creepiness of that theory, and also the ways in which it expands the possibilities of the poem.

Lines 6-10

And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,

Lying down in the melting snow.

There were times we regretted

The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,

And the silken girls bringing sherbet.

v  Now we've got just the voice of the Magus, telling us more specifically about the hardships of their journey.

v  First things first: the mode of transportation is a little grumpy. The camels are "galled," which can mean annoyed or provoked, or it can mean that they're chafing under their saddles.

v  They're so grumpily uncomfortable that they're "refractory" which means they just do the camel-equivalent of raising a white flag. They sit down in the snow (remember, it's Christmas Eve) and refuse to go any farther.

v  The narrator goes on to tell us about where they've come from—"summer palaces," on (presumably lush and green) hillsides, with servant girls "bringing sherbet" (an Iranian drink).

v  The gist here is that the Magi lead pretty cushy lives when they're not busy trekking through the countryside in the middle of winter looking for a baby who might be everyone's savior.

v  But what's with the "regret?" Think of it this way: if you decide to run a marathon, but then sit around and maybe walk a few miles a day in order to train for that marathon, you're sure going to regret that laziness, and your lack of training on the day of the race.

v  Not that the Magi knew that they were going to be called upon to find the birthplace of Christ and could "train" accordingly. But all the same, they're suffering in the cold, and looking back on it, maybe all that luxury was a little excessive. They might have been a little better prepared for this kind of thing—you know, a little manlier about it.

v  But regret can also just refer to grief about something that's lost. So maybe they're just grieving about the lack of sherbet and hot chicks on the road. To which we say: suck it up, Magi. You've got a ways to go.

Lines 11-15

Then the camel men cursing and grumbling

And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,

And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,

And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly

And the villages dirty, and charging high prices:

v  More hardship. Now the guys that were supposed to be handling the camels are getting grumpy, too, to the point where in some cases they're just abandoning the Magi altogether.

v  The camel men who remain are complaining that they'd really like a drink and a girl.

v  Plus the nights are so cold and damp that they can't even keep a fire going, and they're really only trying to keep a fire going because there's no room at the inn. (Hey! That sounds familiar, and it should, because that's why Jesus is being born in a manger. Joseph and Mary were turned away from every inn in Bethlehem. There's that shadowy author-voice again, making allusions to things that are outside the Magus's knowledge.)

v  And even if there were room at the inn, it would probably be kind of awful anyways, because the cities nearby are downright "hostile" (think mean on steroids), and the towns aren't quite hostile but they're not really very nice either, and the villages are just filthy and everyone charges too much.

v  Overall? This journey is a boatload of not-very-much-fun-at-ALL-thank-you.

Lines 16-20

A hard time we had of it.

At the end we preferred to travel all night,

Sleeping in snatches,

With the voices singing in our ears, saying

That this was all folly.

v  In a slight echo of the first line, the narrator reiterates that all this describing he's just done is, in fact, illustrative of a pretty awful time for all.

v  As if to put a point on the subject, we then find out that at the end of the day (figuratively and literally speaking, we suppose), the Magi and their crew decide simply to travel the whole night. They only pause to sleep when absolutely necessary, rather than drag out their journey any longer than they absolutely have to.

v  In the meantime, throughout all of this hardship, there's the Magi-equivalent of "the little voice inside my head"—think those angels and devils that pop up on cartoons' shoulders and whisper contradictory things while the character is trying to make a decision.

v  This time, though, it's just one voice, a voice that's trying to tell them "that this was all folly," meaning a giant mistake, or a stupid idea.

v  The word "this," though, seems a little vague at first look. We're led to ask, "what was all folly?"

v  Presumably, we can figure that "this" refers to the journey itself, that traveling all this way was a mistake. This would seem to imply, then, that the Magi doubt whether or not there actually is some stable that contains a manger that happens to be housing the savior of the free and not-free world. (Put that way, who could blame them for being skeptical?)

v  So really, when you look at it, the voice at the end of this stanza really is like the little devil on the cartoon shoulder, because it contradicts the voice of an actual (according to the Bible) angel that had, days prior, told them to go and follow a star in the sky and bring gifts to a baby savior who would be born in a barn in Bethlehem. Again, put this way, the doubting voice sounds like it's actually the one offering reason. But the Magi push on, just in case.

