rule of Oedipus Once he saw two snakes in love They cursed him and changed him into a woman After seven years he again saw snakes Then he became a man again So he had lived both as a man and a woman Later Zeus and Hera asked him a question who loves more a man or a woman He said the woman loves more Hera cursed him with blindness Yet he got the gift of prophecy Oedipus king of Thebes killed his father and married his mother A curse fell on his land Tiresias asked him to repent to save the land In the poem Tiresias is blind but can see the truth Eliot writes And I Tiresias I who have sat by Thebes below the wall And walked among the lowest of the dead Here Tiresias is a bridge between old Thebes and modern wasteland He sees both past and present Vegetation and Fertility Myth The poem also uses old farming myths In Egypt people told the story of gods like Osiris Adonis and Attis The god was buried with seeds of corn Later the corn grew again showing its rebirth This cycle shows death and new life Eliot uses this in The Burial of the Dead He writes about spring rain that makes dull roots grow This also links with the story of Christ who died and rose again Just as Christ renewed faith then he can also renew the modern world This myth of rebirth joins the past with today s need for salvation The Fisher King and Holy Grail Another central myth is of the Fisher King He was a sinful king Because of his sins he became sick His land turned dry and people starved In another story his soldiers raped the nuns of the Grail Chapel For this sin his land suffered He hoped a pure knight would come to Chapel Perilous and heal him Sir Parsifal a holy knight came and removed the curse In Eliot s poem the Fisher King s wasteland stands for modern life Modern people are spiritually sick and must seek repentance Eliot writes To Carthage then I came Burning burning burning burning O Lord Thou pluckest me out O Lord Thou pluckest burning Here the repeated burning shows pain and sin Like the Fisher King modern people suffer and need healing Biblical Waste Land Eliot also uses the Bible In the Book of Ezekiel the people of Emmaus turned from God Their land became barren The prophet told them to worship God again Eliot writes about rock dead tree and dry grass These show the same biblical wasteland In the poem they stand for the modern world which has lost its faith and fruitfulness Only God can heal it as in the old story In summary Eliot mixes many old myths with modern images He brings in Tiresias from Thebes the farming gods the Fisher King the Grail and the Bible All these show one truth sin brings death and repentance brings life By joining past and present Eliot shows that human life moves in a cycle of death and rebirth