The Wasteland

[nameandnature]

People who post D&D campaign reports to their blogs: death's too good for 'em, I say. I think I'll make an exception for this one of scribb1e's, though.

THE WASTE LAND

'Antea, in stipendia Roberti, dicerem: ἀποθανεῑν δεν θέλω; respondebat dominus ludorum: alea iacta est.'

I. The burial of the undead

Hathel is the cruellest month, breeding
Kobolds out of the undead land, mixing
Duty and revenge, stirring
Dire weasels with spring rain.
Joe kept us warm, lighting
A fire in the clearing, feeding
Us with rabbit stew and tubers
Iliriel surprised us, coming up from Arlin
With the falling night; we stopped at the camp
And went on in sunlight, into the castle,
And were shot at, and talked for a minute.
Bin gar kein Kobold, stamm' aus Arlin, echt Elvish.
And when we were safe, inside the castle,
We climbed the tower with rickety stairs
And we were frightened. We said, Terseus,
Terseus, hold on tight. But down he went.
In the mountains, there you feel free.
We watch, much of the night, and clear up the corpses in the morning.

What are the oozes that grapple, what beasts lurk
In this stony rubbish? Son of man,
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken mages, who cannot divine
And the trees give no shelter, and the DM no relief
And the dry fountain no sound of water. Only
There is a secret door under this rock
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock)
And I will show you something different from either
Skeletons at morning jumping out behind you
Or zombies at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of rust.

Wo ist meine Rüstung?
Was haben sie getan?
Sie haben es gegessen
Das war rücksichtslos.

'You engulfed me first a moment ago
They called me the shimmering man'
- Yet when you moved on, later, to engulf another
Your flanks full, and my hair wet, I could not
Speak, and my strength failed, I was neither
Living nor dead, and I knew nothing,
Looking into the corridor, the shadows.
Ich von Panik erfaßt werde.


scribb1e writes:

The Waste Land seems remarkably easy to do this to. Either because great art is characterised by its ability to sustain more than one interpretation, or because it's a bunch of easily-imitated, pretentious twaddle.

Apart from scribb1e's, the greatest parodies of the poem are Wendy Cope's and ladysisyphus's Harry Potter version.