Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question ...
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
Let us go and make our visit.

The speaker opens the poem with these lines (1–12), where he invites an unspecified “you” to join him on an evening stroll through the city. The “you” is likely a potential lover whom the speaker is trying to woo, but it isn’t clear if the two of them actually go on a walk. Indeed, the speaker seems to get carried away by imagining what such a walk would be like. And given how sinister his imagined vision becomes, it’s likely that his invitation simply falls by the wayside. It’s notable that the speaker begins the poem courting the romantic trope of a beautiful sunset. However, he immediately undercuts this trope with a shocking simile that likens the sky to “a patient etherised upon a table.” From here, the speaker’s imagination leads him down “certain half-deserted streets” that reflect the spiritual hollowness of modern city life, full at is it with “cheap hotels,” “sawdust restaurants,” and “oyster-shells.” Ultimately, going on a walk seems tantamount to “a tedious argument / Of insidious intent.” This argument in turn leads the speaker back to the same old “overwhelming question” that evidently haunts him like an existential nightmare, yet which he refuses to talk about.

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes,
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

In lines 15–22, Prufrock continues to depict the city as a nightmarish realm. He emphasizes the haze of yellow fog that pervades the urban environment. In describing this yellow fog at such length, the speaker presents the archetypal image of industrial modernity. Essentially, he’s saying the city is polluted with smoke from local industry, and that this smoke is backlit by electric lights that make it glow yellow. The image has an eerie quality, made yet more strange by the way Prufrock endows the fog with a feline nature. Like a cat, the fog moves fluidly through the city, getting into every nook and cranny. The fog is therefore everywhere, affecting everyone and everything in the urban environment. In addition to posing health risks to those who breathe it, the fog also obscures visibility, and its pervasiveness produces a general atmosphere of unease. These various effects help illustrate the more abstract meaning of the fog, which Eliot uses to symbolize the toxic and isolating conditions of modern existence. Just as it blankets the city in a shroud of eerie gloom, it produces a form of intellectual haze that figuratively fogs up Prufrock’s mind.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

These lines make up the poem’s famous refrain, which appears twice, in lines 13–14 and 35–36. It isn’t clear whether the scene Prufrock is describing is a memory or an imagined projection, but either way it communicates his overall sense of loneliness and isolation. The women in this undisclosed “room” are busy going about their own business, talking amongst themselves. Unable to approach these women or interrupt their conversation, Prufrock stands at a remove, an unnoticed observer. It’s also symbolically significant that the women are specifically talking of Michelangelo, the great artist of the Italian Renaissance. Like Dante, Shakespeare, and Marvell, all of whom the speaker references elsewhere in the poem, Michelangelo represents an earlier tradition of European art. This is a tradition that, in a modern context, now feels irretrievably remote—much like the women Prufrock desires.

And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—
And this, and so much more?—
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
               “That is not it at all,
               That is not what I meant, at all.”

These lines (99–110) find Prufrock in a particularly indecisive frame of mind. Eliot reflects the speaker’s indecision and uncertainty through the extended rhetorical question that sprawls across this passage’s first five lines. However, it isn’t entirely clear what Prufrock’s question actually refers to. He’s evidently speculating about a missed opportunity that he thinks “would [or could] . . . have been worth” pursuing. However, the action he’s considering remains obscured. Perhaps most likely is that he is wondering whether it would have been worth pressing forward with his attempt to have sex with the companion he addressed in the poem’s opening lines. This would help explain why most of the question consists of a fragmentary catalog of many of the images and objects Prufrock has already referenced in the poem’s first two thirds. After taking tea together and going for a sunset stroll through “the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,” he now contemplates if sexual consummation would have been the logical next step. However, he gets stuck on his own ability to communicate (“It is impossible to say just what I mean!”) and by his fear of misunderstanding (“That is not what I meant, at all”).

No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—
Almost, at times, the Fool.

In lines 111–19, the speaker at once acknowledges his similarity to Hamlet and refuses the comparison. For readers familiar with Shakespeare’s play, the likeness between that Hamlet’s titular antihero and Prufrock will be immediately evident. Like Hamlet, Prufrock is highly intelligent and yet profoundly neurotic. Both men are predisposed to overthinking and indecision, which leads them to feel isolated, paranoid, and existentially feeble. Yet for all these obvious similarities, and in a rare moment of decisiveness, Prufrock resolutely claims: “No! I am not Prince Hamlet.” Intriguingly, his reason for this refusal isn’t based on a negation of the men’s shared character flaws. Instead, he rejects the comparison because Hamlet has the distinction of being a leading role, whereas Prufrock feels himself to be a decidedly minor character. He is not fit to play the prince, only the prince’s “deferential” and “meticulous” but ultimately inconsequential attendant. Prufrock concludes by thinking that an even more appropriate for a ridiculous person such as himself to play the Fool. Although the reference to Shakespeare reflects an admiration for literary tradition, Prufrock nonetheless feels alienated from that tradition.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.
We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

Whereas the poem began with an imagined walk through the city, it ends with this equally imaginary scene at the ocean (lines 126–31). Just prior to this passage, Prufrock looks out to sea and envisions distant mermaids who joyfully sing to each other while ignoring him. He then speaks the lines quoted here, which close the poem with an image that as serene as it is sullen. The feeling of serenity comes largely from the language. The undercurrent of iambic rhythm has a lulling effect after all the fragmentation and variation that characterizes the rest of the poem. The use of repetition is also powerfully lulling. The words “waves” and “white” both repeat across multiple lines. Eliot also uses a form of repetition called polyptoton (puh-LIP-tuh-tawn), which involves the use of etymologically related words in different forms. This technique may be seen in the near-repetition of words like “blown” and “blow” as well as “sea,” “sea-girls,” and “seaweed.” Along with heavy use of assonance and consonance, these forms of repetition have a lulling effect that seems serene, yet which also suggests the loss of consciousness that accompanies drowning. The poem therefore ends with a sullen death fantasy.

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