Five-minute digest
Journey of the Magi
Summary
Journey of the Magi is a dramatic monologue in which one of the wise men of Matthew 2, now old, remembers the journey to Bethlehem and asks what it meant. T. S. Eliot wrote it in 1927, the year he was baptized and confirmed in the Church of England, and Faber and Gwyer published it that August as the eighth of its Ariel Poems, small illustrated pamphlets sold as Christmas cards, with a drawing by E. McKnight Kauffer. The poem has forty-three lines of free verse in three verse paragraphs. The first opens with five lines in quotation marks adapted from a Christmas Day sermon that Lancelot Andrewes preached before King James I in 1622: a cold coming, the worst time of the year, the very dead of winter. The speaker then lists the hardships in a long chain of clauses joined by and: galled and refractory camels, regret for summer palaces and silken girls bringing sherbet, deserting camel men, hostile cities and dirty villages, and voices singing that it was all folly. The second paragraph descends at dawn into a temperate valley full of images that look forward to the life and death of Christ, though the Magi cannot recognize them: three trees on the low sky, an old white horse galloping away, hands dicing for pieces of silver at a tavern door, feet kicking empty wine-skins. They arrive at evening and find the place, which the speaker calls, with dry understatement, satisfactory. The Nativity itself is never described. The third paragraph turns to reflection. The old man would make the journey again, but he insists on one question: were they led all that way for Birth or Death? He had thought birth and death were different, but this Birth was hard and bitter agony for them, like Death. Back in their kingdoms they are no longer at ease in the old dispensation, among a people clutching their gods, and he ends: I should be glad of another death. Readers have heard in the poem Eliot's own conversion, in which faith is gained at the cost of the old self. It is one of the most frequently anthologized religious poems of the twentieth century.
Top Lessons
The cost of the journey
Eliot's Magi are not serene kings in a Christmas card but weary travelers who regret their comforts and hear voices calling the trip folly. The poem treats seeking Christ as costly, and the long chain of complaints makes the reader feel the miles.
Signs the travelers cannot read
The valley in the second paragraph is crowded with images that point ahead to the Gospel story: three trees for Calvary, pieces of silver for Judas, dicing for the soldiers at the cross, wine-skins for new wine. The Magi pass them without understanding, while the reader sees what the speaker cannot.
A birth that is a death
The speaker's great discovery is that meeting Christ was like dying, because it ended the old life he had known. He returns home a stranger, and his wish for another death can be read as a longing for the completion of that change.
Verified Quotes
Frequently cited
“‘A cold coming we had of it, Just the worst time of the year For a journey, and such a long journey: The ways deep and the weather sharp, The very dead of winter.’”
“At the end we preferred to travel all night, Sleeping in snatches, With the voices singing in our ears, saying That this was all folly.”
“And three trees on the low sky, And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow. Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel, Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver, And feet kicking the empty wine-skins,”
Frequently cited
“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.”
Frequently cited
“We returned to our places, these Kingdoms, But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation, With an alien people clutching their gods. I should be glad of another death.”