"Glad for Another Death" - A Wise Man's Take on Christmas
Thursday, December 29, 2011 at 12:56AM As we celebrate the Nativity in the flesh of Our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ, the words of one of T.S. Eliot’s poems “The Journey of the Magi” lead us into aspects of this great mystery which are often forgotten or ignored.
“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, 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 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 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."
I.
Eliot captures something both wonderful and shocking in this poem, avoiding the simplicity of the Hallmark Christmas cards. There is no “little Lord Jesus, no crying He makes.” Rather, Eliot links the coming of Christ, the Nativity of the God-man, to God’s ultimate confrontation with death. We see the three trees on the horizon (often interpreted as crucifixion imagery) and we see the money changing hands (invoking the betrayal of Judas). But we also confront death in the experience of the Wise Man who tells this story. He says they came for a birth, but they experienced a death. He says this death is his own experience of greeting the Christ Child.
One of the reasons this poem stands out to me is that when we look at the Church’s iconography for this feast, we see that it too is drawing us more fully into the mystery of the Incarnation by asking us to see this narrative of birth as tied directly to the Lord’s Life-giving Death and Resurrection. In the icon of the Nativity, we see already prefigured the cave in which Christ is buried on Holy Friday. In the swaddling clothes we already see the grave clothes described in the gospels. In many icons Christ lies in the manger, the food trough, prefiguring the gift of the Eucharist, his Life-giving Body and Blood, the anamnesis of his Death.
The pre-existent Son of God takes on our flesh and enters a world that is under the shadow of the great enemy of humanity: death. The Son of God assumes the flesh of humanity, a flesh that to us bespeaks temporality, corruption and disintegration. The One who is Life enters into the place of the dry bones, which Eliot (earlier in his career) famously called The Wasteland. Son of Man, will these bones live? “O Lord,” says the prophet, “You know.”
But “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” As is so clear in our reading of the account of the Dry Bones in Ezekiel on Holy Saturday, it is through Our Lord’s Death, Burial and Resurrection that the Dry Bones—the whole House of Israel, that is, the whole broken human family and indeed, the whole creation—are brought to life again. And this is when we know that God, our God, is the Lord—when He raises the dead to life!
And, though it seems paradoxical, this is what we celebrate in the Nativity. He Who is Life has entered our life. He Who is Life has assumed into his person all that it means to be human. He Who is Life has conquered death and corruption. He has sanctified the created world, and He has brought the dry bones together, bringing the human person to life again in Himself.
So the death of the God-Man is prefigured and assumed in the Nativity as the Wise Man from the poem says.
II.
But there are two more deaths in the poem, the death of the old self and the physical death that still awaits the Wise Man. Implicit in the birth they have witnessed is the simple message of the Gospel: the Magi must die to themselves, they must repent, they must change their minds. “Those who worship the stars are taught by a star to adore You the Son of Righteousness.” This death alienates them from their old life. They cannot go on living as they once had. They cannot return to Persia in the same manner they left. They have died to self, and they are new men. So much so that they feel like strangers in the old world. They feel like refugees who have not found a home in this world. And this leads the Wise Man to say a very enigmatical thing: “I should be glad of another death.” Though this can be read a few ways, the Wise Man seems to be saying that his true home, his new life, is in Christ Himself and he awaits translation from life to life when his physical death will lead to the fullness of his life in Christ. Or in the words of St. Paul, “For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.”
Make no mistake, the Nativity is not just an archetypal vision of birth as the Renaissance has tried to make it. It is not the cutesy stuff of children’s books. The birth of the Son of God from the Virgin is the sign of God’s ultimate confrontation with sin and death. He has come to call all of us, we who have sat in darkness, to Life in Him. We are invited to put off the old life, to be grafted onto this New Life in Christ. This radical, and literally “earth shattering” reality is the Mystery of the Incarnation we are called to enter.
Like the Wise Man, it is our calling to follow that path to a death which is in fact a birth—being born again through water and the Spirit into the glorious life of the Incarnate Son of God. Can we say with the Wise Man that we would be “glad for another death”?
