David Gordon
believes
it is.
A-Companion-to-the-Cantos-of-Ezra-Pound-II
5: Hu02?
5 [not hu04.
5]
99/702-706
"heart"; li3. . [not li3-5] [M3865]; "in": "Heaven's temple is in the heart. "
80. The phallos . . . : At least the Buddhists didn't create a whole spectrum of "sins of the flesh" as did the various Christian sects after Augustine and again after the 12th century.
81. chih3: Chi'ih [MI037], "upper inci? sors"; [MI037? 25], "gnash the teeth. "
82. wo4. 5: [M7163], "paltry. "
83. ch'o4. 5: [MI287], "grate the teeth. "
3
84. kuan : [M3557], "control. "
85. chao4: [M238], "care for. "
86. che yang ti jen: Che4 [M265, "in this way"; yang4 [M7256], "kind"; ti4. 5 [M6213], a particle; jen2 [M3097], "man. "
87. ! iu2 : [M4080], "flow. "
88. pai lui: Pai4 [M4866], "ruin"; lui4
96. grain. the ear. "
641 : Hsiu4 also means "grain in
[M2401] , "2
[MI982], 'Buddha. " Wen? li: "If men were aware that at the present time there are two Living Buddhas [their parents] placed in tbeir own homes, why need they go else?
where to worship on the mountains and to seek happiness from idols? "
77. Kuang Ming: [Cf. 46 above].
78. Kbaty: [Cf. 45 above].
79. tien t'ang2 hsin! li3. 5: T'ien [M6361]' "heaven"; [M6107] , "temple"; [M2735];
incarnations
of Buddha";
[M4244], "bad class. " The components of
lui4 are *,"rice"; -K, "dog"; and r, 104. Yao: [53:14]. The "lovelies" are his
"head. "
89. An Ting: Wen? li: "In the Sung Dynasty there was one Hu-u'en called An-ting, a dis- trict officer of Instruction. . . . "
90. Wen2 Weng! : Wen? li: "In the Han Dy? nasty there was a certain Wen-ong, A Prefect in tbe Province of Se? ch'uan" [cf. 52 above].
92. Ne ultra . . . : [98:169].
93. Dohnetsch: [81 :48]. He carried on his family tradition of making great musical in- struments, as the circus performers of the "Big Top" carried on their tradition.
94. hsiu4 ts'an2 : [M2803], "cultivated tal? ents"; ts'ai2 Jnot tS'an2 ] [M6660], "ability. "
95. kuan! ch'ang2 : [M3552], "mandarin"; [M213] , "excelling. "
two daughters.
105. Hsiang i . . . : Hsiang3 [M2564], "think it over"; [M30l6], "one. "
106. hsiao4 : Hsiao! [not hsia04] [M2611]' "put into circulation. "
107. tsou: Tsou4 [M6808], "memorialize the emperor. "
108. k'ao ch'eng: [M3299? 16], "settlement between a superior and a subordinate. " The share of the harvest to be titbed, agreed upon through an argument between a land- owner and a tenant.
109. Thiers: [100:115]. Pound felt Thiers offered valid criticism of the income tax which was an advance on the earlier ideas of Talleyrand. .
110. Talleyrand: [101 :22].
111. PANURGIA: H, "knavery. "
112. SOPHIA: H, "wisdom. " Pound dis? cusses sophia and its relation to knowledge
[98:168].
musical instrument, which recalls Dol-
metsch.
91. pen yeh:
is also
a
Yeh 4 - 5
97. Kiang Sheng: Meaning the Sheng U or Sacred Edict The emperor required that it be read to all tbe people once a month.
98. Generation . . . : Wen-Ii: "The why and wherefore of these regulations no doubt is that mankind rely entirely upon their chilo dren to perpetuate their posterity. ".
99. hao hsin2 : Ha03 hsin! [M2062], "good heartedness"; [M2735], "affections. "
100. 0 4-5 : [M4809], "evil, foul. " A rhyme with "There is no darkness but ignorance"
[80: 141]. Education is the cure for that.
101. huai: Huai4 [M2232], "ruin" [cf. 88 above].
102. kids . . . homestead: [Pai, 2? 1, 79; n &2,319].
103. Born . . . gong: The words come from components of the characters.
? ? ? 642
and will as conceived by Aristotle and finds
that Aristotle's ideas will not do [GK, 326- 328].
