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Quotation from Journey of the Magi by T. S. Eliot
“were we led all that way for Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly, We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death, But had thought they were different; this Birth was Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.”
Journey of the Magi, Lines 35-39 (Ariel Poems no. 8, 1927)
The central question of the poem, in which the Nativity is felt as the death of the old self.
Citation: "were we led all that way for Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly, We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death, But had thought they were different; this Birth was Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death." — T. S. Eliot, Journey of the Magi, Lines 35-39 (Ariel Poems no. 8, 1927). (id journey-of-the-magi-q4)
Portrait: T S Eliot 1927 The Journey of the Magi No 8 Ariel Poems Faber, Edward McKnight Kauffer (1890–1954), Public domain.