Reader Comments (23)
This is wonderful, and such a realistic and heartening vision for the New Year. Thank you!
I think The Journey of The Magi is a very good poem. I especially like the theme of redemption/realization that runs through the whole poem in that the wise men initially believe that their journey is folly but ultimately discover spiritual redemption and truth. This theme shows that while the wise men undergo a physical journey they also undergo a spiritual journey.
I love hearing Handel's "Messiah" around Christmas for this very reason--it links the birth of our Lord Jesus to his ultimate purpose here: to redeem us all from the curse of death. The perspective of the Wise Man is not one often visited, though it gives wonderful insight into the Advent season. There is anticipation in darkness and sin; the birth of Christ; and a new, deeper understanding of Christ's purpose for each individual. "The Journey of the Magi" reflects each of these aspects of Advent, bringing a fresh new perspective from the Wise Man.
Interesting read. I very much liked the theme of cold weather and colder people. Christmas is celebrated in the darkest and coldest part of the year. People tend to become unhappy when living in darkness. I like how the wise men's journey is a disappointment until the end. It gives me the impression of a light shining in the darkness. It goes quite nicely with the Christmas lights that are literally shining in the darkness.
'The Journey of the Magi' was a great way to start. It is a beautiful poem, and it does a nice job of introducing your points.
This piece of writing made me look at the story of the birth of Christ in a new way. The part that really made me think was the quote “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” By reading this quote and paragraph ("[...] the whole broken human family and indeed, the whole creation—are brought to life again."), I am finally starting to understand more indepth about the birth and death of Christ and what they really mean.
I am certainly am not an expert in the geology, or more appropriately, biosystems of the middle east, But would there really have been snow on the ground
"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, sore-footed, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow."
I was under the impression that winters were slightly more mild that close to the equator? Could someone fill me in? I do realize that they said they crested a mountain and dipped beneath the snow line. Barring that, why would wise men (three or otherwise) take a cammel train across mountains? Is Bethlehem in a mountainous region?
On a different note, "The birth of the Son of God from the Virgin is the sign of God’s ultimate confrontation with sin and death" -Mr. Westrate, last paragraph-
Is his birth "the sign" of the ultimate confrontation. I will be the first to admit it is a powerfull step, not the begining in the cosmic fight, but is the really the "ultimate?"
@ Caleb
I was thinking about the weather as well as I was reading the poem... If Mr. Westrate could explain then I would be very appreciative.
@ All
I love this poem because of the way it comes to the Nativity story. The Magi didn't float across the land: they struggled through it. The people weren't all perfect just because Christ was about to be born, either. Instead the men curse and grumble, the towns are unfriendly, or to put it another way, man needs a Savior. It's another side of the story that we don't see often.
About the last line though "I should be glad of another dead": I read it it as the Magi is looking forward to the death of Christ at the cross. Is there any truth in that?
"Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,"
It's interesting how Eliot ties Birth up with death. Christmas is supposed to be happy but there is a sad side. It made me think of the death of all the babies that Herod had killed as well as the death of Jesus. It takes a lot of the joy out of Christmas when you think about the downside of the Birth, but the joy comes back on Easter when we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus the Son.
"He Who is Life has entered our life" (Mr. Westrate). This poem is so powerful because above all of our other Holiday activities, this is a time to renew ourselves. Christmas is not unlike Easter in many ways and this poem is great in clearly showing how closely birth and death are related. It reminds us what Christmas is really about.
T.S. Eliot brings up fascinating imagery in this poem, things that I have never called to mind when I think about Christmas. I had never thought about the journey of the magi in the terms that Eliot puts it in. He brings out a gritty realism, of the troubles and bad weather and discomfort ("death" as the wise-man puts it) they had to brave in order to visit Christ in Bethlehem. These lines really struck me:
"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."
In the typical nativity story, the magi are depicted as ethereal princes with fine, gilt robes, etc. Eliot infuses his verses with a strong tone that indicates the humanity of the Wise-Men, and the comforts that they are somewhat regretfully leaving behind.