113. scienza: I, "science. "
114. XN: Chap. 14 of the Edict concerns an enlightened tax system: "The ten voices . . . " is a way of saying "from time immemorial" or "according to ancient customs,"
99/706-710
prob. wants to suggest "roots. " Wen~li: "We have heard that nourishing the people is the basic root, consisting in clothing and food: farming and mulberry culture are the source for clothing and food. "
127. nung: Nung2 [M4768], "to farm. "
128_ sang: Sang! [M5424], "the mulberry tree. "
129. Empress: Wen-ii: "Anciently the em- peror went in person to plough and the empress in person attended the mulberry trees. They personally enjoyed the highest prestige, and their not shirking from the heat of toil set the empire an example. "
99/710-712
643
143. en! : [MI743-3]' "bound by mutual ties, on the one side grace, and on the other loyalty. " Pound used this character as the title-page seal in Thrones.
144. village usage: Wen-li: "Now because the scholar is considered as the first of the four classes of people, one expects quite a bit from him, and therefore the scholar's expectations of and demands on himself can- not be easy going. A scholar constantly prac- tices the fundamentals and afterward the large and small villages regard him as a reli- able mold of behavior. "
145. chiao! : [M702], "to communicate," "friendship. " Wen-Ii: "And in regard to your studies, let them all be the classical books; in regard to friends, choose reliable officers. "
146. raise ruin: Wen-Ii: "Be alert to preserve the honorable lest in establishing yourself you come to ruin and flaw your school's name. " The components of one character mean "bird" and ~~mouth," which means "chirrp. "
2
147. jen, i, Ii, chih: Jen [M3099], "hu-
manity"; i4 [M3002], "equity"; li3 [M3886], "propriety"; chih4 [M933], "wis- dom. " The four tuan [85:33].
148. worship . . . day! : Wen-ii: "Then even ignorant people can apply the values of cour- tesy and justice to their plowing and weed- ing. And the decisive soldier can apply the values of the Shih Odes and the Shu History to his shield and helmet. A unifying princi- ple of manners brought to Zenith. May we again see it in our day. "
149. All . . . grows: Wen-ii: "Only wanting to solidify the customs of the people, we first set out to rectify men's hearts; wanting to rectify men's hearts, we instituted a pro- gram of studies. . . now man receives the central principles of Heaven and Earth at his birth. " The final lines of the canto are a comment on this key passage which is cen- tral to the Confucianism of both Mencius and Pound [Pai, inside front cover].
115. t'ien2 ti4: [M6198], "soil. "
[M6362] ,
"land" ;
who were to become leaders in the land were especially attended to by appointed profes- sors and scholars. "
140. graceful bigots . . . phalloi: Perhaps a reference to Pound himself.
David Gordon believes it is. He thinks Pound's anti- Semitism of the early 1950s gave way little by little until by the time of Thrones he could begin to see it objectively; especially since a number of people, including Gordon and John Espey, accused him over and over again of being a bigot. The "thundering phal- 10i" may refer to his continuous efforts to show that man's sexuality is divinely created and natural and has nothing to do with sin, as Gourmont showed in The Natural Philoso- phy of Love years earlier. Ethical questions involve treatment of others; sin comes from mistreatment of others, not from phallic ex- pression in itself. Trying to get such an idea across to someone brainwashed for a lifetime by puritanism may require a kind of thun- dering repetition. One of the characters in- volved is n0 4 , 'I'W [M4750]: it has the component \11 , "heart," which Pound con- sidered a drawing of the phallus, and right- hand components which are similar to if, "thunder. " N0 4 means "weak. " The lower part of the right component is not really "thunder"; hence, "mistranslation. "
141. SAGE . . . : Wen-ii: "Our meritorious ancestor even in old age was still stimulating others to goodness, and especially exalted schools and scholarship. In all things, there- fore, that would feed the spirit of scholars and conduce to their educative disciplines he was circumspectly prepared. "
142. anagogico: I, "anagogic. " The highest of the four allegorical levels of meaning as described by Dante [Conv. , 2. 1. 6], where it is called the "super-sense" and is related to a spiritual interpretation of the Bible. In Dante the anagogic relates the soul of the present to the heaven of the future. In Pound it means the wisdom of the ancestors for those of the present and the wisdom of the sages of the present for posterity.
116. (liang2 ): [M3944], "taxes in kind. "
117. Yong (2. 2. 3): Yung Cheng. The num- bers refer to the Wang text, Baller's transla- tion, and the notes on the Wen-Ii text.
