Exploring The Waste Land
A miscellaneous page linked from The Waste Land, Part V, line 429

El Desdichado
Line 429

The line: is from Gérard de Nerval's sonnet El Desdichado. "El Desdichado" also shows up in Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe.

"... His suit of armour was formed of steel, richly inlaid with gold, and the device on his shield was a young oak-tree pulled up by its roots, with the Spanish word Desdichado, signifying Disinherited.

'Have you confessed yourself, brother,' said the Templar, '...that you peril your life so frankly?'

'I am fitter to meet death than thou art,' answered the Disinherited Knight; for by this name the stranger had recorded himself in the books of the tourney... "


Exploring The Waste Land
File name: mq429.html
File date: Sunday, September 29, 2002
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