Preface
I
After completing the glosses for this volume of the Companion, I read again the preface to Volume I to see if the premises and hypotheses about the poem expressed there still seem valid.
I
After completing the glosses for this volume of the Companion, I read again the preface to Volume I to see if the premises and hypotheses about the poem expressed there still seem valid.
A-Companion-to-the-Cantos-of-Ezra-Pound-II
?
)
A Companion to the Cantos of Ezra Pound by
Carroll F. Terrell
Published in Cooperation with The National Poetry Foundation University of Maine at Orono Orono, Maine
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS Berkeley . Los Angeles ? London
? ? ? ? ? The preparation of this volume was made possible (in part) by a grant from the Program for Research Tools and Reference Works of the National Endowment for the Humanities, an independent Federal agency.
The Cantos 361 Supplementary Bibliography 727
Published in Cooperation with
The University of Maine at Orono Orono, Maine
University of California Press
Berkeley and Los Angeles, California
University of California Press
London, England
Copyright (C) 1984 by
The Regents of the University of California ISBN: 0-520-04731-1
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data:
Printed in the United States of America
'2345 678 9
?
78? 054802
Preface
vii
Index to The Cantos
729
Contents
? Preface
I
After completing the glosses for this volume of the Companion, I read again the preface to Volume I to see if the premises and hypotheses about the poem expressed there still seem valid. Since the work on this volume has revealed nothing but support for those premises, none of that material is repeated here. Also since cross-references continuously require that this volume be read with Volume I at hand, the tables of Abbreviations and other apparatus will not be repeated either. But a supplementary bibliography of works that have appeared since 1979 will be found at the end of this volume, along with an index to The Cantos.
With slight modifications, the procedures adopted for Volume I are the same also. In that
volume, for people whose names occurred often in the text, the information available was
distributed among the several glosses in order to alleviate the textual aridity of nothing but a
series of cross-references. But for such people as Antoninus Pius who is mentioned eighteen
times in the poem, this procedure was given up for Volume II. I have used the space saved to
develop a few fairly long glosses in order to show the extraordinary significance one or two
words in the text often has. For example, "Wolverine" [103:57] might have been glossed briefiy: "An ironclad ship built in the early 1840s in order to achieve naval parity with Canada on Lake Erie. " But, the reader might be satisfied with that and miss Pound's point of mention? ing it at all. The central issue involves the wisdom of Millard Fillmore, a vastly and unjustly underrated American statesman. Most of the people who inhabit Thrones are there because they have been neglected or mistreated by historians either deliberately or carelessly. Since they tried to improve the human condition, justice [96:headnote] requires that at last they be honored as they deserve.
Again, "prana" [94: 18] might have been dealt with in one sentence: "The energy principle of Hatha Yoga in occult Hinduism. " But since the hypothesis of the Companion is that The Cantos is a great religious poem, such a gloss would have misled by default. Pound practiced prana at St. E's: that is, continuously over the years he literally did some of the breathing, sitting, and meditation exercises. To his mind, Richard of St. Victor [SF, 71? 72] would have done no less. But he also practiced some of the rituals of a number of other religions including Confucianism (with incense burning), the Bahai, and even the rites of some Christian sects-if the Quakers can be so-called. In fact he finds the rites of celebration, reverence, and rejoicing of all religions to be intracompatible: the practices of Hatha Yoga might well be cheered by the Bahai, a point to be emphasized because Pound had a lifelong interest in the Bahai [46:22; 96:93]. Still more, his personal religious beliefs and life style are better expressed by some ideas of the Bahai than they are by any other religious creed.
For, as did Pound, the Bahai believe "that God can be known to man through manifesta?
tions, that have corne at various states o f human progress . . . . Bahaists believe in the unity o f all religions, in universal education, in world peace, and in the equality of men and women. . . . Emphasis is laid upon simplicity of living and upon service to suffering fellow men" [CE]. Pound would not start a new religion; he would rather a person were true to the vision of the founder of his own. He would not talk as a religious, he would rather be religious. For Pound, "the essence of religion is the present tense" [SP, 70] . He said, "The religious man communes every time his teeth sink into" bread crust" [ibid]. By this, he meant something disarmingly
vii
? viii Preface
Preface ix
simple: the religious man prays every time he eats, or does anything else for that matter. He said, "he who works prays" [91 :6]. He also said: he who loves prays; he who lusts prays; he who procreates prays; he who sings, dances, paints, or writes poetry prays, and so on, minute by minute, because in all these things it is "the still small voice" or the divinity, or the "inti- mate essence" in the mind and heart of man that is being expressed: "nothing is either good or bad but thinking makes it so. " The most terrible results may come when what one thinks is good is evil or what one thinks is evil is in reality good. Wherefore create nO dogma to coerce the acts of others and thereby create destructive fanaticisms [SP, 70, 150]. Believing these things, Pound might well have responded in the way Abdul Baha did to the man who wanted to "speak of religion. " Said Abdul, "I must dance" [46/232]. Indeed, the Bahai would endorse the intent of all the great religious thinkers celebrated in The Cantos such as Averroes, Avicenna, st. Anselm, Lord Herbert of Cherbury and Erigena. They are there not because Pound had an interest in curious and arcane historical figures, but because he believed what they said is true: true enough to live by. Thus, glosses for some of these people, such as st. Anselm rl05:16. 18. 31. 37. etc. l. have been longer than most.
