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Journey of the Magi Summary & Analysis
by T. S. Eliot

Journey of the Magi Summary & Analysis
by T. S. Eliot

  • Intro
  • Summary
  • Themes
  • Line-by-Line
    Explanations
  • Symbols
  • Poetic
    Devices
  • Vocabulary &
    References
  • Form, Meter, &
    Rhyme Scheme
  • Speaker
  • Setting
  • Context
  • Resources
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The Full Text of “Journey of the Magi”

1'A cold coming we had of it,

2Just the worst time of the year

3For a journey, and such a long journey:

4The ways deep and the weather sharp,

5The very dead of winter.'

6And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,

7Lying down in the melting snow.

8There were times we regretted

9The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,

10And the silken girls bringing sherbet.

11Then the camel men cursing and grumbling

12and running away, and wanting their liquor and women,

13And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,

14And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly

15And the villages dirty and charging high prices:

16A hard time we had of it.

17At the end we preferred to travel all night,

18Sleeping in snatches,

19With the voices singing in our ears, saying

20That this was all folly.

21Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,

22Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;

23With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness,

24And three trees on the low sky,

25And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.

26Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,

27Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,

28And feet kicking the empty wine-skins.

29But there was no information, and so we continued

30And arriving at evening, not a moment too soon

31Finding the place; it was (you might say) satisfactory.

32All this was a long time ago, I remember,

33And I would do it again, but set down

34This set down

35This: were we led all that way for

36Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly

37We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,

38But had thought they were different; this Birth was

39Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.

40We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,

41But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,

42With an alien people clutching their gods.

43I should be glad of another death.

  • “Journey of the Magi” Introduction

    • "Journey of the Magi" is a poem by T.S. Eliot, first published in 1927 in a series of pamphlets related to Christmas. The poem was written shortly after Eliot's conversion to the Anglican faith. Accordingly, though the poem is an allegorical dramatic monologue that inhabits the voice of one the magi (the three wise men who visit the infant Jesus), it's also generally considered to be a deeply personal poem. Indeed, the magus in the poem shares Eliot's view that spiritual transformation is not a comfort, but an ongoing process—an arduous journey seemingly without end. The magus's view on the birth of Jesus—and the shift from the old ways to Christianity—is complex and ambivalent.

  • “Journey of the Magi” Summary

    • "It was freezing. We traveled at the worst time of the year, and it took us ages. The paths were difficult and the weather was horrible—it was a brutal winter." Our camels were in pain, unwilling to go on. They lay down in the snow. Me and the other magi missed the old days—the days of revelry in palaces, when beautiful women would bring us luxuries. The camel drivers were unreliable, full of complaints—some of them ran away, craving alcohol and women. Our fires kept going out and it was hard to find shelter. Wherever we went, the people seemed to dislike us. The villages we visited were filthy and lodging was expensive. It was a difficult journey. We decided to travel throughout the night, sleeping when we could. We heard voices telling us to stop being foolish and turn back.

      Then one morning we arrived at a pleasant valley. It was damp but not snowy, and full of plant life. There was a stream and a water mill, and three trees on the horizon. We saw a white horse in a nearby meadow. We pulled up at a tavern with vines above the door. People asked us for money, and everyone there was drunk. No one gave us any useful information, so we continued along our way. That evening, we finally got to Bethlehem. It was, well... acceptable.

      This all happened a long time ago, as I recall. If I had to, I would do it again. But write this down: did we undertake the journey for birth or death? We saw the baby Jesus, yes. I thought I knew birth and death, but I was wrong. Jesus's birth did not feel like a positive development, but something full of pain—like it represented our own death. We went back to our kingdoms and felt like we didn't belong there anymore, in the old ways. Our people seemed foreign to us, with their false idols. I would be happy to encounter another death.

  • “Journey of the Magi” Themes

    • Theme Spiritual Death and Rebirth

      Spiritual Death and Rebirth

      “Journey of the Magi” is a deeply allegorical poem about the pain of spiritual rebirth. It’s worth noting, before looking at the poem directly, that it was written after Eliot himself had just experienced a dramatic conversion to the Anglican faith, which informed all of his poetry that came after. Though the poem is directly about one of the magi, the three wise men who went to visit the baby Jesus at the time of his birth, the poem is more generally about the pains of letting go of one way of life—one faith—and acknowledging the birth of another.

