Ash Wednesday

Part I

In Part I, the speaker is disillusioned with the way he has been living and is ready to construct for himself some new way of being in the world. The first three lines make it clear that he has made a decisive shift in his way of thinking and he is not likely to go back on it. Line 4 is an allusion to Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 29,” and it gives a clue as to what Eliot’s speaker has turned his back on. Shakespeare’s speaker is in a depressed mood:

Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,

Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,

Desiring this man’s art and that man’s scope,

With what I most enjoy contented least (Lines 5-8).

The allusion to this sonnet appears in Eliot’s lines, “Because I do not hope to turn / Desiring this man’s gift and that man’s scope” (Lines 3-4). The speaker is no longer willing to put out any effort to excel others or to realize an ambition. He does not care for success or reputation. The reference to the “agèd eagle” who can no longer be bothered to “stretch its wings” (Line 6) suggests someone who has done it all before with some ease and success but will not stir himself in similar fashion again. Although the speaker is not to be narrowly identified with the poet himself, who was no more than about 40 years old when he wrote the poem, it is not difficult to see in this Eliot’s lack of enthusiasm for his previous poetic achievements, and he will not or cannot dip into the springs of creativity that he formerly experienced, as Lines 9-15 suggest. Creativity is the “transitory power” (Line 13) and the place where the “springs flow” is its source (Line 14).

The speaker realizes that in order to find a new meaning in life, he must transcend time and place, since they are impermanent. Each situation exists for a moment only and then is gone. He decides that this cannot be a basis on which to build a life. Nor will he look for support or inspiration to the “blessèd face” (Line 21) or “voice” (Line 22). This is perhaps a literary allusion, referring to Dante’s ideal woman Beatrice, who helps to comfort and guide Dante in The Divine Comedy as he journeys through purgatory and heaven (See: Background). Eliot’s speaker seems to be renouncing the idea that a divine-like woman, either a real or imagined one, could guide him wherever he now needs to go.

Instead, he must find another way of constructing a life that is worth living, and for that he turns to religion. Much of the remainder of this section is given over to prayers to God, much of it inspired by the Anglican Christian liturgy. He prays to God “to have mercy on us” (Line 26) for example. He also makes a plea for equanimity in all situations: “Teach us to care and not to care / Teach us to sit still” (Lines 38-39). These lines reveal Eliot’s interest in the spiritual teachings and practices of the East, which advocate attaining a state of detachment from the world.

The speaker asks that he may learn to “care” about his life and show compassion for others whilst also, perhaps paradoxically, remaining in a calm, detached, serene state of mind (“not to care”). “Teach us to sit still” expresses the desire that the mind should not be constantly in a state of disturbance, hurrying this way and that (as in “matters that with myself I too much discuss” [Line 28]). The busy mind must be still. There is perhaps a literal meaning here too, suggesting the need to sit still during contemplative or meditative practice to allow for the deepest experience.

Part II

Part II is about death and the possibility of life on the other side of it. The death theme can be understood metaphorically as an extension of the emptied-out speaker of Part I, who renounced personal ambition and desire. As he explains in Lines 19-20 in this section, he has undergone a process of forgetting his former self. Whether symbolic or literal, such a death theme is appropriate for Ash Wednesday, since that is a day in the Christian calendar for the contemplation of human mortality.

Eliot’s inspiration for the symbolism of bones is the Old Testament prophet Ezekiel. In Ezekiel, the prophet is guided by God to a valley that is full of bones. The Lord says to him, “Shall these bones live?” (King James Bible, Ezekiel 37:3)—exactly the phrase that Eliot uses. The answer in Ash Wednesday is yes, courtesy of the Lady who is addressed at the beginning of this section. It is through her grace and presence that the bones can “shine with brightness” (Line 11).

