This line (from T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land) translates as ``When shall I be as the swallow?''. Hence `O swallow swallow' following, and the reference to Philomela (who was transformed into a nightingale, not that nightingale = swallow). In early editions of the poem, this line was ``Quando fiam ceu chelidon'', which means the same thing.

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