      There are many variations on the magi story, but the biblical account tells how the magi were dispatched by King Herod to scope out whether what he had heard was true—that a new King of the Jews, Jesus Christ, had been born. The magi are tasked with finding Jesus and confirming his identity. The whole journey depicted in this poem, then, takes place on the border between two different worlds: pre-Christianity and post-Christianity. And as the poem’s speaker recollects the arduous journey to Bethlehem, he explores his own thoughts and feelings regarding the seismic shift in the world that Jesus’s birth represents.

      The magi already had a pretty good way of life before they set off. They enjoyed positions of privilege, staying in “summer palaces on the slopes, the terraces, / And the silken girls bringing sherbet.” They lived in kingdoms (possibly as rulers, though the Bible doesn’t actually say this) where they felt at “ease.” The pilgrimage towards Jesus, then, is both a literal move away from their old worlds and a move towards a new spiritual world based on a different faith. Perhaps that’s why this journey is so arduous for the speaker. The practical difficulties faced by the magi throughout speak to the difficulties of spiritual rebirth, whether on an individual or a societal level. That is, the poem suggests that any great change comes with its pitfalls. The pain of the journey—with its long roads, rough sleeping, and unfriendly strangers—works like a kind of purification, stripping the magi of their old identities and preparing them for the new.

      Indeed, when the magi do finally track down Jesus, it’s hardly a moment of celebration. The speaker frames it in an off-hand, almost flippant way: “it was (you might say) satisfactory.” He knows he has just met the son of God, and yet there is a distinct atmosphere of deflation and disappointment. Ultimately, this resignation is explained in the final stanza. The speaker asks rhetorically if the magi had been led all that way—and through such hardship—for “birth or death.” He acknowledges that there was a birth (in that they did find the baby Jesus), but “death” is perhaps the more revealing word here. With the birth of Christianity, the speaker senses the death of the old ways. The customs and traditions of his world—like magic, astrology, and paganism—are no longer valid because he has met the true son of God, who now represents the only real religion in the world.

      The speaker becomes an imposter in his own world, then, which again suggests the pains of spiritual rebirth—those people that he once considered his peers are now “alien” to him, and his home doesn't feel comfortable anymore. That’s why, then, he seems to long for another death—because he is no longer at “ease” in the world he once knew. Spiritual transformation, then, is presented as a kind of trauma which, in this case, is unavoidable.

  • Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “Journey of the Magi”

    • Lines 1-5

      '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.'

      "Journey of the Magi" begins with an allusion, quoting and adapting a 1622 sermon by English bishop Lancelot Andrewes. Eliot adapts Andrewes's discussion of the magi's arduous journey by switching the pronoun from third-person to first-person plural, setting up the rest of the poem as a dramatic monologue, a story told in the voice of a particular speaker—or speakers, in this case. Here, the speakers are the Magi, the three wise men who were said to visit the infant Jesus in the Christian story of Christmas.

      The quote makes it clear from the beginning that the journey of the magi is not a cheery tale, but rather one of hardship and spiritual skepticism. It also introduces an obvious anachronism. The story of the magi—though there is no definitive version—is set around the time of Christ's birth, and the speaker here is meant to be one of the original magi. The speaker, then, is quoting a text written over a millennium and a half later than the original journey; Andrews wouldn't have composed it until long after the speaker's own death.

      This contradiction isn't accidental. Perhaps it signals the way that, in the eyes of believers, the Christian story transcends the logic of time and space. Or maybe it speaks to the personal context of this poem. At the time of its writing, Eliot had recently converted to Anglicanism (the Church of England). He was frustrated by the way that people believed his conversion to represent a kind of comfortable settling-down, when he saw himself as—like the magi—having just "begun a long journey underfoot." Perhaps, then, this quote speaks to the way that spiritual transformation is—and always has been, and always will be—a difficult process. The poem thus straddles three moments in time—its 20th century composition, Andrewes's 17th century, and the biblical era—linking them all through the continuity of religious hardship.

      The sharp /c/ alliteration of "cold coming" and the forcefully consonant /p/ sounds of "deep" and "sharp" in line 4 make these first lines sound as biting as the cold the Magi endure. The repetition of "journey" in line 3 and the alliteration in lines 4 and 5 also help establish the atmosphere of a long and challenging voyage:

      The ways deep and the weather sharp,
      The very dead of winter.'

      After line 5, the poem's dramatic monologue takes over, providing the reader with details of the journey and insight into the Magi's state of mind. It's also worth noting that the mention of "dead[ness]" here subtly anticipates the Magi's rhetorical question in lines 35 and 36: "were we led all that way for / Birth or Death?"

    • Lines 6-10

      And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,
      Lying down in the melting snow.
      There were times we regretted
      The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
      And the silken girls bringing sherbet.

