Journey of the Magi – T S Eliot

Journey of the Magi – T S Eliot

“A cold coming we had of it,

Just the worst time of the year

For a journey, and such a long journey:

The ways deep and the weather sharp,

They very dead of winter.”

And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,

Lying down in the melting snow.

There were times we regretted

The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,

And the silken girls bringing sherbet.

Then the camel men cursing and grumbling

And 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 unfriendly

And the villages dirty and charging high prices:

A hard time we had of it.

At the end we preferred to travel all night,

Sleeping in snatches,

With the voices singing in our ears, saying

That this was all folly.

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,

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 soon

Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.

All this was a long time ago, I remember,

And I would do it again, but set down

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 was

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

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.

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# Consider the Journey of the Magi as a spiritual quest.

Journey of Magi from the pen of T.S. Eliot described the journey to the birthplace of Christ, is not merely an ordinary physical journey, but also symbolic of the foils and troubles of the human soul in its spiritual quest.

The Magi were, according to the Bible, the three wise men of the East who came to honour the new-born Christ. They were later identified as Balthaza (king of Chaldea), Gasper (king of Ethopia) and Melchoir (king of Nubia)

One of the Magi, long after the event, gives an account of the journey for the listener. He begins with a factual account of the difficulties they had faced during the course of the journey. As Elizabeth Drew says “the experience is projected first in direct realistic terms; of bad weather and the practical details of hardships and antagonisms. There is mention of the dream or the star of the Gospel story.”

First there were the hindrances of nature, the cold, the bad roads, and the sore-footed camels “lying down in the melting snow”. Each is a vivid picture of delay or embarrassment or obstructions as:

            Then the camel men cursing and grumbling

            And 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 unfriendly

            And the villages dirty and charging high prices.

The narrator expresses no rebellion at all this. All he remembers is the faith that impelled them forward, the sense of urgency, which made them, quicken their pace, and which conquered not only the practical impediments and their own fatigue, but also their own doubts: as…

            The voice singing in our ears, saying

            That this was all folly.

The new way is different from the old summer and luxury and from the struggle through the darkness ‘sleeping in snatches’, of the cold winter journey.

In the second stanza the images are symbolic as well as realistic. The narrator continues to report faithfully the external details of the scene like:

At last they reached temporate valley. There is dawn and dampness and smell of growing things, ‘with a running stream and a watermill beating in the darkness’. The water and the mill are the vital forces, full of throbbing, driving life, denying the voices saying that this was folly. They symbolize the birth and the regeneration. The fertile valley and the trees and the old white horse galloping away in meadows and the vine-leaves over the door of a tavern, all speak of hope and freedom and fruitfulness. Then the trees symbolic of three crosses on Calvary where Christ was crucified along with two others, and the reminder of greed and treachery in the glimpse of the six hands at an open door dicing for pieces if silver. The end of the journey is satisfactory only in the sense that they reach their destinations, and further the prophecy of Christ’s birth has really come true.

The sight of the baby purified them. All their sins died as the wise men were reborn. So they wonder whether they had come there for their rebirth of death of their sins. It was both. This experience changed them, after their return they felt uncomfortable in the presence of the people following the old religion. They seemed to be aliens. They wished the old pagan religion would die.

Their journey symbolizes a spiritual and psychological transformation of the old (their old self, old religion, old ways life and thinking) into something new. It is symbolic of mental re-orientation, of the spiritual quest, necessary for the attainment, of the spiritual quest, necessary for the attainment of higher ad nobler values.

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