Stanza 2

Lines 21-24

Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,

Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;

With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness,

And three trees on the low sky,

v  After the Magi have pushed on miserably all night, they end up at "a temperate valley." The word temperate in this case means mild, climate-wise. It's a welcome contrast to the wintry weather that the Magi have just plodded through to get there.

v  The whole "smelling of vegetation" thing further enhances the decidedly non-winter atmosphere. It's like the seasons have suddenly changed.

v  Wait a minute. That doesn't really happen in real life. Not if you're traveling by camel anyway. So what's going on here? It seems like maybe, just maybe, this could be symbolic for something—the coming of the baby Jesus, perhaps? Something like salvation? That could certainly be depicted as a sudden movement from winter to spring.

v  So there's that shadowy other-narrator-guy again, speaking through the Magus in such a way that we're all "Hey! Symbolism!" even though the Magus himself sure doesn't know he's being symbolic.

v  The passage continues to elaborate upon the mild surroundings of the area (presumably Bethlehem's general vicinity) before them. It's got a running stream (so it's not frozen), and it's civilized (hence the water mill). All in all? Not too shabby.

v  The last line of this passage is a little weird, though. Why only three trees on the horizon? If this is such a lush valley, the singling-out of three particular trees seems a little odd.

v  Unless, that is, we return to our trusty Bible, and recall that, when Jesus was crucified, he wasn't the only one receiving capital punishment. There were two thieves flanking him. That's right – there were three crosses on that hill.

v  Of course, this is yet another image that projects way into the future. The Magus, in his observation as a character, technically could have no way of knowing that the baby he was about to go see would be crucified thirty-three years later. But Eliot does—and it's Eliot that's writing the Magus's monologue. The dual-narrator surfaces again. And he's going to stay with us for the rest of this stanza.

Lines 25-28

And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.

Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,

Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,

And feet kicking the empty wine-skins.

v  The last observation of the valley that we get before the Magi head down into the town itself is this "old white horse."

v  Since we're in symbolism mode, we'll take a few stabs at what this might mean (we'll go into way more detail in the "Symbolism, Imagery, Wordplay" section, so head over there if you want the whole enchilada).

v  The adjectives "old" and "white" sound a little like they might symbolize the conventional Christian God—you know, the ancient dude with the flowing white beard and the white robes.

v  But what about the "horse" part? God's never depicted as a horse, as far as we know. Are there any Biblical horses, in general?

v  In fact, there are, but they're decidedly less friendly than an old man in a robe. The most famous horses in the Bible are probably the four horses of the Apocalypse, that come down to cleanse the Earth of sinners in Revelation (which is the wackiest and scariest part of the Bible, by the way).

v  So we have a conventional, gentle image of God combined with an animal that, in the Bible, wreaks havoc on humanity. Hmm. That's new.

v  Keep in mind, though, that the horse is running "away" from the scene. This detail could be significant. Maybe it's God, having bestowed his son upon the earth, retreating for a while. And maybe the apocalyptic horse is being driven away for the time being. Maybe it's Gandalf and Shadowfax. Maybe not.

v  Back to the poem. The Magi come to a tavern (which usually doubled as inns in those days), where they see a few guys gambling over some dice.

v  They may well be a little tipsy, too, because there's mention of "empty wine-skins." In this case, a "wine-skin" is a bag used way back in the day to hold wine.

v  It was, ickily enough, usually made out of the stomach or skin of a goat or cow. Hence the "skin" part.

v  We've also got some more sneaky religious allusions at work here.

v  First, there's that word lintel, which alludes to the story of Passover from Exodus 12, in which God instructed the Israelites to splash blood over their doors (on the lintel) to protect their first born children.

v  Then we've got those six pieces of silver to deal with. This just might be an allusion to the Gospel of Matthew, in which Judas is paid thirty pieces of silver for betraying Jesus.

v  Oh, Eliot. You're almost too clever for your own good, packing all that religion into these few lines.

Lines 29-31

But there was no information, and so we continued

And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon

Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.

v  The first part of this passage seems to indicate that the Magi asked the guys in the doorway whether or not they knew of the location of the stable where Jesus was to be born.

v  And—surprise, surprise—it turns out the drunks at the local watering hole don't have a clue. So the Magi soldier on.

v  It takes them all day to get to the stable. Apparently the inn wasn't in Bethlehem at all.

v  Notice how the narrator never says the word "stable" or "manger" or "barn" or anything else that would indicate what kind of place they were trying to find.

v  It's as though the narrator simply assumes that his audience will know what the Magi have been searching for (which—let's face it—we do).

v  Apparently they arrive just in the nick of time, too, though we're not yet sure as to whether this means just before the birth or just after it.

v  So they've found the place, they've arrived. And then the Magus-narrator says something incredibly peculiar: "it was (you may say) satisfactory."

v  What on earth does this mean? The parenthetical aside almost makes the Magus sound a little snarky, like "yeah, it was a barn, whatever," which seems strange, given the fact that the Magi are well aware that they're headed to see the birth of a savior (though a savior of what kind, they're not sure). We mean, shouldn't that be kind of a big deal?

v  So you'd think that finding a baby in a manger wouldn't prompt something more along the lines of "spectacular!" than "satisfactory." Maybe the Magus is just grateful that the baby's alive, that the barn was "satisfactory" enough to ensure at least that much.

v  But again, it's Eliot, and we're thinking there's more to it than that. For more Biblical digging, see "Symbols, Imagery, Wordplay." We won't disappoint.

