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La Figlia Che Piange

been using. I would want to find some exceptionally slick and
POEM TEXT artful exit—something we could agree on, as easy and dishonest
as a grin and a handshake.
O quam te memorem virgo... She turned from me, but like the fall weather, she captivated my
mind long afterward, with her flowing hair and the bouquet in
1 Stand on the highest pavement of the stair— her arms. I still wonder how that couple (me and her) would
2 Lean on a garden urn— have worked out! I wouldn't have the same stance and attitude
3 Weave, weave the sunlight in your hair— as I do now. Occasionally, these thoughts still stop and disturb
me, in the middle of the night or during my midday break.
4 Clasp your flowers to you with a pained surprise—
5 Fling them to the ground and turn
6 With a fugitive resentment in your eyes: THEMES
7 But weave, weave the sunlight in your hair.

8 So I would have had him leave,

LOVE, HEARTBREAK, AND REGRET
9 So I would have had her stand and grieve, "La Figlia Che Piange" (Italian for "the girl who
10 So he would have left weeps") deals with the lingering pain and confusion
of a romantic breakup. The speaker, who has left his lover,
11 As the soul leaves the body torn and bruised,
reimagines and reframes his "desert[ion]" in various
12 As the mind deserts the body it has used. ways—even critiquing himself in the third person—as if trying
13 I should find to gain imaginative control over a painful experience. Despite
14 Some way incomparably light and deft, his efforts, his lover's memory still "Compel[s]" his
15 Some way we both should understand, "imagination," plaguing him with some combination of guilt,
16 Simple and faithless as a smile and shake of the hand. desire, and regret. Through the speaker's internal conflict, the
poem illustrates how the end of a romance can haunt lovers
17 She turned away, but with the autumn weather long afterward—especially, perhaps, the lover who called things
18 Compelled my imagination many days, off.
19 Many days and many hours: The speaker tries various ways of coming to grips with the
20 Her hair over her arms and her arms full of flowers. breakup, and with his role in it, but none seem to satisfy him. He
21 And I wonder how they should have been together! shifts between second and third person when referring to the
22 I should have lost a gesture and a pose. young woman, and third and first person when referring to
himself. First, he addresses the remembered lover as if giving
23 Sometimes these cogitations still amaze
her stage directions, trying to arrange the perfect version of
24 The troubled midnight and the noon’s repose. the breakup scene; then he critiques both her and himself in
the third person, saying how he wishes they'd behaved. He also
toggles between past and present tense, at one point musing
that "I should find" some better "way" to leave her. It's as if the
SUMMARY scene is still replaying in his mind, long after the event, and he's
Oh, what should I call you, maiden? still irrationally holding out hope that he can get it right.
Pose on the top step of the paved staircase. Lean against a His internal conflict points to lingering doubt or guilt over the
decorative garden vase. Let the sun filter through your hair. breakup, as well as a lingering attachment to the girl herself. He
Clutch your bouquet tight, looking shocked and hurt, then describes the girl's "pained surprise" at his rejection, and the
throw it aside and turn away with a fleeting look of bitterness. "fugitive resentment" (fleeting bitterness) in her eyes as she
But keep letting the sun filter through your hair. "turn[ed]" away from him. Evidently, he hurt her, and they didn't
part as friends. But "fugitive" may suggest that she wasn't that
That's how I would have wanted her lover (me) to leave her.
hurt, and moved on quickly—in the speaker's judgement, at
That's how I would have wanted her to stand around,
least. However, the speaker also compares the way he "left" her
mourning. That's how he would have deserted her: the way a
to the way the mind or soul "deserts the body it has used,"
soul leaves a wounded corpse, the way a mind leaves a body it's
leaving "the body torn and bruised." This suggests that he took

