by Eliot · Cluster: Terror and Horror · Madness
Abstract
Snarling dramatic lyric of an old man as a caged tiger: wit, blood, the golden eye, madness; age, bitterness and self-knowledge.
Connections
Motifs: Animals, Blood, Madness (2) Themes & Concepts: Self-Knowledge, Madness Forms & Genres: Lyric
Testo integrale / Full text
Lines for an Old Man
The tiger in the tiger-pit
Is not more irritable than I.
The whipping tail is not more still
Than when I smell the enemy
Writhing in the essential blood
Or dangling from the friendly tree.
When I lay bare the tooth of wit
The hissing over the archèd tongue
Is more affectionate than hate,
More bitter than the love of youth,
And inaccessible by the young.
Reflected from my golden eye
The dullard knows that he is mad.
Tell me if I am not glad!
CHORUSES FROM ‘THE ROCK’ 1934