118. Elkin Mathews: [82:6]. As editor, he defined the requirements and length of W. L. Courtney's work [see ! 19 below]. Perhaps a statement of the value of literary criticism in England at the time. DG remembers Pound saying the phrase often at St. Elizabeths. HK thinks that was good pay for the time.
119. Courtney's: W_ L. Courtney, editor of the Fortnightly Review during Pound's early years in London.
120. Chou rite . . . : The Sacred Edict was a last great expression of Neoconfucianisffi, which according to Kung himself, derived from the Chou dynasty [53 :77-78].
121. manesco: I, "rough, brutal. "
122. the 9 arts: Pound prob. meant "6 arts," as there is no such phrase as "9 arts" in China. But IU 4 ? 5 [M4189], "6 arts," is fun- damental to Confucianism.
123. chao! : [M236-6], "clear. "
124. CHEN: Chen4 [M316], "I. "
125. Yo el rey: S, "I the king. " Since some of the Jesuit missionaries to China were from Spain, perhaps K'ang Hsi or his son learned enough Spanish to say some things to them in their tongue.
126. (logistica): I, "logistics. " But Pound
130. Ideogram: omen. "
Ch'a0
4
[M247],
"an
131. ch'ang2 : [M213], "to show respect. "
132. chu: Chu4 [MI581], "to assemble or meet together. "
133. wu2 . . ? Ii4: [M7208], "do not"; [M4587-1O], "love ardently"; [M514], "wonderful"; [M7483], "profit"; [M5000], "double profit"; [M3867], "interest on
money. "
134. (Byzance . . . : [98: 18].
135. Michelet: Jules M. , 1798-1874, French historian extraordinaire who did much to resurrect the past and explain it to his con- temporaries.
136. Ambrose: St. Ambrose [88:45]_ This bishop of Milan is a favorite of Pound's because of his attitude toward money- makers: "hoggers of harvest are the curse of the people. "
137_ "De Tobia": st. Ambrose wrote this commentary on the Book of Tobias which is a telling indictment of usury [Migne, 793- 832].
138. (que <;a doure): F, the end of an idio- matic phrase, pourvou que fa doure: "while it lasts. " Supposedly a habitual aside uttered by Donna Letizia, Napoleon's mother [RO].
139. literate Confucians: Wen-Ii: "Those
? ? 644
100/713
100/713
645
CANTOC Sources
St. Ambrose, De Moribus Brachmanorum, in Migne XVII, 1176? 1179; Brooks Adams, The Theory of Social Revolutions, N. Y. , 1913 [BA, Theory] ; Brooks Adams, The Law ofCivilization and' Decay, N. Y. , 1895 [BA, Civilization]; Dante, Par. XVIII, IX, XIX, XX; Homer, Od, V; Paul de Remusat, Thiers, trans. M. B. Anderson, Chicago, 1889 [Thiers]; F. W. Baller, trans. , The Sacred Edict, Shanghai, 1924, rpt. NPF, Orono, Me. , 1979
[Edict]; Charles de Remusat. Saint Anselme de Cantorbiirv. Paris, Didier, 1853; Alexander Del Mar, History ofMonetary Sys? terns, Chicago, 1896 [HMS].
Background
W. B. Fowler, British American Relations, 1917? 1918; The Role of Sir William Wiseman, Princeton, 1969 [Fowler, Wiseman]; Lord Beaverbrook, Men and Power, 1917? 1918, Duell, Sloan and Pearce, New Y ork, 1956; Jesse D. Clarkson, A History o f Russia, Random House, 1961 [Russia]; Andrzef Walicki, The Slavophile Controversy, Oxford, 1975; James Cleugh, The Medici; A Tale of Fifteen Generations, Doubleday, 1975 [Medici].
Exegeses
EP, GK, 227;N. D. 17, 174? 175; R. Sieburth,Pai, 6? 3, 386;NS,
Reading, 110; DD, Sculptor, 239? 241; EH, Approaches, 26? 27, 31? 32, 188? 189; CB? R, ZBC, 153? 154, 262? 263; EH, Pai, 1? 2, 273; CFT, Pai, 2? 3, 451-452; MB, Trace, 338? 340; William Cookson,A Guide to the Cantos, inedit [WC, Guide].
Glossary
ciple be larger, but that at that historic junc? ture, such action could lead to infringement of liberties.
