21 pages • 42 minutes read
T. S. EliotJourney of the Magi
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1927A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Birth and Death
The Magi made their difficult journey to celebrate and honor a birth. When he recalls the event, however, the Magus, while clearly recognizing the significance of the birth, also links it to death. The two words have a special importance, since Eliot capitalizes them both (Lines 36, 38, 39) each time they appear in the third stanza. The Western reader, long accustomed to the Christian story, will likely think in this context of the birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ that inaugurated a new era in the history of the world. However, although the death of Christ is foreshadowed in the poem by the presence of the “three trees on the low sky” (Line 24), this is not what the Magus is referring to. Instead, Death means something else to him and the other Magi. It refers not to Christ’s saving death, of which he makes no mention, but “our death” (Line 39). The Magi’s experience was like death, because even though they acknowledged the significance of the newborn child and thus became part of what was known as the new dispensation—the Christian era—when they returned home, they found themselves isolated from their community and even from a previous version of themselves.
The Magi no longer fit in their own societies because their people knew nothing of the new faith. For those people, nothing had changed, so they still adhered to their traditional gods. A chasm had opened up, the link broken between the Magi and their people, whom they now regarded as “alien” (Line 42). This is why the Magus refers to the Birth as also a Death. The “hard and bitter agony” (Line 39) is not that of Jesus on the cross, which is what that phrase might conjure up for the Christian reader. It is the experience of the Magi themselves. As a result of what they had witnessed in Bethlehem, the Magi wrenched themselves away from all their former beliefs, only to find themselves living as strangers in their own land. This experience is so disturbing to them that only the word death seems an appropriate description.
The Requirements and the Cost of Spiritual Rebirth
The Magi are depicted in the poem as tough, resolute characters. They have decided on a long and hard journey, and they are determined to complete it, even though almost nothing goes right. The weather is very cold, and the terrain is difficult. The camels become incapacitated or difficult to manage, and the camel men do not take their responsibilities seriously. Nobody in the towns or villages welcomes them; indeed, the cities are “hostile” (Line 14), the towns “unfriendly” (Line 14), and the villages “dirty and charging high prices” (Lines 15). It is a travelers’ tale of woe. Even when they decide to camp at night, the fires keep going out, which leads them to travel at night instead.
Eliot’s ironic Modernist stance is apparent here. Traditionally, the three wise men traveled at night because they were guided by the star in the East that indicated the coming birth. In this poem, however, they travel at night not because of any star but because they cannot keep a fire going in the cold, accommodations are scarce, and the locals unfriendly. There is perhaps also an echo here of the difficulties endured by Joseph and Mary, who could not find lodging at an inn and ended up in a stable. Nothing in their journey was easy, either.
All these troublesome details symbolize the difficulty of change. Spiritual renewal does not come easily. There is a price to pay. It is not for the weak or those who want an easy life. Even when the Magi draw closer to their destination (in Stanza 2), they still struggle to orient themselves in their new environment. They stop at a tavern, “But there was no information” (Line 29), so they just continue on their way, presumably hoping that they have got it right. They arrive “not a moment too soon” (Line 30). Eliot may have had Lancelot Andrewes’s 17th-century sermon in mind here again. Andrewes said, “Here—as poor and unlikely a birth as could be, ever to prove a King. No sight to comfort them, nor a word for which they any wit the wiser; nothing worth their travel” (Andrewes, emphasis added).
In these two stanzas, then, Eliot emphasizes the determination of the Magi. They may complain, but they keep going. They are on a mission, and they are not about to delay or give up. They are prepared to act on what they know. Nothing in Eliot’s poem explicitly criticizes the modern Christian, but for the reader, the poem serves as a reminder of the arduous nature of the spiritual quest, encouraging them not to be put off by difficulties and not to give in to doubt.
Knowledge Incomplete: The Unresolved Questions
In the third stanza, the Magus asks a question: “were we led all that way for / Birth or Death?” (Lines 35-36). This is not a rhetorical question. He asks it because he has not been able to answer it for himself, but it still troubles him and he would like to know the answer. So would the reader. Something is odd about the extent of the Magus’s longstanding distress, his “hard and bitter agony” (Line 39). He was fortunate enough to see the infant Jesus and embrace a new faith, but then, it seems, something went wrong that blighted his life, which became like death for him. Was this only because his own people remained “clutching their gods” (Line 42), as he puts it, ignorant of the new dispensation? Or was there something that he himself had not understood about the requirements of that dispensation? Did he return from Bethlehem with his knowledge incomplete and fail to develop and live according to it?
The Magus’s statement that his life was like death to him (and he includes the other Magi in this pronouncement) is notable as much for what it leaves out as for what it says. Did he speak out about his faith and meet only with misunderstanding, or did he keep his faith to himself? Did he face active hostility, or is he wearied because he despairs of his own people? Whatever the truth, his life since he returned from viewing the cradle in Bethlehem seems to have been more of a void than a revelation. The fact that he now longs for death, or at the very least is resigned to it, is hardly an ideal advertisement for the new religion. It seems like a surprising attitude for a Magus, a wise man—and a privileged wise man at that, since he was there when it all began—to adopt.
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By T. S. Eliot
