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Four Quartets
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Quartet 3Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Quartet 3 Summary: “The Dry Salvages”
The third quartet begins with an explanation of its title: The Dry Salvages is a group of rocks off the coast of Massachusetts.
The first section begins with a metaphor comparing a river to a stubborn god. Like the god, a river is difficult to manage until a bridge can be built; at this point, the river becomes less of a concern to humans, though it continues to exert its strength. The river, like the god, grows impatient when it is forgotten and ominously waits for an opportunity to demonstrate its power. This river “is within us” (Line 404), while the sea is beyond us, surrounding all of humanity. The sea is full of marvels and beauty, but it can destroy man. Unlike the river, which is compared to one god, the sea “has many voices/Many gods” (413-14). The cries of the gulls are one voice and the bell warning sailors of approaching coastland are another; these voices of the sea are markers of time passing. The women who wait for their sons and husbands to come home from sea are also markers of time.
The second section of the quartet examines the consequences of a shipwreck and the lengthy period of mourning following death at sea. The speaker compares prayer to a boat with “a slow leakage” (Line 455), as he imagines the men at sea “forever bailing/Setting and hauling” (Lines 464-65), about to die yet fighting the sea that will take their lives. The only real hope exists in the “Prayer of the one Annunciation” (Line 475). The speaker also points out the knowledge of a generation is more valuable than the knowledge of a single individual.
The Hindu deity Krishna appears in the third section as the speaker alludes to the future as the equivalent of the past. The speaker compares the passage of time to a train journey during which the passengers arrive to their destinations changed. The speaker reminds readers that forward movement is deceptive, so it is imperative to “consider the future/And the past with an equal mind” (Lines 544-45).
The fourth section addresses the monument of a woman protecting fisherman and other seafarers. The speaker of the poem requests prayers for anyone who travels by ship or is close to anyone who travels by ship.
The final section links the threat of open water to the “life of significant soil” (Line 626) and takes note of common distractions enabling humans to avoid feelings of terror when confronted with the realities of life and death. Drugs and media, all over the world, provide humans with distractions, as do visions of nature and the sound of music. The speaker asserts that prayer and recognition of the “Incarnation” (Line 608) will lead to contentment.
Quartet 3 Analysis
In the third quartet the symbol of water—in the forms of river and sea—are the central metaphor through which the speaker of the poem discusses the passage of time. The discussion of the river takes place in both figurative and literal terms; descriptors of a grumpy and powerful river-god are placed alongside a discussion of the actual threat rivers pose to humans. Though rivers can be dangerous, the speaker points out that bridges enable rivers to be less of a central worry. This reassurance does not, however, apply to the speaker’s examination of the sea, whose open waters cause grief no matter the technologies and precautions humans put into place.
The extended metaphor comparing the sea to the passage of time focuses primarily on the futility of trying to control either force of nature. The tone of the stanzas is emotional and turbulent, reflecting the fear and sadness resulting when deaths at sea, and deaths in general, take place. One poignant image is that of a woman who worries about a loved one at sea who has not yet arrived home; the image evokes a feeling of longing accompanying the sight of a woman on a widow’s walk, pacing and looking out to sea and awaiting a glimpse of the ship bringing her mariner home.
The speaker mentions Krishna, the Hindu god of protection and compassion, as well as Krishna’s battlefield conversation with Arjuna documented in the epic poem Mahabharata and in the Bhagavad Gita—a famous Hindu scripture. During this conversation, Krishna tells Arjuna about the impermanence of the body and the permanence of the soul: a phenomenon uniting the past with the future. The thematic relevance of this allusion to Krishna is heightened by the earlier mentions in this section of God and Christianity. The Christian religion and the Hindu religion address the human concern with aging and mortality in different ways, but they share a common goal: to offer humans some reassurance that death is not to be feared.
Visually, the verses of “The Dry Salvages” appear much more uniform than the previous two quartets—especially in the final section of the poem where the lines stack in a column. The orderly appearance of these lines, many of which contain lists of images or synonyms for words separated by commas, counter the breathless feeling resulting from reading the lines in quick succession as the punctuation dictates. The visual structure of the poem combined with the violent imagery of an angry sea evoke melancholy and mourning. The final image of the poem, however, is the hopeful and comforting symbol of rebirth: a yew—a tree with the unique ability to drop its branches to the ground in order to plant new growths in the soil.
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