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advantage of her emotionally ("used" her) and hurt her deeply type, trying to arrange his memories and emotions just so. The
as a result. He wishes, sarcastically, that he had found (could poem begins with an epigr
epigraph
aph from Virgil's epic poem the
still find?) some smoother "way" to leave her: some "light and Aeneid, which translates to "Oh, what should I call you, maiden?"
deft" exit that would be "Simple and faithless as a smile and Among other things, this allusion suggests that the speaker (or
shake of the hand." His self-mocking tone implies that even he poet) imagines his failed romance in literary terms. In wrestling
thinks he's cowardly and glib, never mind what she thinks. On with his feelings about an ex, he casts himself as the mythical
top of all his guilt, he still seems attracted to her: he's dwelled hero Aeneas addressing Venus, the goddess of love. At first, he
on her memory for "many days" and "hours" since their parting. tries to pose his ex like a model or mannequin in his imagination.
Though the speaker rationalizes the breakup, he's clearly still Later, he claims that "a gesture and a pose"— an artistic
haunted by it in the end. No matter how he reframes or justifies personality or literary attitude—is what he gained from the
such moments, the poem suggests, they'll still return to breakup. (Basically, he's suggesting that staying with her would
"trouble[]" him long after the fact. He reports that the memory have been bad for his art.) In both instances, he's trying to
of her beauty (her "hair," "flowers," etc.) "Compelled [his] replace an awkward, painful reality with a pleasing "pose." It's
imagination" for a long time after the breakup. Then he easier to pretend that the breakup made her look beautiful, and
switches back to present tense and the distancing third person, made him a better artist, than to acknowledge how hurtful it
as if to prove he's still not over her: "I wonder how they should was.
have been together!" He struggles to find a silver lining, Meanwhile, "I should find" suggests that the speaker is still
claiming that he would have "lost a gesture and a pose" if they'd trying to imagine what the perfect breakup would have been,
stayed together. In other words, his personality would have long after the moment has passed. The grammar here is
turned out differently, and he might not have developed into ambiguous—"I should find" might mean "I would find [if I could]"
the artist he is. or "I ought to find"—and the ambiguity suggests the speaker is
But even this justification makes him sound glib, like a "pose[r]." still wrestling with his level of responsibility. It's here that he
Finally, he admits that "these cogitations," or thoughts, finally steps into the active role of "I" and stops referring to
"Sometimes" return to him in dreams and daydreams (during "him." Yet he continues to distance himself from his emotional
"the troubled midnight and the noon's repose"). The word turmoil, speaking as though he were staging a scene and could
"cogitations" is almost absurdly pompous, suggesting that he's find some different "way" of doing it. He claims that his
intellectualizing his painful situation as a defense mechanism. preferred "way" of parting would be "incomparably light and
His mind keeps trying to find some detached perspective on the deft," "Simple and faithless": in other words, as slick and
breakup, but his heart (or unconscious mind) remains unemotional as possible. If he's accusing himself here, he's
"troubled"—and probably always will. doing so from behind a shield of iron
ironyy rather than plainly
confessing his guilt and regret.
Where this theme appears in the poem: Despite all these layers of ironic self-dramatization, the speaker
can't remain coolly detached. His "pose" won't bring the girl
• Before Line 1
back or ease his conscience; by extension, no amount of artistry
• Lines 1-24
or irony will defeat real-life pain. There's something absurd
about his attempts to stage-direct the girl in his imagination:
EMOTIONAL ATTACHMENT VS. she's long gone, and probably wouldn't listen to him anyway!
AESTHETIC DETACHMENT The effort at gaining some artistic power over her ultimately
The speaker of "La Figlia Che Piange" presents seems desperate and sad. The way she haunts his "imagination"
himself as a fussy aesthete, someone who cares more about may have given him a few beautiful lines or images, such as the
getting his breakup right—making it a successful gesture or image of "Her hair over her arms and her arms full of flowers."
But emotionally, it's just not enough: he "wonder[s]" how their
beautiful scene—than about the pain of the breakup itself.
romance would have turned out if he'd chosen love over art, or
Indeed, he suggests that the breakup was worth it because it
love over mere emotional "gesture[s]" and "pose[s]." Indeed,
gave him a tragic "pose" he could incorporate into his
the thought of her still "amaze[s]" him sometimes, as if leaving
personality and art. But his true feelings show through this
him at a loss for words. In the end, all artistic
detached pose, suggesting that no poetic language or artistic
gestures—including the poem we're reading—seem to pale
"gesture[s]" can heal the deepest emotional wounds. Moreover,
beside real love and pain.
the poem suggests, people can't be the art directors of their
own lives—they have to live them, and they don't always work
out as satisfyingly as art. Where this theme appears in the poem:
From the outset, the speaker comes off as a fastidious artist • Before Line 1

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All of these resonances make sense in a poem about the
• Lines 1-24 speaker's ex: a girl he seems to miss and, in part, regret leaving.
(For more on the symbolism of this setting
setting, see the Symbols
and Setting sections of this guide.)
LINE-BY
LINE-BY-LINE
-LINE ANAL
ANALYSIS
YSIS Each of the first four lines is end-stopped with a dash, giving the
passage an urgent, staccato quality. Meanwhile, the meter
BEFORE LINE 1, LINES 1-3 shifts around: it approximates, but doesn't settle into, iambic
O quam te memorem virgo... pentameter (five-beat lines that follow a da-DUM
DUM, da-DUM
DUM
Stand on the highest pavement of the stair— rhythm). Line 2 has only three beats, for example ("LLean on a
Lean on a garden urn— gar
garden urn
urn"). The poem ends up being an unstable mix of meter
Weave, weave the sunlight in your hair— and free vverse
erse, which may reflect its speaker's ambivalence and
unease. It's as if this speaker is having as much trouble
The poem begins with an epigr
epigraph
aph from the Aeneid, an epic
committing to a rhythm as he had committing to a relationship.
poem by the ancient Roman poet Virgil. The Latin quotation
translates to, "Oh, what should I call you, maiden?" (or "Oh, by LINES 4-7
what name should I call you, virgin?"). Aeneas, the poem's hero, Clasp your flowers to you with a pained surprise—
asks this question of the love-goddess Venus, who has Fling them to the ground and turn
appeared to him disguised as a huntress. Together with the With a fugitive resentment in your eyes:
Italian title, which translates to "the girl who weeps," the But weave, weave the sunlight in your hair.
epigraph suggests that Eliot's poem will involve a beautiful
young woman—one who is both distressed and enigmatic. "La The speaker continues to instruct the young woman (his ex) in
Figlia Che Piange" is also the title of a stele, or monumental the second person. Again, it's as if he's stage-directing or posing
tablet, that the poet had unsuccessfully searched for in an her, trying to manage her every move. But as the next stanza
Italian museum. Overall, these references prepare readers for a reveals, she's not literally there with him. He's reliving their
speaker who imagines his personal life in literary or artistic breakup, or recreating a version of it, in his memory. In the
terms—in other words, an aesthete type. process, he's telling her how to react to being dumped!