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    • Lines 11-16

      Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
      and running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
      And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
      And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly
      And the villages dirty and charging high prices:
      A hard time we had of it.

    • Lines 17-20

      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.

    • Lines 21-25

      Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
      Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
      With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness,
      And three trees on the low sky,
      And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.

    • Lines 26-31

      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.
      But there was no information, and so we continued
      And arriving at evening, not a moment too soon
      Finding the place; it was (you might say) satisfactory.

    • Lines 32-36

      All this was a long time ago, I remember,
      And I would do it again, but set down
      This set down
      This: were we led all that way for
      Birth or Death?

    • Lines 36-39

      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.

    • Lines 40-43

      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.

  • “Journey of the Magi” Symbols

    • Symbol Biblical Imagery

      Biblical Imagery

      In the second stanza, the poem walks a fine line between concrete imagery and symbolism. There seem to be a number of biblical allusions packed into this passage, but none of them are obvious.

      The "running stream" could refer to the Christian practice of baptism (which would tie in with the poem's theme of spiritual rebirth). The "three trees on the low sky" might symbolize the three crosses at Golgotha, the site of Jesus's crucifixion, or they might refer to the holy trinity. The "old white horse" seems to represent the final book in the bible, the book of Revelation, in which a rider on a white horse visits the earth during the Apocalypse. The "vine-leaves" in line 26 seem to allude to Jesus's statement that he is the "true vine," his disciples representing branches. The "pieces of silver" could relate to Judas, who gave up Jesus's whereabouts possibly for monetary reward. Finally, the "empty wine-skins" might refer to one of Jesus's miracles—turning water into wine.

      All in all, it's a delicate balance between straightforward narrative and subtle symbolism. Perhaps these are just the sights that the magi saw during their journey, or perhaps they are omens—predictions—of Jesus's life. Remember, the journey takes place before any of the above biblical events happened; Jesus himself is still an infant at this point. So while the magus himself can't yet recognize these symbols, the reader can draw the link. Accordingly, this passage gives the poem a heady and disorientating sense of space and time, as though the story is happening in different parallel universes all at once, with elements of the magi's journey reflecting things that haven't yet taken place in their own timeline.

  • “Journey of the Magi” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language

    • Alliteration

      As with other similar devices, alliteration is mostly used in the first and second stanzas of "Journey of the Magi." In the first line, which is part of the opening allusion to a 17th-century sermon by British baptist Lancelot Andrewes, the alliterating /c/ sounds of "cold coming" send a shiver through the line. There is more alliteration in the same quotation, found in lines 4 and 5:

      The ways deep and the weather sharp,
      The very dead of winter.'

      The alliteration here links the words together; collectively, they emphasize the inescapable difficulty of the journey.

      In lines 9 and 10 use /s/ alliteration (also known as sibilance):

      The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
      And the silken girls bringing sherbet.

      These /s/ sounds link with other /s/ consonance in the same lines ("palaces," "terraces") to convey the luxuries and indulgences that the magi are used to. In their old lives—pre-Christ—they held positions of power, and enjoyed the pleasures that their status brought. The same sound is used to very different effect in lines 14 and 15 (though it's not alliteration—so this is covered in the Consonance section).

      In line 18 and 19, more alliterating /s/ sounds combine:

      Sleeping in snatches,
      With the voices singing in our ears, saying

      These /s/ sounds work in two ways. They sound a bit like snoring, highlighting the magi's sleep-deprived state. There's also something sinister about them, like a snake's hiss, suggesting both the hostility encountered by the magi and the voices of doubt ringing in their ears.

      In line 27, the two prominent /d/ sounds in "door dicing" evoke the sound of hands, coins, or dice being banged upon a table. Again, this helps build a sense of the general aggression and animosity that the magi found along their way.

      Alliteration occurs less frequently in the final stanza, which is much more prose-like in tone as the speaker switches from describing his epic journey to contemplating what the meaning of that journey really is. In this stanza, alliteration occurs mostly on /b/ and /d/ sounds, underscoring the speaker's many doubts about the Birth and Death that he's contemplating. The "Birth" of Jesus turns out to be "bitter" for the magi, and the alliteration highlights this surprising and troubling conclusion.

    • Allusion

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    • Assonance

    • Caesura

    • Consonance

    • Polysyndeton

    • Repetition

    • Rhetorical Question

    • Parataxis

  • “Journey of the Magi” Vocabulary

    Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.

