I left them twisting, turning below;

At the first turning of the second stair
I turned and saw below
The same shape twisted on the banister
Under the vapour in the fetid air
Struggling with the devil of the stairs who wears
The deceitul face of hope and of despair.

At the second turning of the second stair
I left them twisting, turning below;
There were no more faces and the stair was dark,
Damp, jaggèd, like an old man's mouth drivelling, beyond repair,
Or the toothed gullet of an agèd shark.
--T. S. Eliot, Ash Wednesday

This section is one of those places I would rather not go. It is unpleasant. A dark place where nightmares seem to dwell. One I love has a damaged mouth. This passage makes me uncomfortable.

As Eliot writes of turnings of the stairs my memory flashes on the black carved banisters of the stairwell in Durham Castle, now a university dormitory where I spent two weeks in 1997. Then on to - how many movies? - where one looks down a stairwell while fleeing an often not-yet-identified pursuer. One sees hints and flashes and hears approaching steps. The threat is real.

Only this is a poem, not the cinema. We see:

The same shape twisted on the banister
Under the vapour in the fetid air
Struggling with the devil of the stairs who wears
The deceitul face of hope and of despair.

A shape, not defined yet described as twisted. Twisted how? There is a vapor, the air is fetid, the very atmosphere is repugnant and vaguely threatening. Is the twisted shape malevolent, some black-shrouded afreet (think ring wraith if you are a LOTR fan)?

No, it struggles with a demon, "with the devil of the stairs who wears/ The deceitful face of hope and despair."

What sort of demon is this which comes to us in contrary forms? Does it come as false hope (and genuine despair)? Does it represent two seemingly opposite postures, both of them likely to lead us astray? to entrap us? to hinder our ascent and drag us down?

The poet (and the soul?) does not cease to ascend but leaves the strugglers and the struggle behind. The faces of hope and despair are left behind. Perhaps all recognizable faces. All that is left is a shapeless maw - a dark but ultimately powerless mouth of hell? Something that still lurks below, waiting to take us in, yet we ascend.

--the BB