Lines 1-3 then introduce the speaker, who is giving directions First, he instructs her to clutch her "flowers"—presumably
to an initially unidentified person. These sound like directions plucked from the garden—tightly to her body, with a look of
one might give to an actor, or someone posing for a picture: "pained surprise." Then he tells her to "Fling [the flowers] to the
"Stand on the highest pavement of the stair— / Lean on a ground," in anger and disgust, "and turn" away from him "With a
garden urn." The first two instructions are straightforward fugitive resentment in [her] eyes." Again, the flowers seem
enough, but the third is subtler and more metaphorical
metaphorical: symbolic
symbolic: in flinging them aside, it's as if she's letting go of their
"Weave, weave the sunlight in your hair." This seems to mean love.
that the person being addressed should stand partly in the sun, The word "fugitive" is also interesting here: as an adjective, it
so that light and shadow "weave" together in their hair. means "fleeting" or "elusive." It could simply refer to a bitter
Unsurprisingly, it turns out that the speaker is addressing a expression that briefly crosses her face: an anger she lets show,
young woman, the "Figlia" of the title. As the following lines then quickly hides. But it could also imply that her unhappiness
reveal, he's posing her in his memory. (Or in a revised memory, a over the breakup is fleeting—that she's resentful but ready to
kind of fantasy after the fact.) In other words, she's not there move on.
with him now, and he's addressing her via apostrophe
apostrophe. The speaker then repeats
repeats: "[W]eave, weave the sunlight in your
The "stair," "garden urn," and "sunlight" are features of a hair." This repeated instruction suggests that he's concerned
remembered scene—in fact, a breakup scene. They have strong with aesthetic effect above all. He wants to turn a painful
symbolic overtones: memory into a beautiful picture (or into beautiful poetry). In
the process, he seems to distance himself from her pain and
• For example, the "stair" seems to elevate or exalt the humiliation. Is he simply callous, or is this his way of processing
girl as she stands "on the highest pavement" (top his own complex feelings? Either or both could be true!
step). Regardless, there's a sad iron
ironyy in his efforts to "direct" a
• Gardens are traditionally associated with youth, moment that's long passed: whatever power he once had in this
love, freshness, and so on—but also with lost situation, it's only a memory now.
innocence (as in the Garden of Eden).
• Urns are associated with beauty and delicacy, but
LINES 8-12
also with fragility and loss (funerary urns). So I would have had him leave,
So I would have had her stand and grieve,

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So he would have left actual breakup was almost certainly messier and uglier.
As the soul leaves the body torn and bruised,
As the mind deserts the body it has used. LINES 13-16
The start of the second stanza marks a shift in perspective. The I should find
present tense suddenly vanishes; the speaker is no longer Some way incomparably light and deft,
instructing the young woman in his mind. Instead, he tacitly Some way we both should understand,
admits that everything in the previous stanza was a fantasy: an Simple and faithless as a smile and shake of the hand.
idealized version of an actual breakup. In lines 13-16, the speaker continues to imagine his ideal
Jarringly, he refers to himself in the third person ("he"), as breakup—by contrast with his actual breakup. Again, his
though he were a separate character in this drama. This choice repetition has an agitated, insistent quality to it:
may be a kind of coping mechanism, a way of dissociating from
his own heartbreak or distancing himself from his guilt over the I should find
breakup. The heavy repetition (including anaphor
anaphoraa) in these Some wa
wayy incomparably light and deft,
lines conveys his agitation and preoccupation, as well as his Some wa
wayy we both should understand,
fussy desire to get his words right: Simple and faithless as a smile and shake of the hand.

So I would ha
havve had him lea
leavve, "Should" can mean both "ought to" and (in British English)
So I would ha
havve had her stand and grieve, "would," so the speaker might be saying what he ought to do
So he would hahavve left now or what he would do if he could. Either way, there's an
As the soul lea
leavves the body torn and bruised, iron
ironyy here (as the following stanza makes clear). He's now
As the mind deserts the body it has used. speaking in the present tense, as if he could still "find" the
perfect exit from the relationship—but the relationship is over.
Notice the slippery grammar, which seems to reflect the The moment of the breakup has passed, and there's nothing
slipperiness of the speaker's own character: "So I would have more he can do to change it, except by reliving it and revising it
had him leave [...] So he would have left." The conditional in his imagination.
language ("would have") makes it hard to determine what, if Moreover, the last line of the stanza suggests that he's being
anything, in the "garden" scene was real. At this point, readers ironic
ironic, or sarcastic, at his own expense. In the previous lines, he
might even wonder whether the breakup occurred at all imagined blithely floating free of his "griev[ing]" lover, like a
(though the following stanza confirms that it did). The speaker pure "soul" or "mind" leaving a broken body. Now he imagines a
himself is struggling for a firm grasp on the situation, turning it scenario in which they "both" come together on the breakup,
over and reframing it in his mind. like two businesspeople sharing a "smile" and a facile
However, there are glimpses of a firm emotional reality "hand[shake]." This would be even better, he suggests: no muss,
underneath the layers of ambiguity and ironironyy. The speaker's no fuss, no tears! (Even in this scenario, of course, he's initiating
similes hint at his guilt and shame: he compares himself (or an the breakup: "find[ing]" a "Simple," painless "way" to part.) But
imagined version of himself) to a "soul" leaving a "torn and the word "faithless"—meaning disloyal or dishonest—gives the
bruised" body at the moment of death. He then reframes this sarcasm away. He doesn't really believe people can break up
idea in more secular terms, comparing himself to a "mind" that with a glib handshake; he's mocking his own shiftiness and
"deserts the body it has used." (Perhaps the religious word cowardice.
"soul" strikes him as overly lofty, and he revises it down a Notice how the enjambment after "find" places extra emphasis
notch.) This is how he claims he would have left her if he could: on the word (which also ends the shortest line in the poem).
like a ghostly presence exiting a "torn" and "used" shell of a The word hangs in the air for a moment, as tentative as the
person. In other words, he wishes he could have just ghosted speaker himself—who seems a little lost and unsure of what
her, leaving her standing in beautiful distress. But in claiming all he's searching for.
this, he's accusing himself of callousness—even a kind of
emotional violence. He feels that he used and hurt his lover, LINES 17-20
then tried to make a slick exit afterward (even if he failed to do She turned away, but with the autumn weather
so). Compelled my imagination many days,
His avoidance of first-person pronouns is another sign of Many days and many hours:
shame: he can't yet admit that he's talking about his own actions Her hair over her arms and her arms full of flowers.
and intentions. His mind is still dissociating itself from a drama Lines 17-20 shift to past tense, as the speaker finally narrates
he was part of. And if this is how he wishes he'd left his the reality of the breakup. He doesn't go into depth, but he
ex—neatly and smoothly, in a beautiful garden scene—the does confirm one detail from the first stanza
stanza: the young woman