    • Magi
    • Galled
    • Refractory
    • Sherbet
    • Folly
    • Lintel
    • Dicing
    • Wine-skins
    • The Old Dispensation
    Magi

    • Pilgrims from the east who travel to see the infant Jesus. By some accounts, they are priestly figures, skilled at magic, astrology, and astronomy.

  • Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Journey of the Magi”

    • Form

      "Journey of the Magi" is a dramatic monologue, written from the perspective of one of the three wise men from the Christian Bible who visited baby Jesus after his birth. As with a number of Eliot's most famous poems, however, it does not follow an established poetic form. It unfolds over three stanzas of different shapes and lengths. The first stanza is 20 lines, the second is 11, and the third is 12. The stanzas do, however, represent distinct stages in the poem's development.

      The first stanza is made up of two distinct sections. The first five lines are a quote from a 17th-century sermon by Lancelot Andrewes, who was a British bishop. This quotation gives the poem a weird sense of time and place: it's a poem written in Britain in the 20th century, imagining the voice of a mythical character from biblical times, beginning with the words of a religious figure from the 1600s. This opening suggests that the poem is a general discussion of the difficulties of spiritual growth and rebirth, foregrounding the idea that the magus's story is an allegory (and one to which Eliot himself relates). The rest of this long first stanza deals with the most difficult stages of the journey, with the arduousness of the voyage reflected in the number of lines.

      The second stanza should be more uplifting, but it isn't. Here, the magi arrive at Bethlehem, their ultimate destination. They meet Jesus, but the poem deliberately doesn't discuss this meeting. Instead, the speaker just describes it as "satisfactory." This abrupt description demonstrates how the journey brought no comfort to the magi, representing a "death" of one world as much as the dawning of a new one.

      The final stanza is very different from the first two. Whereas the first stanzas are narrative and bring the journey to life through vivid detail, the final stanza is more philosophical. It sees the magus reflecting on the story of the journey, trying to puzzle out its meaning—and ultimately failing. Essentially, he's not sure if the birth of Jesus was a good thing or not.

    • Meter

      "Journey of the Magi" is written in free verse, meaning there is no consistent meter. Eliot does, however, carefully manage the rhythmic sound of its lines.

      These meaningful rhythmic choices are most noticeable in the section that runs from line 9 to line 15. This passage conveys the hardship and suffering endured by the magi on their journey, and it also describes the comfortable and indulgent lives they once led. Accordingly, these lines all have a falling cadence, making them sound weary and without end:

      ... the terraces,
      ... sherbet.
      ... grumbling
      ... women,
      ... shelters,
      ... unfriendly
      ... prices:

      With their repeating unstressed endings, these lines feel like they'll never come to rest, just as the magi feel that they'll never reach the end of their journey.

    • Rhyme Scheme

      "Journey of the Magi" doesn't have a rhyme scheme. Indeed, except for a couple of internal rhymes (like "three trees" in line 24), there are no obvious rhymes in it at all!

      Perhaps this lack of rhyme fits better with the idea of a tough, meandering journey—couplets, for example, would be too neat and ordered. In other words, the refusal of the words to settle into patterns mirrors the difficulties faced by the magi. Not only is their journey itself chaotic, but they are also left to face the challenges of adapting to a new religious order after they confirm Jesus's birth, so the poem's lack of order reinforces their own.

  • “Journey of the Magi” Speaker

    • The poem is a dramatic monologue, and, on a surface level, the speaker in this poem is one of the magi (known singularly as a magus) who visited the baby Jesus shortly after his birth. But understanding this speaker fully is a complex matter. First of all, many critics view this poem as one that is deeply personal to Eliot himself. He had recently converted to the Anglican faith, and was irritated by the way that people viewed this change as a kind of resolution, rather than an ongoing journey. This sentiment is best expressed in Eliot's own words: "Most critics appear to think that my catholicism is merely an escape or an evasion ... it is rather trying [annoying] to be supposed to have settled oneself in an easy chair, when one has just begun a long journey underfoot." It's tempting, then, to read this poem as an allegorical discussion of the difficulties Eliot faced in his own spiritual transformation.

      The poem is a dramatic monologue that sees the magus recount the story of the journey. But it's hard to say if these are really his own words, because in the third stanza he offers instructions to whoever is "set[ting] down" (that is, writing down) what he says. This introduces an element of unreliability to the poem—perhaps these are the magus's actual words, or perhaps they're words he was reported to say (similar to the way that the authors of the Gospels in the Bible attributed words to Jesus Christ).

      This unstable sense of time and place is, in fact, set up right at the start. The poem begins with an adapted quote from a 17th-century sermon by British bishop Lancelot Andrewes. The speaker of the poem thus straddles at least three different points in time, making their identity hard to pin down. Perhaps this difficulty itself is intended to represent the difficulty of finding neat, comforting answers to questions of spiritual faith.