Extended glosses have sometimes been written for other reasons. For "DROIT FAIT" [108:7], I might have written, "part of traditional formula by which English monarchs made acts of parliament legal. " That is true enough. But behind this "gist" or "pith" or "luminous detail" lies one of the most dramatic moments in English history. In the days before the mo- ment arrived, a hundred strong men had literally been reduced to tears. Although space did not allow the development of very many such moments, the reader can be assured that behind many a phrase and the brief gloss given for it there lies a dramatic story of great religious, historical, economic, and ethical interest: in The Cantos all four are always at issue, a sort
of rhyme with the Four Tuan, a recurrent theme in the poem.
Most of the time Pound acts only as a recorder, putting down what the hundreds of charac-
ters in the poem actually did and said. He believes that professional historians have mythified and falsified the past. Thus he goes always to the original records and documents. If the fact exists, he will find it. During the St. E. 's years he had a team of people hunting down data at the Library of Congress. Their research was pointed, never random. They went anned with precise directions such as, "I want to know exactly what Benton said about the motion to clear the United States Senate, after passage of the motion to expunge, and exactly the hour of the night he said it" [89:258] !
Pound did his best to obtain the best authority available and never falsifies the records. But sometimes his use of the record is biased. This aspect of the poem is perhaps expressed best with his attitude toward Disraeli and the Rothschilds. The events Pound refers to in the poem are well documented. But one would have to be passionately anti-British not to believe that both Disraeli and the Rothschilds acted brilliantly, with loyalty to the crown, and in good faith
[86:56,61].
The whole poem is colored by Pound's passionately held beliefs: in fact much of its power
and intensity derive from this very passion which becomes the power in the shape of the poetic line and the great harmonic rhythms of the poem as a whole. But otherwise, Pound intruded personally into the text only a few times: e. g. , at 24/112; 62/350; 76/458 with such words as "ego scriptor" [76:129]. His intent in such intrusion is to remind the reader that the poem is being written by a living person, a responsible "I" with a name and address [78:48]; by one who was there and can testify, or can remember; or to suggest that the kind of thing that went on at some critical moment in the past is still going on [103:46]. For similar reasons, I have intruded into the text of the Companion several times to show that the glosses are written by a living person, who expects to be responsible for what is said and done, or to spell out an irony that might otherwise be missed [97:153; 113:30].
"
II
A great deal of the work on the glosses for the later cantos was done between 1972 and 1975. In 1972, I started collecting materials for an alphabetical supplement to the old Index to cover Cantos 85-120. A part of the work was farmed out to various experts. James Wilhelm completed cards for all the Italian and Provenryal materials. Latin source materials were divided between James D. Neault who did the first half of the text and John Espey who did much of the last half. To these people, I am much indebted. But in June of 1975, when the decision to do the Companion, canto by canto from the beginning, was made that work was put aside. Considerations of space (my firm belief that the Companion should not exceed the length of the poem) made it necessary to reduce a lot of their early work, especially quotes from the original languages, to much briefer forms.