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did, in fact, "turn[] away" from him. She also seems to have been Sometimes these cogitations still amaze
holding an armful "of flowers" at the time, though this could be The troubled midnight and the noon’s repose.
a memory from before the breakup.
Notice what's absent from this description: the "stair," the This is a complex, lofty, poetic way of saying: I still think about her
"garden urn," the "fugitive resentment in [her] eyes," and the sometimes, in the middle of the day or night. The pompous
"sunlight" woven "in her hair." It's unclear whether any of these language—"cogitations" instead of "thoughts," "the noon's
picturesque details were authentic, or whether the speaker repose" rather than "lunch break," etc.—again suggests that the
fantasized all of them. In any case, he now describes a much speaker is intellectualizing his pain. Yet the words "amaze" and
simpler, though still beautiful, image: "Her hair over her arms "troubled" give a sense of his true feelings. He's still troubled by
and her arms full of flowers." Simple as it is, the image haunted the way he left this girl, still obsessed with their relationship
his memory: "Compelled my imagination many days, / Many and what might have been. No matter how he tries to
days and many hours." He dwelled on the memory of his ex dramatize or detach himself from his loss, the sadness of it still
during "the autumn weather," a season of literal and symbolic strikes him with "amaz[ing]" force.
decline. The triple repetition of "many" hints that the memory
didn't pass with autumn, either: in fact, it haunts him still.
SYMBOLS
In this shifty, ambiguous poem, it's hard to pin down what's true
and false about the couple's experience. Broadly, however,
these lines seem to confirm that the speaker initiated the THE URN
breakup, that she "turned away" as a result, and that their Urns, or decorative vases, are symbolically
romance never recovered afterward. associated with beauty and fragility—they're highly
breakable, after all. Since funerary urns are used to hold
LINES 21-24
cremated remains, urns can also be associated with death.
And I wonder how they should have been together! Finally, thanks to John Keats's famous "Ode
Ode on a Grecian Urn
Urn"
I should have lost a gesture and a pose. (1819), they're often associated with poetry, as well as with the
Sometimes these cogitations still amaze particular themes of that poem (including unfulfilled love and
The troubled midnight and the noon’s repose. the link between truth and beauty).
In the final lines, the speaker performs a kind of postmortem All of these associations could be read into the "garden urn"
analysis of his failed relationship. Like many people after a here. The speaker is imagining his ex, a beautiful young woman,
breakup, he wonders what would have happened if he and his leaning on an urn at a moment of great vulnerability. In fact, it's
lover had stuck it out. Once again, however, he dissociates from the moment he broke up with her, so it represents the death of
the pain of it all by referring to both of them in the third person: their love. He's trying to reimagine the breakup in the most
"And I wonder how they should have been together!" It's as if aesthetically pleasing way possible, as if turning it into an image
using "we" would hurt too much now that the romance is gone. worthy of poetry. But the following stanza ("So I would ha havve
Also like many people after a breakup, he tries to convince had her stand and grieve") implies that this beautiful vision is a
himself that it was for the best. If he'd stayed with his lover, he fiction. In other words, despite what Keats wrote, beauty and
claims, "I should have lost a gesture and a pose." (Note that truth aren't so synonymous after all.
"should" here means "would," not "ought to," although the
second meaning could be implied as well.) The words "gesture" Where this symbol appears in the poem:
and "pose" appear to be synecdoches
synecdoches: they point to some
• Line 2: “Lean on a garden urn—”
broader change in his personal style. Basically, he's claiming
that his personality, or his art, would have turned out
differently if not for the breakup. He would have "lost" the GARDEN/FLOWERS
attitudes (or affectations) that define him, perhaps even
Flowers are traditional symbols of love, youth,
sacrificed the kind of worldly wisdom that can only come from
femininity, and innocence. The poem plays on all of
heartbreak. But once again, his language is sarcastically self-
these associations. It features a young woman who, as her lover
undermining. "A gesture and a pose" sounds superficial, if not
breaks up with her, "Fling[s]" away the flowers she's holding.
completely phony. The breakup may have helped him become a
Symbolically, this gesture suggests that she's losing love, losing
more sophisticated person or successful artist, but it cost him
innocence, and growing up (however painfully), all in the same
some integrity, too.
moment. At least, that's the way the speaker imagines the
In the last two lines, the speaker confesses that he still thinks scene! Either way, he remembers her with "her arms full of
about his ex and his breakup. (Only "Sometimes," of course!) His flowers" before their parting: a nostalgic image of youthful
language is just shy of self-parody
parody:

