a sound of horns
Eliot's Notes refer us to The Parliament of Bees, by Elizabethan playwright John Day:
When of the sudden, listening, you shall hear,
A noise of horns and hunting, which shall bring
Actaeon to Diana in the spring,
Where all shall see her naked skin . . .
(The allusion is to the story of Actaeon, which appears in Ovid's Metamorphoses. Actaeon is hunting in the woods with his dogs, when he chances upon the goddess Diana, who is bathing in a stream with attendant nymphs. The goddess, embarrassed and angry at being seen naked, turns Actaeon into a stag. He is then torn apart by his own hunting dogs.)
In The Parliament of Bees, a boastful bee is telling others about the amazing attractions that will be available in his super-hive, including a real naked goddess.
In The Waste Land, the horn sound comes from the car of Sweeney, a thuggish character who appears elsewhere in Eliot's work, as he drives to Mrs Porter's brothel.
In the original myth, Diana's modesty is such that she destroys a man who accidentally sees her undressed; in Bee World, her nakedness is displayed to everyone without consequence; in the modern world, she offers the viewer sex for money. Another symbol of the moral decline of the West.
When of the sudden, listening, you shall hear,
A noise of horns and hunting, which shall bring
Actaeon to Diana in the spring,
Where all shall see her naked skin . . .
In The Parliament of Bees, a boastful bee is telling others about the amazing attractions that will be available in his super-hive, including a real naked goddess.
In The Waste Land, the horn sound comes from the car of Sweeney, a thuggish character who appears elsewhere in Eliot's work, as he drives to Mrs Porter's brothel.
In the original myth, Diana's modesty is such that she destroys a man who accidentally sees her undressed; in Bee World, her nakedness is displayed to everyone without consequence; in the modern world, she offers the viewer sex for money. Another symbol of the moral decline of the West.
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