The Lady is a Beatrice-type figure. She seems to act as a bridge between the human and divine realms; she embodies opposing qualities, such as “Calm and distressed / Torn and most whole” (Lines 26-27). By turning his attention in her direction, the speaker has taken a step forward in that he is now able to perceive the existence of a higher dimension, which acts as a balm to soothe the feeling of desolation that he experienced in Part I. Through the Lady, the remnants of his former life can become reanimated, with new aspirations and faith.

As the description of the Lady continues, she seems to merge with the Virgin Mary. She is described as “The single Rose” (Line 32), for example, a common symbol for Mary. In Christian art, the Virgin is sometimes depicted in an enclosed garden filled with roses, which might also explain the two references in this section to the Lady as “the Garden” (Lines 33, 46). She exists at the level of life where all lesser forms of love come to an end in love itself. This kind of love is very different from the love described in this section as “torment / Of love unsatisfied / The greater torment of love satisfied” (Lines 35-37), which reflects the unsatisfactory nature of the love that men and women try to create with each other, which is based on emotion and sexuality and fluctuates back and forth like the tide. It never satisfies for long.

The speaker shows an awareness that this type of love can be transcended in a boundless love that knows no end. The Lady/Virgin is thus the end of the “endless / Journey to no end” (Lines 39-40), meaning that without her, the journey on earth seems to go on forever without once finding its goal; “to no end” also means without direction or purpose. In other words, all the journeying, without knowledge of the Rose and the Garden, is doomed to frustration.

Part III

If Part II represents an initial awakening to what the speaker will later call the “higher dream” (Part IV, Line 20), Part III shows the hard and difficult journey that the search for it involves. The central image is of a spiral staircase; the speaker is on a slow ascent from earthly to heavenly things. In the first section he looks back from the “turning of the second stair” (Line 1), and perhaps the “same shape twisted on the banister” (Line 3) he sees is himself on the first stair “Struggling with the Devil [. . .] who wears / The deceitful face of hope and despair” (Lines 5-6). This refers to the range of emotions to which humans are subject when they experience only the realm of time and space, in which nothing is ever constant or pure.

The view gets no better “At the second turning of the second stair” (Line 7). The stair itself takes on a repulsive appearance: “Damp, jagged, like an old man’s mouth drivelling” (Line 10). This is obviously not a place where one would wish to linger, and the image of the “agèd shark” (Line 11) calls to mind the “agèd eagle” of Part I.

At the turning of the third stair, the scene certainly improves, but it is not as idyllic as it first appears—at least, not for the spiritual seeker. It is a pastoral scene in May in which a figure dressed in blue and green plays an enchanting melody on an ancient flute. This is the pagan nature god, Pan. Although Nature in springtime is beautiful, Pan is not the God that Eliot’s speaker seeks, who exists, so to speak, beyond nature. On the spiritual path that the speaker has embarked upon, this natural scene must therefore be regarded as no more than a pleasant distraction on the upward journey. Indeed, “Distraction” is the exact word used (Line 19). It seems that the speaker is finding the “strength” (Line 20) to continue climbing the spiral staircase whilst also calling out to God that he feels unworthy. It is a perilous path and nothing is guaranteed.

Part IV

After the slow ascent of Part III, the speaker is granted a kind of dream-vision in Part IV, in which he is able to access the spiritual realm. The vision centers around the Lady who once again is seemingly synonymous with the Virgin Mary, wearing Mary’s colors of white and blue. She remains human, however, “talking of trivial things” (Line 5) and as in Part II, she contains opposites: She talks “in ignorance and knowledge of eternal dolour” (Line 6) in what appears to be a garden. The mention of “dolour” (sorrow) also aligns her with Mary, who is traditionally referred to as Our Lady of Sorrows and is said to have experienced Seven Sorrows during her earthly life. The Lady possesses a revivifying power: She nourishes the fountains and springs, which contrasts sharply with the aridity that the speaker reported in Part I, in which the springs of creativity were dried up.