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beauty.
Where Apostrophe appears in the poem:
Meanwhile, the breakup takes place in a garden—presumably
the source of the girl's flowers. There's probably a little biblical • Lines 1-7: “Stand on the highest pavement of the stair—
symbolism here: after all, the Garden of Eden was a lovers' / Lean on a garden urn— / Weave, weave the sunlight in
paradise for Adam and Eve until they, too, lost their innocence. your hair— / Clasp your flowers to you with a pained
(The girl feels "pained surprise" at the speaker's "faithless" surprise— / Fling them to the ground and turn / With a
betrayal, so if she's a kind of Eve figure, he's arguably more like fugitive resentment in your eyes: / But weave, weave the
sunlight in your hair.”
the serpent than Adam! But the breakup appears to have been
painful and formative for him, too.) The "autumn weather" (line
17), traditionally symbolic of decline, reinforces the idea that REPETITION
this couple has experienced a fall from grace. The poem is full of repetition and par
parallelism
allelism. Some of these
repetitions involve thematically important words, such as
Where this symbol appears in the poem: "turn"/"turned" and "leave"/"left" (verbs related to the couple's
breakup). Others involve whole phrases, notably "Weave,
• Line 2: “Lean on a garden urn—” weave the sunlight in your hair" (lines 3 and 7)—an instruction
• Line 4: “Clasp your flowers to you with a pained the speaker repeats to the memory of his lover, as if desperately
surprise—”
hoping to create or cling to the perfect image of her. This
• Line 20: “Her hair over her arms and her arms full of
repeated phrase itself also contains epizeuxis
epizeuxis, that "weave,
flowers.”
weave" making the speaker sound yet more desperate.
Other repetitions evoke the obsessive pattern of the speaker's
thoughts, the way he's constantly revising his memories and
POETIC DEVICES ideas. Look at the second stanza
stanza, for example:
APOSTROPHE
So I would ha
havve had him lea
leavve,
The poem begins with an apostrophe to the speaker's ex, the So I would ha
havve had her stand and grieve,
girl or "Figlia" referred to in the title. It's not immediately clear So he would hahavve left
that she's absent; at first, it seems as though she and the As the soul lea
leavves the body torn and bruised,
speaker might be in a "garden" together. By the second stanza stanza, As the mind deserts the body it has used.
however, it's clear that she's long gone, and the speaker is I should find
essentially talking to a memory. Some wa
wayy incomparably light and deft,
It's a strange kind of apostrophe, too: rather than pouring his Some wa
wayy we both should understand,
heart out to the girl, he's giving her instructions. It sounds Simple and faithless as a smile and shake of the hand.
almost as if he's stage-directing her, or posing her for a picture:
"Stand on the highest pavement of the stair," "Lean on a garden Until the last line, nearly every phrase is repeated in some way,
urn," etc. He's remembering her, and their breakup, in the way often through anaphor
anaphoraa (note how many lines begin with "So I
he prefers—making it a prettier scene, or at least one he can would have," "As the," or "Some way"). The rhythm of the
live with. The only hint of his underlying passion comes in the passage is fussy, almost stuttering—as if the speaker is
repetition of "Weave, weave the sunlight in your hair." constantly starting over, clarifying, and correcting himself (e.g.,
Finally, "Weave, weave the sunlight in your hair" (repeated
repeated switching in the secular "mind" for the religious "soul"). These
twice in the first stanza
stanza) is a visual metaphor. It describes a effects make him sound like a fastidious artist—and a heartsick
delicate play of light and shadow in the girl's hair, such that the lover who can't stop thinking about his ex.
two seem woven together. It's a lovely, subtle image that The epizeuxis and diacope of lines 18-19 also make the speaker
conveys how the speaker wants to remember her: beautiful and sound obsessive:
perfectly posed.
Even more unusual is the way the apostrophe ends after the Compelled my imagination man
manyy da
days
ys,
first stanza. The speaker shifts to critiquing his breakup, Man
Manyy da
days
ys and man
manyy hours:
alternately referring to himself in the third and first person as
he does so. It's as if he's switching psychological tactics while The repetition emphasizes just how much time—how "many"
coming to grips with a painful event. Meanwhile, he shifts from days and hours—the speaker has spent thinking about his ex.
addressing his ex in the second person to recalling her in the
third. This change makes her seem all the more distant, Where Repetition appears in the poem:
underscoring the fact that their romance is truly over.

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Some way we both should understand,
• Line 1: “on” Simple and faithless as a smile and shake of the hand.
• Line 2: “on”
• Line 3: “Weave, weave the sunlight in your hair” Basically, he wishes breaking up were as easy and glib as a
• Line 4: “flowers” handshake between businesspeople. In this scenario, he's still
• Line 5: “turn” the one ending the relationship—"I should find" this approach,
• Line 7: “weave, weave the sunlight in your hair” he says—but his lover is happy to play along and conceal her
• Line 8: “So I would have had,” “leave” pain.
• Line 9: “So I would have had”
• Line 10: “So,” “would have,” “left” Where Simile appears in the poem:
• Line 11: “As the,” “leaves,” “the body”
• Line 12: “As the,” “the body” • Lines 10-12: “So he would have left / As the soul leaves
• Line 14: “Some way” the body torn and bruised, / As the mind deserts the
• Line 15: “Some way” body it has used.”
• Line 17: “turned” • Lines 13-16: “I should find / Some way incomparably
• Line 18: “many days” light and deft, / Some way we both should understand, /
• Line 19: “Many days,” “many” Simple and faithless as a smile and shake of the hand.”
• Line 20: “hair,” “her arms,” “her arms,” “flowers”
• Line 21: “should have” ENJAMBMENT
• Line 22: “should have” The poem contains relatively few enjambments
enjambments, but all of them
pack a punch. Generally, they have the effect of emphasizing
SIMILE the word just before (or just after) the line break
break. Look at the
The poem contains several vivid similes and metaphors
metaphors. In only enjambment in the first stanza, for example:
particular, three similes in the second stanza provide a rich
sense of the speaker's psychology. The first two come in lines Fling them to the ground and turn
10-12: With a fugitive resentment in your eyes:

