Pearls That Were His Eyes T.S. Ellot's The Waste Land (pt. 4)

T.S. Elliot's The Waste Land is one of my favorite poems. The phrase “pearls that were his eyes” appears twice in this poem. This quote is a reference to Shakespeare’s The Tempest. In order to fully understand this entry you will need to read the one that precedes it. Now, assuming you have done so, I will continue. The first appearance of the phrase in question is as someone goes to a clairvoyant to read tarot cards:
Here, said she,
Is your card, the drowned Phoenician Sailor,
(Those are pearls that were his eyes. Look!)
This is clearly an allusion to The Tempest’s description of the significance of a watery grave.
The second instance comes when a woman, who is ill is in bed, her aloof husband is in a chair by her side. She asks him:
"Speak to me. Why do you never speak. Speak.”
"What are you thinking of? What thinking? What?”
"I never know what you are thinking. Think."
He finally responds
“I think we are in rats' alley
Where the dead men lost their bones.”
She asks him again and again, what is that noise?
He always answers “nothing”.
She finally asks
“Do you know nothing? Do you see nothing? Do you remember
"Nothing?"
He respond:
“I remember (he quotes)
‘Those are pearls that were his eyes’.
Frustrated she asks:
"Are you alive, or not? Is there nothing in your head But:
‘O O O O that Shakespeherian Rag -
It's so elegant
So intelligent’ ”
He will not speak to her, he only quotes Shakespeare and speaks nonsense.
To Be Continued