The Italian phrase that follows, “Sovegna vos” (Line 11) means “Be mindful”; it is a quotation from Dante’s Purgatory (Canto 26, Line 147) and in that context it is a prayer that the speaker’s sorrow be remembered. It likely serves a similar function here, as an interjection of a prayer by the speaker to the Lady.

The Lady possesses a kind of ethereal, even elusive quality; she is hard to pin down to a particular time or place, as she exists somehow “between” things, as if she does not fully belong to them. She walks “between the various ranks of varied green” (Line 3); she “moves in the time between sleep and waking” (Line 14); she walks “between the yews” (Line 23). She is also illumined by the imagery of light. “White light” (Line 15) encloses her, and it is through a “bright cloud of tears” (Line 17) that she carries out her work of restoration, which suggests sorrow illumined by a healing radiance. The Lady embodies life beyond the “fiddles and the flutes” (Line 13) that were glimpsed in Part III, and the “garden god” (Line 23)—that is, Pan—ceases to play his flute when she is behind him. In the presence of a higher power, he can only be mute.

As for her deep, transformative work, the Lady restores “with a new verse the ancient rhyme” (Line 18)—that is, the original harmony of life. The use here of terms that also describe poetry harks back to Part I, in which the speaker could no longer access the source from which such creativity flows. The Lady redeems time in the sense that she reveals the end to which time is moving; time is not merely an endless and meaningless sequence of events. She reveals the “higher dream” (Line 20), which is spiritual truth. Readers may wonder why Eliot uses the term “dream” to refer to the spiritual dimension of life. It is likely that he had in mind the many medieval allegories in which this kind of truth was presented in a dream-vision. Well-known examples include the 13th century Le Roman de la Rose (“The Romance of the Rose”) and Piers Plowman (late 14th century), attributed to William Langland.

The Lady is also notable for her silence. In spite of her serene and powerful presence, she says not a word. She is the “silent sister” (Line 22) and the “Lady of silences” (Part II, Line 25). Nor does she show her face, which is veiled. It is her holy, half-hidden presence that calls so deeply to the speaker, as does her ability to experience both the human and divine worlds. As mentioned above, her “betweenness,” so to speak, is a core element of her identity. In Line 23, for example, she is “Between the yews.” Yew trees have long carried a twofold meaning in mythology: They symbolize mortality and death as well as rebirth and immortality.

The Lady mediates between both as the embodiment of a silent, eternal presence that lies beyond all the phenomena of time and space. She brings the promise of the divine “word” (Line 27) (an allusion to the first verse of the Gospel of John, “In the beginning was the Word”) even though the word is at the present time “unheard, unspoken” (Line 27). Through the presence of the Lady, “the wind shakes a thousand whispers from the yew” (Line 28), that is, the divine breath, the spirit of God, infuses life into the yew tree, transforming it from a symbol of death into one of life and immortality.

Part IV ends on a more sober note, with the statement, “And after that our exile” (Line 29), which means that the dream-vision will vanish, leaving humanity separated from God, nourished only by the memory of what has been glimpsed and known. This exile will form the theme of the next section of the poem.

Part V

Part V confronts the reality of a world in which the divine Word cannot be heard. The first nine lines allude to the first five verses of the Gospel of John, beginning, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God,” and including the phrase “the light shines in the darkness” (John 1:5), which Eliot employs in Line 7. These lines contrast the eternal nature of the Word and the fact that it is “unheard” (Lines 2, 3, 4) in the world. The Word is at the center of existence, and the restless world “whirl[s]” (Line 8) around it but remains ignorant of it.

The stand-alone line which follows—“O my people, what have I done unto thee” (Line 10)—is a quotation from the Old Testament (Micah 6:3), in which the Lord reproaches the Israelites, telling them that he has shown them the right path but they have not listened. This provides context for what follows in this section of Ash Wednesday, in which a similar reproach is implied. The world is too noisy a place for the Word to be heard: “there is not enough silence” (Line 12). As a result, the “people walk in darkness” (Line 15), which is an echo of the Old Testament prophet Isaiah, but in that verse, the people also “have seen a great light” (Isaiah 9:2). In Ash Wednesday, no such optimism is permitted, at least not in Part V.

