Journey of the Magi
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,
The very dead of winter.’
And the camels galled, sorefooted, 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 arriving at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you might say) satisfactory.
All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This 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.
TS Eliot
The Christmas season is now officially over. According to both popular custom and religious observance, the festive season came to an end on January 6, known to everyone as Twelfth Night, but less commonly called the Feast of the Epiphany. According to popular tradition, after that night all Christmas decorations are taken down, Christmas trees are dismantled, people stop greeting each other with “Merry Christmas!”, all carols, seasonal music, related festivities and a number of religious observances cease, and a few folk superstitions take effect (like what may happen if you don’t take down the decorations and if you do or do not stop doing certain things).
The Christmas festival is originally a religious one for Christians, celebrating the birth of Christ, but it has its origins in an amalgamation of several other festivals and pagan traditions during the first five centuries AD (Anno Domini – in the year of the Lord) and during the Middle Ages in Europe. All this richness of origin and cultural accumulation has helped to make Christmas the largest and most widely celebrated festival in the world, as well as a subject of infinitely interesting study.
Among these may be found the reasons for this tradition known as Twelfth Night and the season ending date of January 6. The matter is fairly complex, and even the accuracy of the date, January 6, has been called into question. It all begins with the meaning of twelfth night. Most people know Christmas as December 25. But according to the traditions developed in mediaeval times, there are 12 days of Christmas, and December 25 is only the first day. The festival is then celebrated on each of those 12 days until the 12th night, when it ceases.
This brings in the little dispute over dates, because if you count 12 nights starting with December 25 it might or might not take you to January 6, depending on how you count it. To make matters worse, in the mediaeval tradition, each day began on its eve – that is, the evening before. So, some people would start the day on Christmas Eve. Please note there is no attempt here to even approach any religious interpretations, because the 12 days and the 12 nights also have deep Christian significance.
The season, also called Yuletide, is famous and endlessly popular because of its feasting and drinking. Yet, even this is not to be taken lightly, because of the religious significance and what feasts mean to the faith. The season includes a series of feasts or feast days celebrated by Christians. Twelfth Night is the last of these and is known as the Feast of the Epiphany. The significance of this is very deeply tied to the Christian faith.
According to the story of the miraculous birth, the baby Jesus was visited by three Oriental kings – Wise Men from the East – celebrated as the Magi. They were foreigners with their own faiths and cultures, but they received intelligence of the birth and of its supreme importance to mankind. They therefore travelled the very long journey from their homelands to visit Jesus at the place of his birth. They each took gifts to honour and acknowledge him as one destined to be a very special king. They were convinced of this, and took back the revelation with them. It was therefore called the Epiphany because it was the manifestation to the Magi of Jesus Christ as the saviour. Twelve days after his birth he was publicly recognised and proclaimed. In that way Twelfth Night came to be the last feast day of Christmas.
“Journey of the Magi” written in 1927 by TS Eliot, the most influential poet of the twentieth century, is one of the great poems of modern verse. It is based on the story of the Magi, and is a dramatic narrative and commentary in the words and point of view of one of them. He recounts the experience of the journey made to Bethlehem and the effects it had on him long after his return home.
The poem is a well calculated balance of negatives and positives, disapprovals and indelible impressions, told with a mastery of understatement. Yet, it might be a very compelling statement of belief. The Magus seems to have had little joy in the journey and spares no detail about the hardships, and when he arrives at the birthplace, there is a prevailing sense that he was not convinced. He gives a suggestion of satisfaction with what he witnessed, but the consistency of his use of understatement brings it all into question. “It was, (you might say), satisfactory”; and “with the voices singing in our ears that this was all folly.”.
Yet the conviction that seems to underlie the final stanza of the poem reveals the profound change felt by the oriental king as he reflects on the journey. It seems to have made such an impression on him that he is now disenchanted with his kingdom and the old way of life. The distinct sense of unease resembles that expressed by Ulysses in Tennyson’s poem who becomes bored and restless after returning home, longing to go back to a life of adventure.
The poem manages half statements in such a way that the reader goes away with the pronounced impression that the Magus was converted, and that he has realised the importance of the birth after all. It has certainly wrung change and caused him to long for a new dispensation. Eliot also mixes up his Biblical references to confuse the nativity with the crucifixion in many places. But it is clear by the end of the poem that the Epiphany made a powerful impression on this king, and he believed, against his first impressions and tendency to doubt.
“Journey of the Magi” is a brilliantly constructed poem expressing the spirit of Christmas in a very strange, mirthless way. This is because of the character and mood of the poem’s narrator who was so negatively turned off by the winter’s journey that he resisted being taken in by the visit. Yet, in this tone chosen by Eliot he succeeded in a poetic dramatisation of the meaning of Epiphany.
