Entry tags:
Twice Upon a Time (poetry)
The lines for this are from the beginning of The Waste Land, but they just struck me, so I thought what the hell, and created this. Not long. Short notes follow the images. Also I found this page, which is just wonderful. (Individual links follow relevant quotes.)
Companion piece to What the Thunder Said.
This seemed very fitting for Twelve, alone on the battlefield. Notes:
Eliot's Note:
23. Cf. Ecclesiastes XII, v.
Context:
Ecclesiastes 12:5, from the ESV translation of the Bible:
They are afraid also of what is high, and terrors are in the way; the almond tree blossoms, the grasshopper drags itself along, and desire fails, because man is going to his eternal home, and the mourners go about the streets—
(x)
It’s all about death and broken things (and the First World War), and beautifully summing up the Doctor sitting alone on the Western Front.
This one was obvious <3 I have generally associated Red Rock with Gallifrey, but since Gallifrey = home, then home = friends was just a short step away.
This could only be Clara - Clara who was always the guide for Twelve, but who here is also Testimony, giving Clara back to Twelve. It’s wonderfully circular, but presses home the point of something different from the death around him.
These two lines were too perfect not to use, and I don’t think I need to explain further...
But oh, this one was the clincher. Once I discovered what this line referred to, I had to use it… Notes:
“Nam Sibyllam quidem Cumis ego ipse oculis meis vidi
in ampulla pendere, et cum illi pueri dicerent: Σίβνλλα τί ϴέλεις; respondebat illa: άπο ϴανεΐν ϴέλω.”
Context:
From the Satyricon by Gaius Petronius. Eliot (1971) gives this translation:
I saw with my own eyes the Sibyl at Cumae hanging in a cage, and when the boys said to her: “Sibyl, what do you want?” she answered: “I want to die.”
The Satyricon tells of the misadventures of a former gladiator through the Roman Empire in the first century A.D. Only fragments of the story still exist. The scene Eliot quotes occurs during a feast at the villa of a wealthy buffoon named Trimalchio.
The Sibyl of Cumae was a prophetess in service to Apollo and a great beauty. Apollo wished to take her as his lover and offered her anything she desired. She asked to live for as many years as there were grains in a handful of dust. Apollo granted her wish, but still she refused to become his lover. In time, the sibyl came to regret her boon as she grew old but did not die. She lived for hundreds of years, each year becoming smaller and frailer, Apollo having given her long life but not eternal youth. When Trimalchio speaks of her in the Satyricon, she is little more than a tourist attraction, tiny, ancient, confined, and longing to die.
(x)
TWELVE: A life this long, do you understand what it is? It's a battlefield, like this one, and it's empty. Because everyone else has fallen.
ETA: Oh and![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
purplefringe posted her regeneration vid, which you should all go and watch:
If I Ever Leave This World Alive
summary: Wherever I am, you'll always be / More than just a memory
Companion piece to What the Thunder Said.
What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water. Only
This seemed very fitting for Twelve, alone on the battlefield. Notes:
Eliot's Note:
23. Cf. Ecclesiastes XII, v.
Context:
Ecclesiastes 12:5, from the ESV translation of the Bible:
They are afraid also of what is high, and terrors are in the way; the almond tree blossoms, the grasshopper drags itself along, and desire fails, because man is going to his eternal home, and the mourners go about the streets—
(x)
It’s all about death and broken things (and the First World War), and beautifully summing up the Doctor sitting alone on the Western Front.
There is shadow under this red rock,
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),
This one was obvious <3 I have generally associated Red Rock with Gallifrey, but since Gallifrey = home, then home = friends was just a short step away.
And I will show you something different from either
This could only be Clara - Clara who was always the guide for Twelve, but who here is also Testimony, giving Clara back to Twelve. It’s wonderfully circular, but presses home the point of something different from the death around him.
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
These two lines were too perfect not to use, and I don’t think I need to explain further...
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.
But oh, this one was the clincher. Once I discovered what this line referred to, I had to use it… Notes:
“Nam Sibyllam quidem Cumis ego ipse oculis meis vidi
in ampulla pendere, et cum illi pueri dicerent: Σίβνλλα τί ϴέλεις; respondebat illa: άπο ϴανεΐν ϴέλω.”
Context:
From the Satyricon by Gaius Petronius. Eliot (1971) gives this translation:
I saw with my own eyes the Sibyl at Cumae hanging in a cage, and when the boys said to her: “Sibyl, what do you want?” she answered: “I want to die.”
The Satyricon tells of the misadventures of a former gladiator through the Roman Empire in the first century A.D. Only fragments of the story still exist. The scene Eliot quotes occurs during a feast at the villa of a wealthy buffoon named Trimalchio.
The Sibyl of Cumae was a prophetess in service to Apollo and a great beauty. Apollo wished to take her as his lover and offered her anything she desired. She asked to live for as many years as there were grains in a handful of dust. Apollo granted her wish, but still she refused to become his lover. In time, the sibyl came to regret her boon as she grew old but did not die. She lived for hundreds of years, each year becoming smaller and frailer, Apollo having given her long life but not eternal youth. When Trimalchio speaks of her in the Satyricon, she is little more than a tourist attraction, tiny, ancient, confined, and longing to die.
(x)
TWELVE: A life this long, do you understand what it is? It's a battlefield, like this one, and it's empty. Because everyone else has fallen.
ETA: Oh and
purplefringe posted her regeneration vid, which you should all go and watch:If I Ever Leave This World Alive
summary: Wherever I am, you'll always be / More than just a memory