Indeed, the speaker is tentative. Unsure of the ultimate destiny of these people who walk in darkness, he frames their fate in the form of a question: “Will the veiled sister pray for / Those who walk in darkness, who chose thee and oppose thee” (Lines 20-21). The speaker cannot himself supply the answer; it is not given to him to know. The phrase “chose thee and oppose thee” suggests the difficulty faced by those who might wish to follow the word of God but find themselves doing the opposite. Clearly, there is tension between the demands of two worlds, the material and the spiritual.

This tension is also suggested in the final verse of this section, which is introduced by the same question. Affirmation is contrasted with denial, and the imagery also presents opposites (rocks, desert, garden). Once again, the desire for faith and a righteous life—the pull of the spiritual—encounters the stubbornness of matter, which pulls in the opposite direction, thus showing the difficulty of focusing attention entirely on the “higher dream”—the divine truth to which the veiled sister points.

Part VI

The first three lines of Part VI repeat the beginning of Part I but with one important change: “Because I do not hope to turn again” of Part 1 becomes “Although I do not hope to turn again” in Part VI, which suggests that a qualification will follow, as indeed it does. Whereas in Part I, the speaker is dispirited and has little interest in the temporal realm of life, in Part VI his love of nature is readily apparent, as he begins to reveal in this expansive vision: “From the wide window towards the granite shore / The white sails still fly seaward, seaward flying / Unbroken wings” (Lines 8-10). He builds on this in the next verse, which begins, “And the lost heart stiffens and rejoices,” and he goes on to paint a scene of the alluring sights, sounds, and smells of the seashore. The “unbroken wings” and the “cry of quail and the whirling plover” (Line 16) contrast sharply with the metaphorical “agèd eagle” of Part I, who could not even be bothered to lift its wings.

However, within this evocation of a seemingly idyllic scene, Eliot’s speaker embeds a conflict within himself, which illustrates the tension between the material and the spiritual that was so apparent in Part V. Although he feels a love of nature rising within him, he regards this as a rebellion against his spiritual orientation (Line 13), and the line, “The empty forms between the ivory gates” (Line 18) makes clear that the sensual forms of nature, although beautiful and attractive, are not in themselves the truth which the enlightened soul must seek. In the classical literature of Greece and Rome, the gates of ivory referred to false dreams. Thus, in context here, nature’s beauty is false if it is mistaken for the ultimate essence of life. This is why Eliot’s speaker states in Line 20, “This is the time of tension between dying and birth.” He means that it is not easy to die to the small, individual, ego-bound self and be reborn into the larger, spiritual dimension that represents a higher truth.

In the final verse, the speaker prays directly to the veiled sister as the life-giving principle who can lead him and others beyond illusion to the truth: “Blessèd sister, holy mother, spirit of the fountain, spirit of the garden / Suffer us not to mock ourselves with falsehood” (Lines 25-26). The natural imagery is prefaced with the word “spirit” to make it clear that the Lady is the source and wellspring of a divine dimension of life that lies, so to speak, behind or beyond its manifestation in nature. He also repeats the plea of Part I, “Teach us to care and not to care / Teach us to sit still” (Lines 27-28), since the need of humankind has not changed, and cannot change, during the course of the poem.

This desire is simply stated in the two lines that follow, in which the speaker prays for a calm acceptance that whatever happens, as he continues to live within the hard opaqueness of matter, is an expression of the will of God: “Even among these rocks / Our peace in His will” (Lines 29-30). The poem concludes with the speaker’s earnest plea to his intercessor: “Suffer me not to be separated / And let my cry come unto Thee” (Lines 34-35).