The numerous scholars who have done exegetical work on The Cantos in Paideuma and other journals have been given credit in individual glosses and the headnotes for each canto. But three people must be mentioned in particular. Although quite a lot of the work on the Chinese sources of Rock-Drill had been done by 1975, Thomas Grieve's thesis [Pai, 2 & 3, 361-508] became very helpful: his work saved much space in locating exact sources and reduced the need for continuous documentation. Special credit too should be given to Charles Watts whose thesis on the sources of Cantos 88 and 89 saved much time. But most of all I am indebted to David Gordon who has been a helper and an adviser in numerous ways. His work on The Sacred Edict cantos (98-99) has been a sine qua non. Especially for the Companion, he spent time at the Beinecke studying Pound's annotations of the Wen-Ii text and prepared a 185-page manuscript recording his discoveries which will be published as soon as possible. Almost all the glosses of Canto 99 are based on this work. Also the study he did on the Coke Cantos [Pai, 4-2 & 3, 223-229] was a great help. Other people who knew Pound at St. E's have also been helpful. The notes provided by Reno Odlin, William French, or Sheri Martinelli have been recognized by their initials in brackets: RO, WF, or SM. Mary de Rachewiltz, Marcella Spann Booth, and Hugh Kenner read the manuscripts for the Pisan Cantos and Rock-Drill. Mary de R. caught several errors because of her firsthand knowledge of the Italian scene; for example, I had glossed Vecchia [76/452] as "I, old lady. " Mary could say that "the old road under St. Pantaleo at St. Ambrogio is meant. " And so on. With the notes of Marcella Booth I've used two proce"dures. During Pound's last year at St. E's, she asked him numerous questions about the cantos through Rock-Drill which were in print at that time. Some times she copied into the margin of her text exactly what he said in quotes. Sometimes, she summarized what he said in her own words or by writing a brief cue. In the Companion, I've preserved this distinction. At the end of my gloss I've inserted her comments after the initials MSB either in quotes [74:176] or without
[74: 197]. Similarly Hugh Kenner could make a number of corrections or additions to the text based on notes he obtained from Pound directly or on his detailed knowledge of the text. His additions are discriminated as coming from Pound himself or his own knowledge, and accompanied by the initials: H. K. Then there is Colin McDowell of Victoria, Australia, who in 1982 dropped by and was immediately put to work checking manuscripts for Thrones, a section of the poem he had been working on for some years. He made several valuable contri- butions. Several additional abbreviations should be added to the list of authors frequently cited: M de R, for Mary de Rachewiltz; OP, for Om" Pound; WF, for William French; MB, for Massimo Bacigalupo; MSB, for Marcella Spann Booth; HM, for Harry Meacham; and EM, for Eustace Mullins.
New abbreviations should also be added to the list of languages: A, Arabic; Af, African dialect; D, Danish; NF, Norman French; OG, Old German; Per, Persian; Pg, Portuguese and Skt, Sanskrit. In translating names from Arabic, western authorities disagree on forms. Except for
? x Preface
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361
quotes from sources, I use Mohammed as standard for the Prophet. But for Abd-el-Melik, there is no clear preference established by custom. Thus, where Pound's major source uses Abd-l-melik as in Canto 96, I use that form, but when the source uses Abd-el-melik as in Cimto 97, I do, too. Finally, three abbreviations should be added to the table of Standard Reference Works: CE, Colombia Encyclopedia; OCM, Oxford Companion to Music; HMS, History ofMonetary Systems; and L&S, Liddell and Scott's, Greek-English Lexicon.
III
The Companion is conceived to be a logical and necessary step on the way to a variorum edition of The Cantos. But much work remains to be done before that task can be started. First the text of both volumes of the Companion must be tested, corrected, and authenticated by the scholars who use it. Then revisions must be made, making use of new scholarly work that can be expected to appear continuously. In time, a deficiency of the present texts can, I hope, be resolved. Some of the infonnation in the glosses I had gathered for my own use over the years. Those notes do not always tell who first made important discoveries. It would be most helpful if any scholars whose work has not been recognized would send me documentary information so that future editions can give them appropriate acknowledgment.
Other acknowledgments I can now make with great pleasure. I am much indebted to the National Endowment for the Humanities for a grant that gave me two-thirds released time from teaching for three semesters and provided other support during that time. Without that assist- ance, the preparation of Volume Two would certainly have taken several additional years. And along with all Pound scholars, lowe many thanks to Donald Gallup of the Beinecke Library at Yale and to those who preside over the Pound archives there.
Administrative officers of the University of Maine at Orono have given me continued sup- port over a number of years, Presidents Howard Neville and Paul Silverman, Vice Presidents Frederick Hutchinson and Kenneth Allen, Deans Gordon Haaland and Karl Webb in particular, as have Professors Joseph Brogunier, and Burton Hatlen of the English Department. The whole staff of the Folger Library at Orono have been most helpful, but I want to thank in particular Charlotte Huntley, Thomas Patterson, and Margaret Menchen of the Reference Department and Carol Curtis and Dorothy Hutchins of Interlibrary Loan_ The work could never have reached its present state of completeness without them.
