OW as at all times I can see in the mind's eye, - In their stiff, painted clothes, the pale unsatisfied ones
- Appear and disappear in the blue depth of the sky
- With all their ancient faces like rain-beaten stones,
- And all their helms of silver hovering side by side,
- And all their eyes still fixed, hoping to find once more,
- Being by Calvary's turbulence unsatisfied,
- The uncontrollable mystery on the bestial floor.
Religious Allusion and Societal Criticism in William Butler Yeats’ The Magi
The Magi employs masterful use of symbolic language to reveal religious allusion within the context of a societal commentary. William Butler Yeats, the author of the poem, was an Irish poet apparently deeply fascinated with the spiritual, the religious, and the occult. Yeats wrote The Magi during the tail end of his career (1914 – Yeats passed away in 1939), which may explain the seeming reminiscent tones toward the “ancient faces” presented in the poem (line 4).
Yeats begins the poem by immediately establishing that his experience is an abstract one. While this abstract nature originates in the experience of the speaker, Yeats points to an objective truth inherent in the way in which he describes the “old men in the sky” (the magi). He describes their clothes and and their state of mind in a way that objectively judges the motives of the magi. The juxtaposition of “stiff, painted clothes” and “pale, unsatisfied ones” is not a mistake on the part of Yeats, but intentionally a judgement of the material grasping of the “ancient faces” in the sky (lines 2, 4). The trend to criticize the material continues immediately following, as Yeats then follows “faces like rain-beaten stones” with “and all their helms of silver hovering side by side.” The speaker establishes here a sense of correlation between the worn down and the glimmering, metallic hat.
Despite the prescence of the lavish hat and colorful clothes, the subject of criticism remains detached from the delusional beauty of these material things. The hat “hovers” instead of crowns, the clothes are “stiff” instead of flowing and comfortable (lines 2, 5). Even more importantly, despite the presence of these very material things, the ancient faces “appear and disappear”, not holding a strong physical appearance despite “...all their eyes still fixed, hoping to find once more…the uncontrollable mystery on the bestial floor.” The ancient faces are trying their hardest to grasp and hold onto the material yet are failing, not only in their own quest but in failing to maintain both their own happiness and their own presence. This failure most likely points to Yeats’ criticism of the attempt to maintain a firm hold in the realm of the physical world through the pursuit of material goods. The quest to be immortal only ends in unhappiness for eternity, an immortal state surely contrary to the original intent of the pursuers.
Within the poem, Yeats’ tone passes from truthful, nostalgic, transcendent and heaven-like to falsely hopeful, rough, turbulent, and hell-like. This may point to Yeats attempt to degrade the status of the magi due to their groveling for things and failure to recognize the true beauty inherent in the world (as shown by “the blue depth of the sky” in line 3). Yeats’ presents a sharp contrast not only through the change in style in his poetry as shown by the revealing of the true nature of the magi but additionally through the biblical tones established throughout the work.
The first of these occurs in the title itself, “The Magi.” The Magi were the three “wise men” who visited Jesus as a newborn child, presenting him with three gifts (as they truly believed he was the messiah). The “ancient faces” in the story appear to be manifestations of the Magi to the extreme – rather than being the bearer of gifts to Jesus, they are the takers away of gifts, the purely physically grasping. Yeats solidifies this possibility through his use of the line, “being by Calvary’s turbulence unsatisfied” (line 7). Calvary, in its capital form, literally points to the place at which Jesus was crucified. This solidifies Yeats’ view of the “ancient faces”, he has denounced them as not appeased by the ultimate act of saving – Jesus’ death and resurrection. He shows that despite their unhappiness, they still yearn for the “bestial floor” of what seems to be earth (line 8). The men in the sky, the materially obsessed, simply cannot let go of what they once had, what the livelihood of their physical clothing once brought forth. The description of the earth as a “bestial floor” indicates that Yeats believed that much of his contemporary society emulated the behavior of materialism as exhibited by the “pale unsatisfied ones” in the sky. Labeling them as ungrateful for Jesus’ saving grace and unwilling to give up physical gifts as the Magi did is the ultimate disownment.
