Quis hic locus, quae regio, quae mundi plaga?
What seas what shores what grey rocks and what islands
What water lapping the bow
And scent of pine and the woodthrush singing through the fog
What images return
O my daughter.
Those who sharpen the tooth of the dog, meaning
Death
Those who glitter with the glory of the hummingbird, meaning
Death
Those who sit in the sty of contentment, meaning
Death
Those who suffer the ecstasy of the animals, meaning
Death
Are become insubstantial, reduced by a wind,
A breath of pine, and the woodsong fog
By this grace dissolved in place
What is this face, less clear and clearer
The pulse in the arm, less strong and stronger—
Given or lent? more distant than stars and nearer than the eye
Whispers and small laughter between leaves and hurrying feet
Under sleep, where all the waters meet.
Bowsprit cracked with ice and paint cracked with heat.
I made this, I have forgotten
And remember.
The rigging weak and the canvas rotten
Between one June and another September.
Made this unknowing, half conscious, unknown, my own.
The garboard strake leaks, the seams need caulking.
This form, this face, this life
Living to live in a world of time beyond me; let me
Resign my life for this life, my speech for that unspoken,
The awakened, lips parted, the hope, the new ships.
What seas what shores what granite islands towards my timbers
And woodthrush calling through the fog
My daughter.
With Marina, written in 1929, Eliot creates a monologue for Pericles, a character in Shakespeare's Pericles, Prince of Tyre, who, on the brink of his return home after long travels overseas, experiences only alienation. Throughout his life, Eliot was deeply concerned with the problems of dissociation from one's environment, and consequent dissolution of personality, that he saw as unavoidable consequences of modern life. These subjects recur in Hollow Men and The Wasteland.
Eliot was at the forefront of the modernist movement in poetry, along other greats such as Samuel Beckett and Ezra Pound. The modernists marked a break from the prevailing tendencies of romanticism. They placed renewed emphasis on the fundamental skills of the craft, above the unrestrained personal expression which was characteristic of the romantics. Precision of language, and the ability to establish continuity with the classics, were viewed as means to preserve human identity in the face of modern life. This poem is an eminent example of these tendencies. Eliot sets the refrain with a quote from Seneca which reads "What place is this, what kingdom, what part of the world?" – even as Pericles approaches the shores of his homeland.
