The Wasteland and the Sibyl of Cumae
by Bob on February 5, 2007
"The Wasteland" by T.S. Eliot has always been a favourite work of mine, amongst others. Eliot opens the work with a quote from "The Satyricon" by Petronius (section 48, if I remember correctly).
"Nam Sibyllam quidem Cumis ego ipse oculis meis vidi in ampulla pendere, et cum illi pueri dicerent: Sibulla, ti theleis; respondebat illa: apothanein thelo."
The basic idea which is so ironically compelling is that the Sibyl of Cumae asked for immortality but forgot to ask for her physical body and beauty to persist as such. She really didn't like that she looked very old and would continue to and wither after the bargain was made. So, as Petronius writes in his Satyricon, the boys went to vist her and she was hanging in a cage, and they asked her what was wrong. She answered simply: "I want to die".
Then Eliot moves right into "The Burial of the Dead", most certainly as a sequitur, which begins with the classic line fragment:
"April is the cruellest month, ..."
April is an amazing month. It comes from the Latin "to open", as with flowers and the like in Spring, but it also is the worst month for people having a blue mood, quite paradoxically, if we are to fully believe the medical research on the topic.