Long Forgotten Wars
A description of man’s folly.
As we left off last time, we were analyzing a little poem tucked into the bigger poem Burnt Norton.
It is as if T. S. Eliot inserts this as something coming out of the past, when iambic tetrameter in poetry was a thing – that would be in ancient Greek and Latin works. This is not to say its words sound old at all. In fact, the words, though simple, are used sometimes in odd ways. This is something this poet likes to do.
Here again is the 15 line poem.
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.
As stated yesterday, it breaks into three sentences.
Sentence 1 is two lines.
Sentence 2 is three lines.
And sentence 3 is ten lines.
Today, let’s tackle Sentence 2.
The trilling wire in the blood / Sings below inveterate scars / Appeasing long forgotten wars.
Like sentence 1, the subject of these words is not directly mentioned. Eliot is talking about human beings because humanity comprises the only animals who fight so many wars they can’t recall them all.
He begins in the first line to describe blood, but not static blood – like a blood clot. [As an aside, note the word clot is used in sentence 1 to describe mud clots bedded to, or sticking in layers to, an axle made of wood.]
The blood in sentence two is pulsing (indicating life) like a trilling wire. Trilling is a technique in music where two notes a repeatedly played quickly to creating a fluttering sound. This vibration within the artery is not seen, or even heard, but felt through the skin — but the skin Eliot describes is healed injured tissue.
It has repaired itself leaving scars – not one, but many.
These scars are, according to Eliot, inveterate.
If we say something is inveterate, we are saying it is deep-rooted, deep seated, ingrained, or entrenched. It is not going to change anytime soon. This indicates that these scars have been building over time because the one who is receiving them will not change his ways.
It is as if these scars are coming by choice not chance.
The punch line of the sentence comes last.
Appeasing long forgotten wars.
When we appease someone, we are trying to make peace with him or her by giving in. In this case, soldiers are appeasing wars – so many wars in fact, they have been long forgotten.
The one with the scars doesn’t remember where specific ones came from, or humanity’s scars are coming out of conflicts long forgotten. Both ideas work and the problem is the same.
We, as a species, are hell-bent on war, and we are willing to accept the scars, at least the scars in others.
So, what has Eliot done to disturb us through these three lines?
I believe he has created a description of man that is true and unflattering.
We inflict and receive scars through conflicts without remembering anything that might help us learn to change and avoid them in the future.
We are war addicts allowing the destruction of ourselves and others simply because we will not seek to learn from our mistakes and the mistakes of the past.
The problem runs deep. It is embedded in the trilling wire of our blood.