6. Joffre . . . : Joseph J.
1931, marshal of France and eventually chairman of the Allied War Council for WWI. After his setback at the battle of Verdun, he
was promoted because of outmoded tactics. Prob. at Verdun he made the remark about Napoleon.
7. Lenin: Vladimir Ilyich L. [V. I. Ulyanov], 1870? 1924, inciter and leader of the Bal? shevik overthrow of the Mensheviks (minor? ity party who engineered the October Revo? lution) in November 1917. Lenin's exposure of monopoly capitalism's technique of fos? tering the appreciation followed by the
depreciation of money, finally led to the creation of the FDIC (Federal Deposit Insur? ance Corporation), which insures small bank accounts.
. . .
9. Moslem: Source unknown.
10. Danton: John Jacques D. , 1759? 1794, a leading statesman in the French Revolu~ tion. Said Brooks Adams: "Topina? Lebrun, the artist. . . sat on the jury which tried Danton, and observed that the heart of his colleague seemed failing him. Topino took the waverer aside, and said: "This is not a
him "one of the most efficient men of his age I ever met. " During the complicated prob. lems that evolved after the war was over he acted as a behind-the-scenes adviser to all 'the most important people in both the British and American governments. Wilson much pre- ferred to talk to him privately than to the official ambassador. Wiseman carne t o believe that it would be easier for England and the U. S. to coordinate actions leading to Versailles if Congress gave Wilson the power to act. During 1917 and 1918 he sent
hundreds of cables to those who could influ? ence events, such as Lord Reading, the British ambassador.
13. Isaacs: Rufus Daniell. , 1st earl Reading, 1860? 1935, lord chief justice of England since 1913, he was appointed preSident of the Anglo? French Loan Mission to the U. S. in 1917 and ambassador to the U. S. in Jan. 1918. In a Cablegram [CXP 701, 16 August 1918] from Wiseman t o Lord Reading, labeled "Personal & Very Secret," we read of a conversation between Wiseman and President Wilson with Colonel House pres? ent. The cable concerns ways of getting a
powerful League of Nations and the neces- sity to avoid pUblicity before agreements were reached [Fowler, Wiseman, 278]. No such cable for Aug. 18 has yet been found.
14. Francis: F. the 1st, 1494? 1547, king of France (1515. 1547).
99/702-706
"heart"; li3. . [not li3-5] [M3865]; "in": "Heaven's temple is in the heart. "
80. The phallos . . . : At least the Buddhists didn't create a whole spectrum of "sins of the flesh" as did the various Christian sects after Augustine and again after the 12th century.
81. chih3: Chi'ih [MI037], "upper inci? sors"; [MI037? 25], "gnash the teeth. "
82. wo4. 5: [M7163], "paltry. "
83. ch'o4. 5: [MI287], "grate the teeth. "
3
84. kuan : [M3557], "control. "
85. chao4: [M238], "care for. "
86. che yang ti jen: Che4 [M265, "in this way"; yang4 [M7256], "kind"; ti4. 5 [M6213], a particle; jen2 [M3097], "man. "
87. ! iu2 : [M4080], "flow. "
88. pai lui: Pai4 [M4866], "ruin"; lui4
96. grain. the ear. "
641 : Hsiu4 also means "grain in
[M2401] , "2
[MI982], 'Buddha. " Wen? li: "If men were aware that at the present time there are two Living Buddhas [their parents] placed in tbeir own homes, why need they go else?
where to worship on the mountains and to seek happiness from idols? "
77. Kuang Ming: [Cf. 46 above].
78. Kbaty: [Cf. 45 above].
79. tien t'ang2 hsin! li3. 5: T'ien [M6361]' "heaven"; [M6107] , "temple"; [M2735];
incarnations
of Buddha";
[M4244], "bad class. " The components of
lui4 are *,"rice"; -K, "dog"; and r, 104. Yao: [53:14]. The "lovelies" are his
"head. "
89. An Ting: Wen? li: "In the Sung Dynasty there was one Hu-u'en called An-ting, a dis- trict officer of Instruction. . . . "
90. Wen2 Weng! : Wen? li: "In the Han Dy? nasty there was a certain Wen-ong, A Prefect in tbe Province of Se? ch'uan" [cf. 52 above].
92. Ne ultra . . . : [98:169].
93. Dohnetsch: [81 :48]. He carried on his family tradition of making great musical in- struments, as the circus performers of the "Big Top" carried on their tradition.