So he would have left The enjambment (and the fact that it's the first enjambment,
As the soul leaves the body torn and bruised, after four end-stopped lines
lines) places extra weight on "turn,"
As the mind deserts the body it has used. making the girl's gesture seem more forceful and dramatic.
(The enjambment also subtly enacts what the poem describes,
The speaker imagines leaving his lover the way the soul, the line abruptly turning toward the next.) Something similar
according to some religious believers, leaves the body at the happens with "left" in line 10: this time, it's the speaker's
moment of death. "Torn and bruised" makes this an especially departure that seems sudden and forceful (even violent, as the
disturbing comparison: the speaker imagines his departure as a simile in lines 10-11 suggests). And the poem's final
violent act, one that would leave the girl as wounded and enjambment, in lines 23-24, accentuates the key word "amaze":
depleted as a corpse.
He then revises the comparison slightly: he "would have left" Sometimes these cogitations still amaze
her "As the mind deserts the body it has used." This is a more The troubled midnight and the noon’s repose.
secular framing—a "faithless" framing, to borrow the language
of line 16—but it's still an image of "desert[ion]" and disloyalty. This effect stresses the power with which these thoughts
In this scenario, the girl he's left still feels abandoned and ("cogitations") strike the speaker. In lines 17-18, the
"used." enjambment draws more attention to the word just after the
line break ("Compelled"), but the point is much the same: the
Meanwhile, minds and souls are ghostly things that can
memory of this girl (and this romance) is compelling, amazing,
transition smoothly from the concrete to the abstract or from
haunting.
life to the afterlife. In other words, the speaker is envisioning a
slick getaway that leaves her devastated, but doesn't affect him Finally, the enjambment in lines 13-14 ("I should find / Some
much. Building on this idea, he imagines a breakup that's way") highlights the shortest line in the poem, which is also the
perfectly smooth on both sides: one line in the poem that doesn't rh
rhyme
yme. (Although "find"
rhymes internally with "mind" in line 12.) Why so much
I should find emphasis on this line? Grammatically, it's a transitional moment,
Some way incomparably light and deft, as it wrenches the speaker from the past or the conditional/
counterfactual ("I would have had") back into the present tense.

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The extra weight on "find" stresses that he's still searching, still night, for example, and in his daydreams. By confessing that
seeking resolution: in an important sense, the breakup isn't he's still "troubled" by her memory, he immediately and
over for him yet. ironically undermines his own suggestion that the breakup was
for the best. There's also a bit of ironic understatement in his
Where Enjambment appears in the poem: claim that "cogitations" about her still trouble him "Sometimes":
this is a dry way of saying that he misses her a lot and still feels
• Lines 5-6: “turn / With” terrible about how things ended.
• Lines 10-11: “left / As”
• Lines 13-14: “find / Some”
Where Iron
Ironyy appears in the poem:
• Lines 17-18: “weather / Compelled”
• Lines 23-24: “amaze / The” • Lines 1-7
• Lines 13-16
IRONY • Line 22
• Lines 23-24
Like many of T. S. Eliot's poems, this one contains strong
undertones of iron
ironyy. In general, the irony here seems self-
aware and aimed inward: in a complex way, the speaker is
mocking himself. VOCABULARY
The first irony is that the speaker is mentally "directing" a Pavement (Line 1) - Any paved surface; here, the paved top
woman whom he broke up with a while ago ("Stand on the step of a staircase.
highest pavement," etc.). In the first stanza
stanza, it appears as though
she might actually be present: that she and the speaker are Urn (Line 2) - An ornamental vase (here, a large vase on display
together in the "garden." But the second stanza makes clear in a garden).
that lines 1-7 were an apostrophe to an absent person, and also Fugitive (Line 6) - Fleeting or elusive.
a kind of fantasy about an ideal breakup. There's an ironic Incomparably (Line 14) - Exceptionally; beyond compare.
reversal of the reader's expectations here, as well as an ironic
Faithless (Line 16) - Disloyal; deceitful.
conflict between the speaker's desires and the reality of the
situation. Mentally, he still wants to control an event that has Compelled (Line 18) - Captured; captivated.
already passed, and so can't possibly be controlled anymore. Pose (Line 22) - Can be read literally (to mean a way of holding
Still, on some level, he's aware of the futility. First, he one's body, as in a portrait), but also suggests a metaphorical
acknowledges the fantasy as such—as something he "would stance, attitude, or affectation (for example, that of an artist).
have had" happen, not something that did happen. Then, as Cogitations (Line 23) - A fancy word for "thoughts."
though he could still "find" that perfect exit, he imagines a
Amaze (Line 23) - Astonish, stun, or bewilder.
breakup that "we both should understand, / Simple and
faithless as a smile and shake of the hand." This phrasing Repose (Line 24) - A state of rest or relaxation. ("The noon's
acknowledges that his supposedly ideal breakup would in fact repose" implies a midday break from work.)
be glib, superficial, and rather cowardly. ("Faithless" here
implies disloyalty or treachery.) So lines 13-16 are an instance
of verbal iron
ironyy, or sarcasm: the speaker knows that a fake- FORM, METER, & RHYME
cheerful, businesslike handshake wouldn't really be the best
"way" to leave a lover. Through his sarcasm, he's accusing
FORM
himself of faint-heartedness and false-heartedness. Moreover, The poem has a very musical, but flexible, form. It contains
he purports to want a gentler breakup, but then says that such three stanzas of differing length (seven, nine, and eight lines,
a breakup would be shallow and faithless, so there's an ironic respectively) and employs a shifting meter and rhrhyme
yme scheme
scheme.
conflict here between intention (less pain) and reality (less It begins and ends with iambic pentameter (five-beat lines that
truth). generally follow a da-DUM
DUM, da-DUMDUM rhythm), but the rhythm
varies considerably in between, and each stanza rhymes in a
Finally, while he claims that something good came out of the
different pattern. Uniquely, line 13 has no matching end rh rhyme
yme,
breakup, he calls the thing he gained "a gesture and a pose."
though it forms an internal rh
rhyme
yme with the line before
He's suggesting that the failed romance benefited his
("mind"/"find").
art—shaped his attitudes and gave him material to write about.
But even this claim is self-mocking: he didn't gain deep insight, This form is loose enough that Eliot's contemporaries would
just a superficial "gesture" and an artificial "pose." Meanwhile, have understood it as free vverse
erse. To a contemporary ear, it may
he still thinks about the girl he gave up—in the middle of the sound more like a metrical poem with creative variations. Eliot