I was very intrigued by the ending of the poem. I definitely agree with the ideas expressed in "part 2" of the interpretation. The idea of being "glad for another death" really showed how much the experience of meeting the Newborn King changed the three wise-men. They came groaning on their camels through hardship, and soon found that despite that hardship and the "dying to self", they would have done it again in a heart-beat. It so changed the wise-men that, as you note in "part 2", they have become "new men". They do not find their place anymore amongst the idol-worshipers. The way Eliot writes this in this poem was very interesting.
"Birth or Death? [...] this Birth was Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death."
I like how Eliot connect Birth to Death, or new life, in this poem, it creates a deeper meaning then just the cute little nativity scene we're so used to. I also like how Eliot shows the harsh reality of that that night when he says, " The camels galled, sore-footed, refractory, Lying down in the melting snow," or when he talks about the towns they went to, "the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly And the villages dirty and charging high prices." These descriptions make that night more real, for me at least.
The poem really gives us a new twist on the typical vision of the journey, birth, and significance of it all. Showing more of the struggle than the joy. I read "The cold coming" as not the weather, but the the negativity of the people. This is a great way to start off the poem. The journey and birth are sometimes described negatively, but it is not as common that the meaning behind it is. I found it very interesting the way that Eliot interpreted that. How he compared the birth (In our minds, a positive event) to death (what we think of as a negative event). Giving us a new way to look at the story. Making us think about a story we have always known, in a different light. Making us even interrupt his previous words differently.
Firstly, I love how this poem and essay channels The Wasteland and The Brothers Karamazov.
As this essay shows, the birth of Christ is not just a picturesque moment, but an “earth shattering” time and the founding of a new kingdom. While it does deserve to be celebrated as an event that offers hope and redemption, it is also a solemn time as it necessitates death for all those who wish to live – including Christ. Through this death, however, the promise of life is offered. I loved the imagery of the valley of the dry bones, because it so accurately depicts the state of humanity and the life from complete decay. Christ is the firstborn of this death and new life. This life is not simply received after our physical death, but firstly, it comes after our spiritual death as the wise man faced.
The solemnity of Christ’s birth is also captured in the last line of the essay: “Can we say with the Wise Man that we would be ‘glad for another death’?” Christ is the firstborn alien on earth and his birth is calling to all humanity to accept this death and live as aliens on this earth, awaiting his kingdom. Christmas should be a time to reflect on whether we are answering this call, or just living comfortably in the lives we lead here.
Great poem and essay.
These are all excellent and thoughtful comments. I so appreciate your willingness to delve into the poem. I'm pleased that all of these responses interact with Eliot or with me and that you are wrestling with the meaning of Christmas in this blessed season. I'm hoping too that the reality that this birth is tied to God's confrontation with death in the person of Jesus is also cause for great joy. Solemn, yes, but filled with joy.
Regarding the geography and the winter imagery, some tradition has the Magi coming from Persia. The Persian empire covered a huge swath of geography from the Middle East to what is now India and, given how we generalize about geography, we are unsure about their origin. That said, snow and cold in the mountains certainly affect parts of that geography and could be intentionally referenced. On the other hand, you Eliot experts know that he never tells the story from the literalist slant. The Wasteland is full of examples of mixing stories and myths, taking what he likes and leaving what he doesn't. I like the idea of some students (above) that we are talking about a different sort of coldness (at least on one level).
["The birth of the Son of God from the Virgin is the sign of God’s ultimate confrontation with sin and death" -Mr. Westrate, last paragraph-
Is his birth "the sign" of the ultimate confrontation. I will be the first to admit it is a powerfull step, not the begining in the cosmic fight, but is the really the "ultimate?"]
Caleb, in thinking about the Prologue to John's Gospel ("the Word became flesh") and in considering John's vision of the redemption in general, I remain committed to this emphasis on the Incarnation. The confrontation with death (and sin) is wrought in the very flesh of the God-man. I don't see God becoming man as simply a step towards the final confrontation but the beginning of that confrontation itself. Hence, the imagery of Herod and the Holy Innocents in Matthew's Gospel (referenced by Jack above).
