THOMAS STEARNS ELIOT (1888-1965)
THE HIPPOPOTAMUS
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Original Text: T. S. Eliot, Poems (New York:
Alfred A. Knopf, 1920): 27-28. E546 A753 1920a Fisher Rare Book Library.
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First Publication Date: Little Review 4.3 (July
1917): 8-11.
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Representative Poetry On-line: Editor, I. Lancashire;
Publisher, Web Development Group, Inf. Tech. Services, Univ. of Toronto
Lib.
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Edition: RPO 1998. © I. Lancashire, Dept.
of English (Univ. of Toronto), and Univ. of Toronto Press 1998.
In-text Notes are keyed to line numbers.
Similiter et omnes revereantur Diaconos, ut mandatum Jesu
Christi; et Episcopum, ut Jesum Christum, existentem filium Patris; Presbyteros
autem, ut concilium Dei et conjunctionem Apostolorum. Sine his Ecclesia
non vocatur; de quibus suadeo vos sic habeo.
S. IGNATII AD TRALLIANOS
And when this epistle is read among you, cause that it be
read
also in the church of the Laodiceans.
1The broad-backed hippopotamus
2 Rests on his belly in the mud;
3 Although he seems so firm to us
4 He is merely flesh and blood.
5 Flesh-and-blood is weak and frail,
6 Susceptible to nervous shock;
7 While the True Church can never fail
8 For it is based upon a
rock.
9 The hippo's feeble steps may err
10 In compassing material ends,
11 While the True Church need never stir
12 To gather in its dividends.
13 The 'potamus can never reach
14 The mango on the mango-tree;
15 But fruits of pomegranate and peach
16 Refresh the Church from over sea.
17 At mating time the hippo's voice
18 Betrays inflexions hoarse and odd,
19 But every week we hear rejoice
20 The Church, at being one with God.
21 The hippopotamus's day
22 Is passed in sleep; at night he hunts;
23 God works in a mysterious way --
24 The Church can sleep and feed at once.
25 I saw the 'potamus take wing
26 Ascending from the damp savannas,
27 And quiring angels round him sing
28 The praise of God, in loud hosannas.
29 Blood of the Lamb shall wash
him clean
30 And him shall heavenly arms enfold,
31 Among the saints he shall be seen
32 Performing on a harp of gold.
33 He shall be washed as white
as snow,
34 By all the martyr'd virgins kist,
35 While the True Church remains below
36 Wrapt in the old miasmal mist.
NOTES
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Composition Date:
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1917.
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Form:
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abab.
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1.
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Eliot's amusing homage to Théophile Gautier's "L'Hippopotame": L'hippopotame
au large ventre
Habite aux Jungles de Java,
Où grondent, au fond de chaque antre,
Plus de monstres qu-on n'en rêva.
Le boa se déroule et siffle,
Le tigre fait son hurlement,
Le buffle en colère renifle,
Lui dort ou paît tranquillement.
Il ne craint ni kriss ni zagaies,
Il regarde l'homme sans fuir,
Et rit des balles de cipayes
Qui rebondissent sur son cuir.
Je suis comme l'hippopotame:
De ma conviction couvert,
Forte armure que rien n'entame,
Je vais sans peur par le désert.
(Poésies Complètes, ed. René Jasinki [Paris:
A. G. Nizet, 1970], II, 207).
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The first epigraph belongs to St. Ignatius of Antioch (died ca. 110), one
of the early fathers of the church who defined doctrine and heresy. Eliot
quotes from his epistle to the Turkish city of Tralles. See "Ignatius to
the Trallians," III.1-2, in The Apostolic Fathers, with a translation
by Kirsopp Lake (London: William Heinemann, 1919), I, 215:
Likewise let all respect the deacons as Jesus Christ, even
as the bishop is also a type of the Father, and the presbyters as the Council
of God and the college of Apostles. Without these the name of "Church"
is not given. I am confident that you accept this.
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The second epigraph comes from Colossians 4.16, where Paul urges the churches
in Laodicea to read his address aloud in public.
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Eliot read this poem -- "some light satirical stuff" (as he wrote his mother
on Dec. 22, 1917) -- at a charitable benefit for the rich that month in
the home of Sybil Colefax, well-known in London's society. Valerie Eliot
also notes that one of those attending, the novelist Arnold Bennett, wrote
in his journal, "Had I been the house, this would have brought the house
down" (The Letters of T. S. Eliot, ed. Valerie Eliot, Vol. 1: 1898-1922
[London: Faber and Faber, 1988]: 212-13).
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B. C. Southam suggests that Eliot saw a private joke here. He started as
a banker's clerk at Lloyd's in March 1917, "an event he signified here
through an allusion to one of the Songs in Sylvie and Bruno (1889),
the novel by Lewis Carroll: `He thought he saw a Banker's Clerk / Descending
from the bus: / He looked again, and found it was / A Hippopotamus: "If
this should stay to dine," he said, / "There won't be much for us!"'" (A
Guide to The Selected Poems of T. S. Eliot, 6th edn. [San Diego: Harcourt
Brace, 1994]: 106).
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8.
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Jesus told Peter that he would build his church "upon this rock," that
is, on Peter himself, whose name descends from the word "rock" in Latin
(Matthew 16.8).
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23.
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The first line of a famous hymn by William Cowper (1731-1800).
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27.
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quiring: forming themselves in choirs or singing orders.
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28.
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hosannas: Hebrew expression for "pray, save us" and adopted in English
to mean a worshipper's cry of praise and love for God.
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29.
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Jesus, believed to be the son of God and sent on earth as a human being
to take upon himself the punishment God meted out to Adam, Eve, and all
their children for original sin. Jesus' blood, in the form of the communion
wine, permits Christians to benefit from this redemptive "satisfaction"
for God's justice. Jesus is called a lamb because his New Testament life
and death was believed to have been prefigured by God's sending of a ram
(a male sheep) for Abraham to sacrifice instead of his son Isaac.
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33.
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Cf. Psalms 51.7: "wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow."
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34.
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kist: kissed (an archaic form).
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36.
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miasmal: sickening or polluting (perhaps a reference to London's notorious
smoke-fog).
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