  • “Journey of the Magi” Setting

    • As the title suggests, most of the poem is set during the "journey of the magi." As the biblical story goes, this was a journey made shortly after the birth of Christ. The magi are reported to have been men from the East (though there are many competing theories about their identities) who wish to meet the new King—Jesus Christ. Much of the poem focuses on the particulars of this journey, with the first stanza focusing on how long, painful, and hard the whole experience was for the magi. In harsh winter, they made their way across vast swathes of land, encountering hostility throughout and struggling to find shelter. By the end, they were hardly even sleeping, preferring instead to walk through the night. The journey setting, then, represents a kind of purification, with the magi being stripped of their old identities as they abandon the luxuries of their previous lives. This harsh setting foreshadows the way that the world's old order will soon be replaced with the new path of Christianity.

      In the second stanza, the magi draw close to their destination, presumably Bethlemen. Still, this doesn't turn the journey into an enjoyable experience; the setting, though it becomes a beautiful "temperate valley," is still full of unfriendly and unhelpful people. Indeed, one of the most remarkable points in the poem is when the speaker describes the meeting with Jesus as little more than "satisfactory." It wasn't a happy moment, but it satisfied their quest to find out if the son of God had arrived on earth.

      The third stanza is set some time after the journey and sees the magus trying to make sense of what he saw. Accordingly, this section is essentially set within his own mind, and it focuses on the question of whether Jesus's arrival represented a birth or death—or, more likely, both. This stanza gives a sense of the historical importance of Jesus's birth, as the magus senses the impact that it will have on the world.

  • Literary and Historical Context of “Journey of the Magi”

      Literary Context

      T.S. Eliot (1888-1965) is one of the 20th century's foremost literary figures, and he is central to the Modernist movement. This poem indeed bears many of the hallmarks of Modernist literature—a rejection of strict poetic form, an emphasis on subjective/personal experience, and an unreliable narrator.

      Eliot's influence on Western literary culture can hardly be overstated, with poems like "The Waste Land," "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," and the "Four Quartets" casting a long shadow over 20th-century writing. Eliot himself was well read, and some of the formative influences on his poetry include the French Symbolists (such as Baudelaire, Rimbaud, and Mallarmé), Dante, W.B. Yeats, and the Metaphysical poets such as John Donne.

      "Journey of the Magi" also represents a significant shift in Eliot's poetry. While preceding poems had fixated on more 20th-century subject matter—the measuring of time in "Rhapsody on a Windy Night," or the emptiness of 20th-century identity "The Hollow Men"—this poem was the first to be written after Eliot's conversion to Anglicanism. Accordingly, it explores the question of spiritual growth and rebirth, casting religion not as some kind of easy cure for life's most difficult questions but as the starting point on a journey into the meaning of those questions.

      The poem begins with a literary allusion to a 17th-century sermon on the story of the magi by British bishop Lancelot Andrewes. This quotation gives the poem a strange sense of time and place, as though it is stretching across thousands of years in an effort to find out what—if anything—is universal in the experience of religious transformation and hardship.

      Historical Context

      Though it's one of the most familiar stories in the Christian canon, the journey of the magi—or the three wise men—is hardly discussed in the Bible at all. According to the gospel of Matthew, the magi come from the East in search of the new king of the Jews (Jesus Christ). They are then sent by King Herod to find Jesus and report back, following the star of Bethlehem to the infant child. The magi's presence informs Joseph, Jesus's father, that King Herod will probably try to kill Jesus in order to prevent him from gaining power, which in turn leads Joseph to take Jesus to the safety of Egypt (not much is known thereafter about Jesus's childhood years).

      As with the rest of the bible, there are a number of variations and competing theories about the magi. The word magus originally related to a type of priestly figure in Zoroastrianism and earlier eastern religions. They were men of high status, skilled in magic, astrology, and astronomy. The magi story doesn't specify that there were three wise men, but the Bible does reference their three gifts—frankincense, gold, and myrrh—which is why the number is associated with them.

      The story is often conflated with another Biblical story, the Adoration of the Shepherds. Like the magi, the shepherds travel to see the baby Jesus (as told in the book of Luke), hearing the "multitude" of angels spurring them on their way. Lines 19 and 20 ("With the voices ... this was all folly.") subtly reference this moment, though the voices that sing to that magi here are ones of doubt rather than encouragement.

  • More “Journey of the Magi” Resources

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