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himself was ornery about these categories: he famously ABACBCA DDEFFGEHH IJKKILJL
claimed that "No verse is free for the man who wants to do a Look carefully and one will notice that there's only one
good job." However, in this phase of his career, he was unrhymed line: line 13 ("I should find"). The word "find" here
consciously adapting some of the vers libre (free verse) forms an internal rhrhyme
yme with "mind" in the previous line, but it
techniques of late 19th-century French poetry into early 20th- has no matching end rh rhyme
yme. Its uniqueness helps mark it as a
century English poetry. transitional line, as the speaker shifts from the past tense (or
The experimental form of "La Figlia Che Piange" isn't just a the conditional perfect mode: "would have had") to the present
technical exercise: it also has psychological overtones. The ("I should find").
shifting structure highlights the speaker's own inconsistency, Like the poem's shifting meter and stanza pattern, the flexible
or internal conflict, as he reimagines his breakup scene. It rhyme scheme gives the speaker's thoughts a relatively natural
parallels his fussy shifts in narrative perspective and flow. It reflects T. S. Eliot's experimental, modernist approach to
grammatical tense. It makes him sound fitful and agitated, and poetic form, and it also reflects the character of the
perhaps a bit slippery—as if he doesn't want to be pinned down speaker—who himself is a little shifty and hard to pin down.
to one version of events.

METER
SPEAKER
"La Figlia Che Piange" has a fluid, shifting meter
meter. It begins and
ends with iambic pentameter—lines that contain five stressed The speaker is a somewhat slippery figure. As he reflects on his
syllables and generally flow in an unstressed-stressed
stressed rhythm breakup with his lover (the "you" or "her" of the poem), he
(da-DUM
DUM, da-DUM
DUM,da-DUMDUM, da-DUMDUM, da-DUMDUM). Readers can shifts between past and present tense and between first,
hear this pattern, with small variations, in line 1 and lines second, and third person.
22-24: In the first stanza
stanza, he apostrophizes his lover while recreating
the breakup (or a more satisfying version of it) in his memory.
Stand on the high
highest pa
pavvement of the stair
stair— He addresses her almost as a stage director, managing her
[...] every movement: "Stand [...] Lean [...] Weave." (Of course, she
I should have lost a ges
gesture and a pose
pose. can't literally hear him, nor would she be likely to follow his
Some
Sometimes these cogcogita
tations still amaze
maze directions if she could!) In the second stanza, he calls the two of
The trou
troubled mid
midnight and the noon
noon’s’s repose
pose. them "him" and "her," as if trying to detach himself emotionally
from the breakup. He then shifts to a more natural-sounding
Lines 1 and 23 begin with a trochee (D
DA-dum) rather than an first person ("II should find [...] Some way we both should
iamb (da-DUM
DUM): "Stand
Stand on," "Some
Sometimes." But this is an understand," "She [...] Compelled my imagination," etc.), but
extremely common variation. In general, all these lines are continues to shift tenses and wrestle with his feelings.
thoroughly conventional iambic pentameter (which is itself the
These devices can be confusing on a first reading of the poem,
most common meter in English poetry).
but they make a certain kind of emotional sense. The speaker
What comes in between is much less conventional. The poem comes off as a fastidious, neurotic aesthete: a man struggling to
contains lines with only two or three stressed syllables: "II gain some artistic or poetic perspective on a painful event. His
should find
find," "LLean on a gar
garden urn
urn" (lines 13 and 2). It also pronoun shifts help dramatize his internal conflict as he turns
contains longer, metrically irregular lines, such as line 16: the breakup over in his memory. The grammatical shiftiness
"Simple and faithless as a smile and shake of the hand." The also suggests that he's a little shifty: someone who'd prefer a
shifty meter helps convey the speaker's doubt, ambivalence, "light and deft," insincere breakup to a candid one.
and desire to revise his words and actions.
T. S. Eliot's poems often feature conflicted or self-divided
Eliot wrote this poem at a time when he, and fellow modernists, speakers. For example, "The
The LLo
ove Song of JJ.. Alfred Prufrock
Prufrock"
were adapting the techniques of French vers libre (free
free vverse
erse) (from the same book as "La Figlia Che Piange") famously begins
into English poetry. His peers would have read the poem as free with the speaker, Prufrock, talking to himself as though he were
verse, and it's certainly much looser than the rigid forms of the two different people: "Let us go, then, you and I."
18th and 19th centuries. At the same time, it's strongly
informed by Eliot's metrical expertise and never strays that far
from the pentameter. SETTING
RHYME SCHEME The poem's main setting is a "garden," which contains "flowers,"
The poem's rh
rhyme
yme scheme is irregular and varies from stanza a "stair[case]," and a large "urn" (vase). This is the scene of the
to stanza. The full scheme looks like this: couple's breakup, at least as the speaker fantasizes it. He

