The Love Song of J.
Alfred Prufrock
BY T. S. ELIOT
S’io credesse che mia risposta fosse To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”
A persona che mai tornasse al mondo, Time to turn back and descend the stair,
Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse. With a bald spot in the middle of my hair —
Ma percioche giammai di questo fondo (They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”)
Non torno vivo alcun, s’i’odo il vero, My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
Senza tema d’infamia ti rispondo. My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin —
(They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”)
Let us go then, you and I, Do I dare
When the evening is spread out against the sky Disturb the universe?
Like a patient etherized upon a table; In a minute there is time
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets, For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels For I have known them all already, known them all:
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells: Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
Streets that follow like a tedious argument I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
Of insidious intent I know the voices dying with a dying fall
To lead you to an overwhelming question ... Beneath the music from a farther room.
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?” So how should I presume?
Let us go and make our visit.
And I have known the eyes already, known them all—
In the room the women come and go The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
Talking of Michelangelo. And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes, Then how should I begin
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes, To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening, And how should I presume?
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys, And I have known the arms already, known them all—
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap, Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
And seeing that it was a soft October night, (But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!)
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep. Is it perfume from a dress
That makes me so digress?
And indeed there will be time Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street, And should I then presume?
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes; And how should I begin?
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet; Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets
There will be time to murder and create, And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
And time for all the works and days of hands Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows? ...
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me, I should have been a pair of ragged claws
And time yet for a hundred indecisions, Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea. And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!
Smoothed by long fingers,
In the room the women come and go Asleep ... tired ... or it malingers,
Talking of Michelangelo. Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
And indeed there will be time Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed, I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
platter, When the wind blows the water white and black.
I am no prophet — and here’s no great matter; We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker, By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker, Till human voices wake us, and we drown.
And in short, I was afraid.
And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while,
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it towards some overwhelming question,
To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”—
If one, settling a pillow by her head
Should say: “That is not what I meant at all;
That is not it, at all.”
And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the
floor—
And this, and so much more?—
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
“That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant, at all.”
No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—
Almost, at times, the Fool.
I grow old ... I grow old ...
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.
Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
I do not think that they will sing to me.