94. hsiu4 ts'an2 : [M2803], "cultivated tal? ents"; ts'ai2 Jnot tS'an2 ] [M6660], "ability. "
95. kuan! ch'ang2 : [M3552], "mandarin"; [M213] , "excelling. "
two daughters.
105. Hsiang i . . . : Hsiang3 [M2564], "think it over"; [M30l6], "one. "
106. hsiao4 : Hsiao! [not hsia04] [M2611]' "put into circulation. "
107. tsou: Tsou4 [M6808], "memorialize the emperor. "
108. k'ao ch'eng: [M3299? 16], "settlement between a superior and a subordinate. " The share of the harvest to be titbed, agreed upon through an argument between a land- owner and a tenant.
109. Thiers: [100:115]. Pound felt Thiers offered valid criticism of the income tax which was an advance on the earlier ideas of Talleyrand. .
110. Talleyrand: [101 :22].
111. PANURGIA: H, "knavery. "
112. SOPHIA: H, "wisdom. " Pound dis? cusses sophia and its relation to knowledge
[98:168].
musical instrument, which recalls Dol-
metsch.
91. pen yeh:
is also
a
Yeh 4 - 5
97. Kiang Sheng: Meaning the Sheng U or Sacred Edict The emperor required that it be read to all tbe people once a month.
98. Generation . . . : Wen-Ii: "The why and wherefore of these regulations no doubt is that mankind rely entirely upon their chilo dren to perpetuate their posterity. ".
99. hao hsin2 : Ha03 hsin! [M2062], "good heartedness"; [M2735], "affections. "
100. 0 4-5 : [M4809], "evil, foul. " A rhyme with "There is no darkness but ignorance"
[80: 141]. Education is the cure for that.
101. huai: Huai4 [M2232], "ruin" [cf. 88 above].
102. kids . . . homestead: [Pai, 2? 1, 79; n &2,319].
103. Born . . . gong: The words come from components of the characters.
? ? ? 642
and will as conceived by Aristotle and finds
that Aristotle's ideas will not do [GK, 326- 328].
113. scienza: I, "science. "
114. XN: Chap. 14 of the Edict concerns an enlightened tax system: "The ten voices . . . " is a way of saying "from time immemorial" or "according to ancient customs,"
99/706-710
prob. wants to suggest "roots. " Wen~li: "We have heard that nourishing the people is the basic root, consisting in clothing and food: farming and mulberry culture are the source for clothing and food. "
127. nung: Nung2 [M4768], "to farm. "
128_ sang: Sang! [M5424], "the mulberry tree. "
129. Empress: Wen-ii: "Anciently the em- peror went in person to plough and the empress in person attended the mulberry trees. They personally enjoyed the highest prestige, and their not shirking from the heat of toil set the empire an example. "
99/710-712
643
143. en! : [MI743-3]' "bound by mutual ties, on the one side grace, and on the other loyalty. " Pound used this character as the title-page seal in Thrones.
144. village usage: Wen-li: "Now because the scholar is considered as the first of the four classes of people, one expects quite a bit from him, and therefore the scholar's expectations of and demands on himself can- not be easy going. A scholar constantly prac- tices the fundamentals and afterward the large and small villages regard him as a reli- able mold of behavior. "
145. chiao! : [M702], "to communicate," "friendship. " Wen-Ii: "And in regard to your studies, let them all be the classical books; in regard to friends, choose reliable officers. "
146. raise ruin: Wen-Ii: "Be alert to preserve the honorable lest in establishing yourself you come to ruin and flaw your school's name. " The components of one character mean "bird" and ~~mouth," which means "chirrp. "
2
147. jen, i, Ii, chih: Jen [M3099], "hu-
manity"; i4 [M3002], "equity"; li3 [M3886], "propriety"; chih4 [M933], "wis- dom. " The four tuan [85:33].
148. worship . . . day! : Wen-ii: "Then even ignorant people can apply the values of cour- tesy and justice to their plowing and weed- ing. And the decisive soldier can apply the values of the Shih Odes and the Shu History to his shield and helmet. A unifying princi- ple of manners brought to Zenith. May we again see it in our day. "
149. All . . . grows: Wen-ii: "Only wanting to solidify the customs of the people, we first set out to rectify men's hearts; wanting to rectify men's hearts, we instituted a pro- gram of studies. . . now man receives the central principles of Heaven and Earth at his birth. " The final lines of the canto are a comment on this key passage which is cen- tral to the Confucianism of both Mencius and Pound [Pai, inside front cover].
