Keep the dog

Cf. the Dirge in Webster's White Devil. [Eliot's note] In the play by John Webster (d. 1625), the dirge, sung by Cornelia, has the lines "But keep the wolf far hence, that's foe to men, /For with his nails he'll dig them up again." Eliot makes the "wolf" into a "dog", which is not a foe but a friend to humans. There may be a reference to Sirius, the Dog Star, which is important in Egyptian mythology as heralding the fertilizing floods of the Nile (this is discussed by Weston). (NA)

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