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implies that his mind is rearranging the details, but the memory phrase "the weeping girl" also stresses how much the breakup
seems to have some underlying reality: he affirms in the final hurt this woman. (Eliot's own love life was notoriously
stanza that the woman "turned away" from him, apparently conflicted; scholars are still disco
discovvering new details about the
with "her arms full of flowers." romantic turmoil he experienced—and caused.)
The breakup happened during, or maybe just before, the Eliot's influence on Western literary culture was immense.
"autumn weather": a time of symbolic decline. But the speaker Poems like "The
The W
Waste
aste Land
Land" and "Four Quartets" cast a long
continues to recall the event long afterward, including in the shadow over 20th-century writing, and Eliot was regarded as
middle of the day and night (during "The troubled midnight and the premier literary critic and tastemaker of his era. His
the noon's repose"). In other words, the emotional impact of achievements won him the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948.
the event wasn't confined to a single place or season.
HISTORICAL CONTEXT
The garden setting, whether real or imagined, carries some
symbolic and allusiv
allusivee overtones as well. Like the biblical Garden The early 20th century was a time of profound change.
of Eden, it's a place where one or both lovers lose some form of Inventions such as the airplane and telephone altered daily life
innocence (the girl's "pained surprise" suggests her shock at significantly in a short time. Cities grew denser as people began
having her heart broken). flocking from the countryside to urban centers. New
technologies and industries improved the quality of life for
some, while creating polluted environments and unsafe
CONTEXT working conditions for others.
When poems from Prufrock and Other Observations were first
LITERARY CONTEXT printed, World War I had just begun. The immense violence of
T. S. Eliot (1888-1965) published "La Figlia Che Piange" as the the "Great War" shook ideals inherited from the previous
final poem in his first collection, Prufrock and Other Observations century and shattered the old European order. The new
(1917). The collection's famous title poem, "TheThe LLo
ove Song of JJ.. technologies that had seemingly improved life for so many
Alfred Prufrock
Prufrock," shares some features and themes with "La were used to kill on an industrial scale. All these developments
Figlia Che Piange"; the speakers of both poems seem divided made modernist artists deeply skeptical of the modern world.
against themselves, for example, and brood on their romantic At the same time, modernist thinking stirred up animosity
hesitations and regrets. towards older ways of living; after all, it was the old European
empires that had led the continent into war.
"La Figlia Che Piange" appeared during a period of widespread
literary experimentation, known as modernism. Modernist Many modernists, including Eliot, also wrestled with the
writers such as Eliot, Ezra Pound, Marianne Moore, James problem of belief in an age of mass death and declining
Joyce, and Virginia Woolf challenged the literary norms they religious affiliation. While "La Figlia Che Piange" is more
had inherited from the 19th century. These norms were both concerned with love problems, a hint of this conflict is visible in
formal—related to the structure and style of poems, plays, and the speaker's self-accusing word "faithless" (line 16), as well as
novels—and social: sex, drugs and alcohol, feminism, and his revision from the religious "soul" to the secular "mind" (lines
working-class life all became new subjects for serious literature 11-12).
during this period. Eliot's models at this time were mainly As an American poet who had just resettled in England, and
French poets of the late 19th century, such as Jules Laforgue who would spend most of his life in Europe, Eliot sought novel
and Stéphane Mallarmé. He experimented skillfully with the ways of depicting and addressing his increasingly globalized
emerging techniques of vers libre (English: free vverse
erse); "La Figlia society. His poems incorporate a wide range of languages and
Che Piange," for instance, hovers around iambic pentameter, literary traditions, as in the title and epigraph here.
but doesn't follow that meter consistently until the last few
lines.
The poem's title—Italian for "The Girl Who Weeps" or "The MORE RESOUR
RESOURCES
CES
Weeping Girl"—alludes
alludes to a stele (stone monument) that Eliot
hoped to see, but was unable to find, on a trip to Italy. The EXTERNAL RESOURCES
epigr
epigraph
aph is a quotation from Virgil's Aeneid, the central epic • The PPoet's
oet's Life and W
Work
ork — A short biography of Eliot at
poem in the Latin language. Spoken by the hero Aeneas to The Poetry Foundation.
Venus, goddess of love, while the goddess is in disguise, it (https:/
(https://www
/www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/t-s-eliot)
.poetryfoundation.org/poets/t-s-eliot)
translates roughly to: "Oh, maiden, by what name shall I call • An Introduction to Modernism — A Poetry Foundation
you?" These allusions create an air of elusiveness or mystery feature on the movement Eliot helped define.
around the young woman in the poem, as well as an (https:/
(https://www
/www.poetryfoundation.org/collections/152025/
.poetryfoundation.org/collections/152025/
atmosphere of uncertainty around the lovers' parting. The

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an-introduction-to-modernism) • Rhapsody on a Windy Night
• The Hollow Men
• The PPoet's
oet's LLo
ove Life — An article about the complex • The LLo
ove Song of JJ.. Alfred Prufrock
romantic relationships that inspired Eliot's poems. • The WWaste
aste Land
(https:/
(https://www
/www.newy
.newyork
orker
er.com/books/page-turner/the-
.com/books/page-turner/the-
secret-history-of-t-s-eliots-muse
secret-history-of-t-s-eliots-muse))
• An Original Printing — See the poem as it originally HOW T
TO
O CITE
appeared in Prufrock and Other Observations (1917).
(https:/
(https:///archiv
archive.org/details/prufrockandother00eliorich/
e.org/details/prufrockandother00eliorich/ MLA
page/38/mode/2up
page/38/mode/2up))
Allen, Austin. "La Figlia Che Piange." LitCharts. LitCharts LLC, 3 Oct
• The P
Poem
oem Aloud — Listen to T. S. Eliot read "La Figlia Che 2022. Web. 8 Feb 2023.
Piange." (https:/
(https://www
/www..youtube.com/
watch?v=i9Wvp5AiIX8) CHICAGO MANUAL
Allen, Austin. "La Figlia Che Piange." LitCharts LLC, October 3,
LITCHARTS ON OTHER T. S. ELIOT POEMS 2022. Retrieved February 8, 2023. https://www.litcharts.com/
• Journe
Journeyy of the Magi poetry/t-s-eliot/la-figlia-che-piange.
• Morning at the Window
• Portr
ortrait
ait of a Lady
• Preludes

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