115. t'ien2 ti4: [M6198], "soil. "
[M6362] ,
"land" ;
who were to become leaders in the land were especially attended to by appointed profes- sors and scholars. "
140. graceful bigots . . . phalloi: Perhaps a reference to Pound himself.
David Gordon believes it is. He thinks Pound's anti- Semitism of the early 1950s gave way little by little until by the time of Thrones he could begin to see it objectively; especially since a number of people, including Gordon and John Espey, accused him over and over again of being a bigot. The "thundering phal- 10i" may refer to his continuous efforts to show that man's sexuality is divinely created and natural and has nothing to do with sin, as Gourmont showed in The Natural Philoso- phy of Love years earlier. Ethical questions involve treatment of others; sin comes from mistreatment of others, not from phallic ex- pression in itself. Trying to get such an idea across to someone brainwashed for a lifetime by puritanism may require a kind of thun- dering repetition. One of the characters in- volved is n0 4 , 'I'W [M4750]: it has the component \11 , "heart," which Pound con- sidered a drawing of the phallus, and right- hand components which are similar to if, "thunder. " N0 4 means "weak. " The lower part of the right component is not really "thunder"; hence, "mistranslation. "
141. SAGE . . . : Wen-ii: "Our meritorious ancestor even in old age was still stimulating others to goodness, and especially exalted schools and scholarship. In all things, there- fore, that would feed the spirit of scholars and conduce to their educative disciplines he was circumspectly prepared. "
142. anagogico: I, "anagogic. " The highest of the four allegorical levels of meaning as described by Dante [Conv. , 2. 1. 6], where it is called the "super-sense" and is related to a spiritual interpretation of the Bible. In Dante the anagogic relates the soul of the present to the heaven of the future. In Pound it means the wisdom of the ancestors for those of the present and the wisdom of the sages of the present for posterity.
116. (liang2 ): [M3944], "taxes in kind. "
117. Yong (2. 2. 3): Yung Cheng. The num- bers refer to the Wang text, Baller's transla- tion, and the notes on the Wen-Ii text.
118. Elkin Mathews: [82:6]. As editor, he defined the requirements and length of W. L. Courtney's work [see ! 19 below]. Perhaps a statement of the value of literary criticism in England at the time. DG remembers Pound saying the phrase often at St. Elizabeths. HK thinks that was good pay for the time.
119. Courtney's: W_ L. Courtney, editor of the Fortnightly Review during Pound's early years in London.
120. Chou rite . . . : The Sacred Edict was a last great expression of Neoconfucianisffi, which according to Kung himself, derived from the Chou dynasty [53 :77-78].
121. manesco: I, "rough, brutal. "
122. the 9 arts: Pound prob. meant "6 arts," as there is no such phrase as "9 arts" in China. But IU 4 ? 5 [M4189], "6 arts," is fun- damental to Confucianism.
123. chao! : [M236-6], "clear. "
124. CHEN: Chen4 [M316], "I. "
125. Yo el rey: S, "I the king. " Since some of the Jesuit missionaries to China were from Spain, perhaps K'ang Hsi or his son learned enough Spanish to say some things to them in their tongue.
126. (logistica): I, "logistics. " But Pound
130. Ideogram: omen. "
Ch'a0
4
[M247],
"an
131. ch'ang2 : [M213], "to show respect. "
132. chu: Chu4 [MI581], "to assemble or meet together. "
133. wu2 . . ? Ii4: [M7208], "do not"; [M4587-1O], "love ardently"; [M514], "wonderful"; [M7483], "profit"; [M5000], "double profit"; [M3867], "interest on
money. "
134. (Byzance . . . : [98: 18].
135. Michelet: Jules M. , 1798-1874, French historian extraordinaire who did much to resurrect the past and explain it to his con- temporaries.
136. Ambrose: St. Ambrose [88:45]_ This bishop of Milan is a favorite of Pound's because of his attitude toward money- makers: "hoggers of harvest are the curse of the people. "
137_ "De Tobia": st. Ambrose wrote this commentary on the Book of Tobias which is a telling indictment of usury [Migne, 793- 832].
138. (que <;a doure): F, the end of an idio- matic phrase, pourvou que fa doure: "while it lasts. " Supposedly a habitual aside uttered by Donna Letizia, Napoleon's mother [RO].