T. S. Eliot's poem "The Journey of the Magi” is a profound piece of art. It brings the true meaning behind Christ's birth back into the front of ones mind. The meaning that Jesus the Son of God had been born to die. The magi are witness to the death of Death (or at least the beginning of the short process). That Christ's own birth and death saves us from the ultimate death or our eternity in Hell. The other death that the magi experience when they bear witness to that miraculous birth is a spiritual one. Where they must die to themselves and reject their past sinful life. where their souls are renewed by the blood that He sheds. When the magi says
"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. ...
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation, ...
I should be glad of another death."
they are welcoming a third death that all of us must experience. Merely our physical death of our poor mortal body, but He gives us hope that we may receive the greater, pure form that is clean of the sin if we believe in Him. T. S. Eliot does a wonderful job of bringing our minds back to the cruel reality that we are all sinful creatures and need His blood to save our poor wrenched souls. The difficulty accepting our need to reject those sins and strive for perfection, but ultimately we must give up our power over our souls and hand it to God
In the first section I see a prominent theme in the difficulty of the trip. I see real men here, not perfect men. They have flaws too -
"Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,"
Elliot's simplistic, yet strong language here confirms the notion that these men were raw people. Just as all of my fellow classmates have said it brings a new light and angle to Christmas and the journey of the Magi. I especially agree with Tim Adams here. People think the Magi just moseyed to their destination when, in reality, it was a hard and difficult journey, sought with danger from the unforgiving land. Furthermore, the Magi (to my knowledge) were not well versed in long distance traveling, making the trip that much harder.
As for Mr. Westrate's interpretation I though it was very insightful. I especially loved paragraph four in section 1. I was very intrigued by the dry bone parallel between this, The Waste Land, and Ezekiel.
"And I would do it again..."
I liked this line in the most in poem. It lets the reader understand that though the magi dealt with horrible situations and hardships they would still do it to see the promise that God sent. I think it is very interesting that T. S. Eliot choose to focus on the realism of the period and how the people would have acted rather then stay within the box that people labeled "The Coming of Christ". Not only is this poem insightful around the Christmas holiday, but also it can be used for everyday encouragement. The magi's struggling on their way to Christ is a perfect reflexion on our own journey to Christ. The magi do not lie and say the road they took was easy, but it was worth it to see Christ. "And I would do it again..." Just as Christians should always remind ourselves of Christ birth and death.
Well, a lot of what I thought while reading has already been said, but here's my opinion:
“Rather, Eliot links the coming of Christ, the Nativity of the God-man, to God’s ultimate confrontation with death. We see the three trees on the horizon (often interpreted as crucifixion imagery) and we see the money changing hands (invoking the betrayal of Judas).”
I love how the double imagery represents two opposites—birth and death—that are also, in the long run, both good. The reference to The Waste Land reflects this theme as well, that there is similarity within the contrast because of what Christ did. He is the “light shining in the darkness,” like David Herbawi said.
Also, I would just like to say that these comments are such a nice change from the usual on many websites. Thank you everyone, for being polite and analytical and actually having something to say. :)
Thank you Katie for saying what I was just thinking: "I would just like to say that these comments are such a nice change from the usual on many websites. Thank you everyone, for being polite and analytical and actually having something to say."
A wonderful OP and great comments besides.
A datapoint for followup: Bach's Christmas Oratorio (which is actually six short cantatas) begins and ends with the traditional "Passion Chorale" hymn, which you may know as "O Sacred Head Sore Wounded." Bach thus makes explicit what is expressed above: Christ's Nativity is the first act in Christ's eventual Passion. Praise to God for this glorious Gospel.
Mark Dirksen (friend of Ian Drummond)
Thank you Mark. This is a wonderful addition to our conversation. Amen!
I enjoyed reading this poem. It's much easier to understand than the Wasteland and other poems I have read by T.S. Eliot. It is very lucid and clear than the others, which were more broken up and harder to follow. I like how it focuses on the Magi's journey and where they came from, rather than just on their relationship with Jesus and what happened when they got to him. I agree with what Savannah said about it being very encouraging. It shows how difficult the journey was, but they continued anyway and in the end, the reward was greater than the sacrifices.