Stanza 3

Lines 32-36

All this was a long time ago, I remember,

And I would do it again, but set down

This set down

This: were we led all that way for

Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,

v  The beginning of this stanza rockets us forward in time, or just suddenly wakes us up to the fact that this story is being told way after the actual journey took place, as if the narrator's sitting by a fire in his old age, mulling over the events.

v  Now, in the present, he notes that he "would do it again." So even through the hardship and the grumpy camels and the uncertainty, he views the journey as worthwhile in retrospect.

v  Oh, but here comes a "but," and he further emphasizes that the "but" clause is super important by telling us Shmoopers not once but twice to "set down this."

v  That's slightly old-fashioned language for "write this down."

v  Side note! The "set down this" bit is a subtle reference to Shakespeare's Othello. For more on this, be sure to swing on by our "Shout Outs" page.

v  Turns out, the Magus has an important question that's still bugging him: "were we led all the way for / Birth or Death?"

v  He begins to answer his own question by saying that there was indeed a birth, referring to the birth of Jesus, of course. But what about the Death thing?

v  It's an ominous question with a couple of implications. One can be "led to one's death," and it is now plausible (though, given the life spans of people at that time, not entirely probable) that the Magus is speaking from a time after Jesus' death.

v  If this question is so important, though, we're betting that the Magus is going to elaborate on what he might mean by this whole Birth/Death thing. Let's see.

Lines 37-39

We had evidence and no doubt. I have seen birth and death,

But had thought they were different; this Birth was

Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.

v  Here we go: a whole passage devoted to the explanation of what the Magus means when he asks whether they had come so far to witness a birth or a death.

v  The narrator reiterates that they had, in fact, seen a literal birth. No one was doubting that there was actually a newborn baby in that manger.

v  He seems to be indicating, then, that he's speaking metaphorically about the whole death thing.

v  He goes on to say that he has "seen birth and death"—and we're pretty sure he means that literally, this time—but then goes on to say that he "had thought they were different." Interesting…

v  The implication here is that whatever he witnessed in that barn in Bethlehem changed the way he thought about birth and death. Previously he'd thought of them as different—even opposite—things, and now he's not so sure anymore.

v  But he doesn't stop there. The Magus says that the Birth (notice the capitalization, a la, Jesus, Lord and Savior, etc.) was actually "hard and bitter agony" for all of the Magi.

v  In fact, it was so agonizing that the Magus compares it to Death (again with the capitalization. Could that possibly be another premonition of the Crucifixion?), and then goes on to say "our death." Since he's still alive, we can assume he's gone back to talking about death figuratively.

v  Here, the Magus shows his full hand, and reveals that the birth of Jesus signaled the end of an era. What era? The one in which people like the Magi and their particular religion and culture were the ones in power.

v  So while they were compelled (literally!) to go and bring gifts to this child that an angel had called a King, they were also bringing gifts to the very person who would grow up to establish, quite literally, a new world order. An order that didn't include the Magi and their ways.

v  If that's not as close as one can get to dying without actually dying, we're not sure what is.

Lines 40-43

We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,

But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,

With an alien people clutching their gods.

I should be glad of another death.

v  At this point, the Magus goes back to telling the story, saying that after the birth of Jesus, the Magi packed up all their stuff and headed back to their respective palaces. Sherbet, here they come.

v  Their return, however, was far from celebratory – instead of bringing back awesome news, it seems as though they came back disconsolate (i.e., miserable, intensely uncomfortable, and way down in the dumps).

v  The middle part of this passage elaborates upon that a little bit, as the Magus details more about "the old dispensation"—which basically means the old ways, and specifically in this case, the old religion—and his subjects, who now seem to him like "an alien people" clutching false idols.

v  So the Magi come back to their same kingdoms, but in their eyes, the whole place has changed. They've seen the coming of a new kind of power, and it's not their power. Suddenly, their entire culture seems poised on the brink of utter irrelevance. Bummer, dude.

v  All this news is stressful to the max. So stressful and horrific, in fact, that the Magus ends his tale by wishing for another death. This time, though, it's literal, and it's his own. Yikes.

v  But wait! Couldn't he also be referring to the death of the baby Jesus? That might be one sinister way of interpreting that last line, but there's no mention of anger in the poem, more like a kind of bleak resignation. Or if you wanted to put a more positive spin on it, you could say that he's waiting for the death of Christ because the Crucifixion and Resurrection bring with them all kinds of good stuff for the earth—redemption and forgiveness and all that jazz.