139. literate Confucians: Wen-Ii: "Those
? ? 644
100/713
100/713
645
CANTOC Sources
St. Ambrose, De Moribus Brachmanorum, in Migne XVII, 1176? 1179; Brooks Adams, The Theory of Social Revolutions, N. Y. , 1913 [BA, Theory] ; Brooks Adams, The Law ofCivilization and' Decay, N. Y. , 1895 [BA, Civilization]; Dante, Par. XVIII, IX, XIX, XX; Homer, Od, V; Paul de Remusat, Thiers, trans. M. B. Anderson, Chicago, 1889 [Thiers]; F. W. Baller, trans. , The Sacred Edict, Shanghai, 1924, rpt. NPF, Orono, Me. , 1979
[Edict]; Charles de Remusat. Saint Anselme de Cantorbiirv. Paris, Didier, 1853; Alexander Del Mar, History ofMonetary Sys? terns, Chicago, 1896 [HMS].
Background
W. B. Fowler, British American Relations, 1917? 1918; The Role of Sir William Wiseman, Princeton, 1969 [Fowler, Wiseman]; Lord Beaverbrook, Men and Power, 1917? 1918, Duell, Sloan and Pearce, New Y ork, 1956; Jesse D. Clarkson, A History o f Russia, Random House, 1961 [Russia]; Andrzef Walicki, The Slavophile Controversy, Oxford, 1975; James Cleugh, The Medici; A Tale of Fifteen Generations, Doubleday, 1975 [Medici].
Exegeses
EP, GK, 227;N. D. 17, 174? 175; R. Sieburth,Pai, 6? 3, 386;NS,
Reading, 110; DD, Sculptor, 239? 241; EH, Approaches, 26? 27, 31? 32, 188? 189; CB? R, ZBC, 153? 154, 262? 263; EH, Pai, 1? 2, 273; CFT, Pai, 2? 3, 451-452; MB, Trace, 338? 340; William Cookson,A Guide to the Cantos, inedit [WC, Guide].
Glossary
ciple be larger, but that at that historic junc? ture, such action could lead to infringement of liberties.
6. Joffre . . . : Joseph J.
1931, marshal of France and eventually chairman of the Allied War Council for WWI. After his setback at the battle of Verdun, he
was promoted because of outmoded tactics. Prob. at Verdun he made the remark about Napoleon.
7. Lenin: Vladimir Ilyich L. [V. I. Ulyanov], 1870? 1924, inciter and leader of the Bal? shevik overthrow of the Mensheviks (minor? ity party who engineered the October Revo? lution) in November 1917. Lenin's exposure of monopoly capitalism's technique of fos? tering the appreciation followed by the
depreciation of money, finally led to the creation of the FDIC (Federal Deposit Insur? ance Corporation), which insures small bank accounts.
. . .
9. Moslem: Source unknown.
10. Danton: John Jacques D. , 1759? 1794, a leading statesman in the French Revolu~ tion. Said Brooks Adams: "Topina? Lebrun, the artist. . . sat on the jury which tried Danton, and observed that the heart of his colleague seemed failing him. Topino took the waverer aside, and said: "This is not a
him "one of the most efficient men of his age I ever met. " During the complicated prob. lems that evolved after the war was over he acted as a behind-the-scenes adviser to all 'the most important people in both the British and American governments. Wilson much pre- ferred to talk to him privately than to the official ambassador. Wiseman carne t o believe that it would be easier for England and the U. S. to coordinate actions leading to Versailles if Congress gave Wilson the power to act. During 1917 and 1918 he sent
hundreds of cables to those who could influ? ence events, such as Lord Reading, the British ambassador.
13. Isaacs: Rufus Daniell. , 1st earl Reading, 1860? 1935, lord chief justice of England since 1913, he was appointed preSident of the Anglo? French Loan Mission to the U. S. in 1917 and ambassador to the U. S. in Jan. 1918. In a Cablegram [CXP 701, 16 August 1918] from Wiseman t o Lord Reading, labeled "Personal & Very Secret," we read of a conversation between Wiseman and President Wilson with Colonel House pres? ent. The cable concerns ways of getting a
powerful League of Nations and the neces- sity to avoid pUblicity before agreements were reached [Fowler, Wiseman, 278]. No such cable for Aug. 18 has yet been found.
14. Francis: F. the 1st, 1494? 1547, king of France (1515. 1547).
