Garlic and Sapphires in the Mud
What could it possibly mean?
T. S. Eliot wrote four poems late in his life that were eventually combined into a composition called The Four Quartets.
A quartet is a musical piece involving four instruments or four singers, but it doesn’t have to be just musical. A quartet can be four of anything.
What did Eliot mean or imply by calling a group of four poems a quartet?
The simplest answer is that they are both related and stand alone.
They share common threads of thought and perhaps composition (after all, they all came out of one person), but they also were written at different times and therefore, under different circumstances.
In spite of all of this, he has some common themes that course through them all having to do with the characteristics of time and the meaning of life.
One of the unifying aspects of the four poems is that each one has as its title a particular location.
1. Burnt Norton (1935) – an old house in England that burned down.
2. East Coker (1940) – a village in England.
3. The Dry Salvages (1941) – a group of rocks off the coast of Massachusetts.
4. Little Gidding (1942) – another village in England, smaller than East Coker.
Why might this be significant?
These places are real.
They exist as places on this earth that were significant to Eliot for perhaps reasons only he might know. However, they are like places you remember, places significant to you in just the same way.
This then implies that everything within each poem that appears imaginary is still fastened to something tangible.
In other words, even though Eliot wants us to follow his words into certain ethereal ideas, he still wants all of this to apply back to our real worlds in some or many ways.
Last time I left you with a riddle — a line that comes from the Second Section (out of five) of Burnt Norton.
Section II begins with a 15 line poem written in Iambic tetrameter. This was a meter mostly assigned to writings found in ancient Greek and Latin poetry. (Eliot is playing with us – reminding us that all of this literature is not modern or current, but has it origins in the ancient past).
Here it is:
Garlic and sapphires in the mud Clot the bedded axle-tree. The trilling wire in the blood Sings below inveterate scars Appeasing long forgotten wars. The dance along the artery The circulation of the lymph Are figured in the drift of stars Ascend to summer in the tree We move above the moving tree In light upon the figured leaf And hear upon the sodden floor Below, the boarhound and the boar Pursue their pattern as before But reconciled among the stars.
In addition, this little poem within the bigger poem has a rhyme scheme:
A B A C C B D C B B D E E E C.
There are three periods, so this poem is grouped into three sentences.
1. Garlic and sapphires in the mud / Clot the bedded axle-tree. (Two lines)
2. The trilling wire in the blood / Sings below inveterate scars / Appeasing long forgotten wars. (Three lines)
3. The dance along the artery / The circulation of the lymph / Are figured in the drift of stars / Ascend to summer in the tree / We move above the moving tree / In light upon the figured leaf / And hear upon the sodden floor / Below, the boarhound and the boar / Pursue their pattern as before / But reconciled among the stars. (Ten lines)
So now, after all this, let’s look at the first sentence and call it a day.
Garlic and sapphires in the mud
Clot the bedded axle-tree.
An axle-tree is an axle on a cart or wagon made out of wood.
As the cart moves down paths in or after rain, mud will cake onto the wheels and axel. This is life – moving things here and there through the seasons. It’s a dirty process.
There are times in life when we can recall a good meal that contained the right amount of garlic.
Garlic has its place in life, but it is temporary.
Eventually the garlic will spoil and need to be thrown out.
Sapphires are precious gemstones that come in a variety of colors: blue, yellow, green, black, white, pink, purple, orange, grey, and brown. We prize them because they are beautiful and rare.
As garlic is – in a sense – when used appropriately – pleasing to the taste, sapphires are pleasing to the eye.
Both garlic and sapphires are valuable as long as we are within that time of life we can enjoy them.
They are of no value to young children and they are not appreciated by those with dementia.
This is Eliot reminding us that time is moving forward like a wagon pulled by a horse and that garlic and sapphires will at some point be as important to us as mud.
By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.
I'm having a little trouble understanding the form as you describe it in letters. I understand musical form using letters. Can you explain it further. Also I am in the process of studying this poem, I will look for other notes from you to assist. Thank you!