The poem begins with an epigraph from the Aeneid, an epic poem by the ancient Roman poet Virgil. The Latin quotation translates to, "Oh, what should I call you, maiden?" (or "Oh, by what name should I call you, virgin?"). Aeneas, the poem's hero, asks this question of the love-goddess Venus, who has appeared to him disguised as a huntress. Together with the Italian title, which translates to "the girl who weeps," the epigraph suggests that Eliot's poem will involve a beautiful young woman—one who is both distressed and enigmatic. "La Figlia Che Piange" is also the title of a stele, or monumental tablet, that the poet had unsuccessfully searched for in an Italian museum. Overall, these references prepare readers for a speaker who imagines his personal life in literary or artistic terms—in other words, an aesthete type.
Lines 1-3 then introduce the speaker, who is giving directions to an initially unidentified person. These sound like directions one might give to an actor, or someone posing for a picture: "Stand on the highest pavement of the stair— / Lean on a garden urn." The first two instructions are straightforward enough, but the third is subtler and more metaphorical: "Weave, weave the sunlight in your hair." This seems to mean that the person being addressed should stand partly in the sun, so that light and shadow "weave" together in their hair.
Unsurprisingly, it turns out that the speaker is addressing a young woman, the "Figlia" of the title. As the following lines reveal, he's posing her in his memory. (Or in a revised memory, a kind of fantasy after the fact.) In other words, she's not there with him now, and he's addressing her via apostrophe.
The "stair," "garden urn," and "sunlight" are features of a remembered scene—in fact, a breakup scene. They have strong symbolic overtones:
- For example, the "stair" seems to elevate or exalt the girl as she stands "on the highest pavement" (top step).
- Gardens are traditionally associated with youth, love, freshness, and so on—but also with lost innocence (as in the Garden of Eden).
- Urns are associated with beauty and delicacy, but also with fragility and loss (funerary urns).
All of these resonances make sense in a poem about the speaker's ex: a girl he seems to miss and, in part, regret leaving. (For more on the symbolism of this setting, see the Symbols and Setting sections of this guide.)
Each of the first four lines is end-stopped with a dash, giving the passage an urgent, staccato quality. Meanwhile, the meter shifts around: it approximates, but doesn't settle into, iambic pentameter (five-beat lines that follow a da-DUM, da-DUM rhythm). Line 2 has only three beats, for example ("Lean on a garden urn"). The poem ends up being an unstable mix of meter and free verse, which may reflect its speaker's ambivalence and unease. It's as if this speaker is having as much trouble committing to a rhythm as he had committing to a relationship.