These fragments

The "fragments," which the Fisher King and/or Eliot himself has collected contain reminders of images from elsewhere in the poem:

• London Bridge is falling down... the nursery rhyme links the office workers compared by Eliot to the walking dead; and the destruction of cities and cultures. 
• Poi s'ascose nel foco che gli affina ("then he hid in the fire that improves them") is from Dante, Purgatorio. A poet, Arnaut, is in Purgatory, being cleansed of the sin of lust: he willingly enters the flames, in the knowledge that this purification is necessary before he can enter Paradise. We are reminded of The Fire Sermon of the Buddha and the burning desires of Augustine.
• Quando fiam uti chelidon ("when shall I be as the swallow") is from a Latin poem, Pervigilium Veneris (The Vigil of Venus), which tells of the joys of the arrival of spring. The poet, however, complains that he or she has no joyful song, and asks, when will my spring come, when will I be like the swallow, and sing again? The coming of spring is of course the opening of The Waste Land; the swallow reminds us of the story of Philomela; the poet's lack of words is a symbol of the communication breakdowns throughout the poem.
• O swallow swallow is an allusion to Itylus, a poem by Swinburne which presents a variation of the Philomela story.
• Le Prince d'Aquitaine à la tour abolie ("The Prince of Aquitaine at the ruined tower") is from a sonnet by Gerard de Nerval (1854). De Nerval calls himself the shadow-man, the widower, the unconsoled, the Prince of Aquitaine at the ruined tower... He presents himself as a melancholy but noble figure. The image suggests the Fisher King, a ruined man in a ruined land; the falling towers of Jerusalem, Athens, Alexandria...; the upsidedown towers of the Chapel Perilous; and the Tarot pack, which contains a card showing a tower struck by lightning, indicating danger or sudden change: the message of the Thunder is preceded by a flash of lightning.

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