Magi

-2851(<2)7+(0$*, 4XHVWLRQ:KDWPDNHVWKH0DJLVD\ ,VKRXOGEHJODGRIDQRWKHUGHDWK " 'LVFXVV Answer: 'The Journey of the Magi' is the monologue of a man who has made his own choice.He has achieved faith in the incarnation, but is still a part of the life that the Redeemer had come to sweep away. He is finding it difficult to break loose from the past and feels oppressed by his death like-life. The Journey of the Magi is an important event in the Bible. The Magi were the three wise men of the East. Having seen a star shining unusually bright in the sky, believed it to be the indication of the Birth of Christ. They followed it and traveled to Bethlehem to see the newborn child. "A cold coming we had of it, just the worst time of the year. For a journey, and such a long journey:" They faced great difficulties and suffered the hazards of the cold weather. The ways were deep and unknown and the weather raw and biting. The days were short, with the sun being farthest off, but because the Son of God had arrived, the Magi undertook the arduous journey in the cold and frosty winter. There were times when they regretted having taken up this journey, especially when their camels suffered from sore-footedness and refused to walk further. The camel-men deserted them to return to their wine and women. They faced extreme cold with the night-fires getting extinguished and had no shelters to protect them. The people of the towns and cities they travelled through, remained hostile and charged high prices. At the end they decided to travel all night, 'Sleeping in snatches, With the voices singing in our ears, saying That this was all folly.' They wondered at the wisdom of having left the comfort of their summer palaces and attendant silk-robed girls with cool drinks. But as the Magi neared their destination, they witnessed a change in the vegetation and climate. Certain images present themselves charged with symbolism. The vegetation and the running stream signify fertility. The mill beating the darkness symbolises the extinction and renewal of life. In fact, the poem is an indirect reference to Eliot's own conversion to the Roman Catholic faith. The poet describes his own experience of conversion in terms of the spiritual experience undergone by the Magi. Eliot's problem was to find emotional correlatives to experiences. He in deep conflict, probably arising from his turn towards Catholic Christianity, and seeing uncatholic attitudes around him. Harmony and lack of it, concord and discord, life and death,

make the poet stand and muse alone as the Magus. In this mood as the Magus, he integrates his emotions into a general mood of acceptance and begins his journey once again. The dawn has to come and it does. The water-mill is a vital, throbbing forces that deny that this journey was a folly. New life will be generated. Soon the dead ghosts of history come to life. The images are charged with emotion and fine anticipatory symbolism of 'three trees on a low sky', a portent of the Crucifixion of Christ at Calvary with the two sinners is presented. Along with it, the evocative image of 'an old white horse' symbolising the Second Coming of Christ, introduces one of the simplest and most pregnant passages in all of his work. The time had come for a complete heart-searching and they move on attracted by the omens. '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.' Here are allusions to the communion, to the paschal lamb whose blood was smeared on the lintels of Israel, — to the betrayal of Judas — his blood money and the six hands of Judas, Pilate and Caiphas — to the degradation suffered by Christ before the crucifixion, to the soldiers casting lots at the foot of the cross, and perhaps to the pilgrims at the open tomb in the garden. There are signs of drunken materialism. There can be no information of the saviour at this place. Slowly these elements of the material Universe begin to die and the Magi reach their destination. 'And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon. Finding the place: it was (you may say) satisfactory.' Prophecy has brought the Magi to the end of their exploration, but the birth of Christ, without and the birth of feelings of acceptance, within, puzzles and bewilders them. 'Where we led all the way for Birth or Death?' The arrival remains a 'satisfactory' experience only. The narrator has seen a Birth and yet he does not fully understand it. He accepts the fact of the Birth but is perplexed by its similarity to a Death, and to a death that he has seen before. The nature of the poem implies certain reflective and contemplative harmony. The shadow of reverie is present. These questions face them- were they led there for Birth or for Death or perhaps for neither or to make a choice between Birth and Death? AND, whose Birth and Death was it? THEIR' OWN, OR ANOTHER'S? Uncertainty leaves them mystified and uncomprehending of the full splendour of the strange epiphany. So, he and his fellow travellers return to their own kingdoms where, '...no longer at ease, in the old dispensation, with an alien people clutching their gods. These gods have now become alien'. The Magi linger, not yet free

to receive 'The dispensation of the grace of God.' The speaker has reached the end of one world, but despite his acceptance of the revelation as valid, he cannot gaze into a world beyond his own. The reader is aware that, without contradiction, the birth of the new-priest-king means the end of 'the old dispensation' — an entirely new world order — as 'this Birth was hard bitter agony for us, like Death, our death'. The symbols evaporate to be replaced by the 'Christian mystery'. They find that they get involved in a meaning beyond their actual experience. The Magus is baffled by the contradictions of Birth and Death, and is left wanting to die, and says 'I should be glad of another death'. It is a reminder that death is the price of rebirth. It is also important to realise that death and rebirth are related. Death is a symbolic mental reorientation for the attainment of nobler values. Spiritual salvation is not easy. The way is best with torturous difficulties. A number of Birth and Deaths are essential before Salvation. Oppressed by a sense of death-in-life, the Magus is content to submit to another death for his deliverance from the world of desires and 'silken girls'. It is not that the Birth, which is also Death, has brought him hope of a new life, but that it has revealed to him the hopelessness of the previous life. He is resigned rather than joyous, absorbed in the negation of his former existence, but not yet physically liberated from it. He puts behind him both, the life of the senses and the affirmative symbol of the Child. He has reached the state of desiring nothing, though his negation is partly ignorant, for he does not understand in what way the Birth in a Death. He is not aware of the Sacrifice of God, instead he becomes the sacrifice. This humble, negative stage in mystical progress is a prerequisite to union. All this is being experienced and spoken long after the journey. 'All this was a long time ago, I remember, And I would do it again.' He is overcome emotionally, spiritually and mystically, and in this overcharged state he says, "I should be glad of another death"

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