TS Eliot

The speaker is one of the three wise men who attended Jesus’ birth. He describes the difficulties of the journey, through villages and cities and countries. He says little about the actual event of Jesus’ birth. However, he says that when they returned home, everything seemed different because they themselves had changed. They had been ‘reborn’ (perhaps ultimately in the Christian faith), a difficult spiritual journey. Now he wants death – possibly his physical death (which he probably believes will take him to eternal life).

The introduction was copied from a priest’s sermon in the 1600’s.

It emphasises the hardship the men will have to endure

The camels did not want to move and were stubborn.

‘A cold coming we had of it.Just the worst time of the yearFor a journey, and such a long journey:The ways deep and the weather sharp;The very dead of winter.’

And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,Lying down in the melting snow.

1-5

6-7

They regretted the luxuries that they were use to because if they were not use to them the hardships of the journey might have seemed less difficult

He names the hardships they had to endure on their journey

There were times we regrettedThe summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,And the silken girls bringing sherbet.

Then the camel men cursing and grumblingAnd 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 unfriendlyAnd the villages dirty and charging high prices:A hard time we had of it.

8-10

11-16

Because of all the difficulties they travelled at night and only slept for short whiles.

They kept remembering the criticisms of their people, saying that this journey was all for nothing.

At the end we preferred to travel all night,Sleeping in snatches,

With the voices singing in our ears, sayingThat this was all folly.

17-18

19-20

They came to a beautiful valley.In stanza 1 he talks about what they saw – Here, in stanza 2 he evokes other senses such as smell and hearing.He also makes biblical references in stanza 2 through the use of metaphors.

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.Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,21-26

He describes what they found at the tavern where they stopped for directions, but because no-one could/would help them they continued on their journey.

That evening they arrived at the stall in Jerusalem.They found the place to be almost adequate, because they were use to much more.

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 arrived at evening, not a moment too soonFinding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.

27-29

30-31

He highlight that even though he remembers all of these difficulties he would do it again

‘but set down / This set down / This’ – he wants to emphasise something

He asks if they went all that way to witness a birth or a death? They did see the birth of Jesus, but this birth caused a death – the death of their old religions.

All this was a long time ago, I remember,And I would do it again, but set downThis set downThis: were we led all that way for

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

32-35

35-39

They went back to their Kingdoms, but they no longer felt at home, because their people felt like foreigners because they were now reborn into a new faith - Christianity

Because of this he would be glad to exchange this world for the next.

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.

40-42

43