The Burial of the Dead: 00:00 A Game of Chess: 04:58 The Fire Sermon: 10:21 Death By Water: 18:19 What The Thunder Said: 19:00
Written in 1921-1922.
01:30 : "And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief" cf Ecclesiastes 01:40 "Only / There is shadow Under this red rock" may refer to Parzival: " And this stone all men call the Graal [...] / As children the Graal doth call them, / Neath its shadow they wax and grow". 02:00 Tristan und Isolde, I, 5-8 02:40 Words that announce to Tristan that Isolde's boat is nowhere to be seen. 03:00 "These are pearls that were his eyes" quotation from The Tempest. 03:48 In the following passage, references to Baudelaire ("Fourmillante cité, cité pleine de rêves / Où le spectre en plein jour raccroche le passant") and to Dante's Inferno ("si lunga tratta / di gente, ch'io non avrei mai creduto / che morte tanta n'avesne disfatta") 04:29 Mylae, 260 B.C : Naval victory of the Romans over the Carthaginians, during the first Punic War, which largely resulted from their commercial rivalry; cf. 1914-1918. 04:54 Baudelaire, Préface aux Fleurs du Mal.
05:05 Quotation from Anthony and Cleopatra. 06:28 Ovid, Metamorphoses, VI, Philomel. The whole passage recalls Milton's Paradise Lost, IV, 140 08:00 Rag = ragtime. 10:12 Ophelia's last words to the dames of the Court, after Hamlet has accused her of being a prostitute.
10:42 Quotation from Spencer's Prothalamion 11:45 Cf. The Fisher King, or Wounded King, in the Arthurian Legends. His imaginary castle is always near a river or the sea. 12:21 "they wash their feet" like the Fisher King before his restauration 12:25 "O ces voix d'enfants chantant dans la coupole" Verlaine, Parsifal. 13:00 Cannon Street Hotel: where businessmen met. 13:20 In Greek mythology, Tiresias was a blind prophet of Apollo in Thebes. He was transformed into a woman for 7 years. Cf. Ovid: "At pater omnipotens [...] pro lumine adempto / Scire futura dedit poenamque levavit honore" 14:33 Bradford prospered thanks to the war. 15:58 "This music crept by me upon the water" quotation from The Tempest.
18:26 In fertility rites, Phlebas was drowned.
21:52 "A woman drew her long black hair out tight" Cf. Ecclesiastes: one of the daughters of music. The following lines also recall Ecclesiastes (cf. "the wheel be broken at the cistern") 22:47 The cock dispels the malevolent spirits (see The Tempest or Hamlet) 23:17 "Datta, dayadhvam, damyata" ("Give, commiserate, govern") from a fable about the meaning of thunder. 24:46 Chorus of a traditional nursery rhyme "London Bridge is broken down / Dance over my lady lee" 25:15 "Hieronymo's mad againe" quotation from Kyd's Spanish Tragedy