To my own office staff and assistants I am most indebted. To Nancy Nolde, my main research and administrative assistant, who since 1975 has kept all the dozens of parts of the project in order; to Marilyn Emerick who has done a yoeman's amount of typing; and to Dirk Stratton, a graduate assistant, who has spent hours alone and in team work with Nancy in making my handwriting intelligible to typists, in checking quotes against sources, and in check- ing the numbers in cross-references, dates, and documentation. Barbara Ramsay-Strout deserves much credit for detailed work on the Index, and Steve Boardway for organizing the Chinese part of the Index. In addition lowe much to the faculty at large which, as with any univer- sity faculty, is likely to have someone who can be consulted with profit about almost anything in human history. And finally, we are all indebted to the remarkable editorial team in the Los Angeles office of the University of California Press which made our task less difficult.
In its final form Volume I has 4,772 numbered glosses and Volume II, 5,649 for a total of 10,421. Although I accept the responsibility for writing and testing the accuracy of all of them, the acknowledgments here and throughout the text of the Companion should indicate that the work is the product of dozens of Pound scholars, worldwide, done over a period of fifty years.
. )
CANTO LXXIV
Sources
Leo Frobenius and Douglas Fox, African Genesis, 1937, reissued by Benjamin Blom, New York, 1966; James Legge, The Four Books, Shanghai, 1923 [Legge]; the Bible; :'. 1_ E. Speare, The Pocket Book of Verse, 1940; Time, European edition; Stars and Stripes, editions of Paris and Mediterranean Theatre, May- October; Homer, Od. IX, II, XII, XI; Dante, Pur. X, Inf. XXVII, XXXII, XXXIII; Virgil, Aeneid I; Aristotle, Nicomachean
[Ethics] ;Lyra Graeca I; Oxford Book ofGreek Verse [OBGV]. Background
EP, SP, 320, 338-339, 314, 284; LE, 166; SR, 91, 101; GK, 58-59,34,81-83,229; CNTJ, 98-104; PE, 125-126; T, 427; PD, 42-50, 3-10; ABCR, 43-44; F. C. Burkitt, The Religion of the Manichees, Cambridge, 1925; Frances Frenaye, The Fall of Mussolini, His Own Story by Benito Mussolini, New York, 1945, a trans. of Una "Cicogna" sui gran Sasso by Ed. Mondadori, Milan, 1945; Sir Montagu Webb, India's Plight, Daily Gazette Press, Karachi, 1914; Douglas C. Fox, "Warkalemada Kolingi Yaoburrda," Townsman, vol. 2, no. 7, August, 1939; Michael King, "Ezra Pound at Pisa: An Interview with John L. Steele," Texas Quarterly, vol. XXI, no. 4, Winter; 1978; Achilles Fang, Ph. D. dissertation, Harvard Univ. , II, III, IV; Erich Maria Re- marque, All Quiet on the Western Front, 1929; E. Gilson, La Philosophie du Moyen Age, Paris, 1925; George Anthiel, Bad Boy of Music, New York, 1945; Villon, Testament; CFT, Basil Bunting: Man and Poet [Bunting]; Ford Madox Ford, Mightier than the Sword, London, 1938.
Exegeses
HK, Era, 458; DP, Pai, 9-2, 313-317; DG, Pai, 6-1,42; CFT, Pai, 3-1,98-100,93-94; HK, Pai, 1-1,83; Tay, Pai, 4-1, 53; Michaels, Pai, 1-1,37-54; CFT, Pai, 2-3, 458, 451; Hunting, Pai, 6-2,179; Surrette, Pai, 3-2, 204; Shuldiner, Pai, 4? 1, 73, 81; Moody, Pai, 4-1,6-57; Knox, Pai, 3-1, 71-83; EH, Pai, 2-2, 336; Hankins,Pai, 2-2, 337; Martin, Pai, 6-2, 167-173; Nasser, Pai, 1-2,207-211; GD, Pai, 8-2, 335-336; D'Epiro, Pai, 10-2, 297-301; Elliot, Pai, 8-1,59; BK,Pai, 10-2,307; DD, Ezra Pound, 78.
[It is known that Pound had very few books at Pisa: the Bible, The Four Books he had with him when arrested, The Pocket Book of Verse he found in the camp, a few copies of Time magazine that were passed around, perhaps a random newspaper at times, and a small number of unidentified books available in a
? 362
74/425
74/425-426
geography; not as you would find it if you had a geography book and a map, but as it would be in 'periplum,' that is, as a coasting sailor would find it" [ABCR, 43-44]. Here, the great periplum is the voyage of Helios.
13. Herakles: The pillars of Herakles [Her- cules] denote the cliffs on either side of the Strait of Gibraltar.
14. Lucifer: The planet Venus when it is the morning star. In its periplum it might appear from Pisa to be descending in the west over North Carolina. But, more important, Lucifer has serious occult significance to the group close to G. R. S.
Preface
I
After completing the glosses for this volume of the Companion, I read again the preface to Volume I to see if the premises and hypotheses about the poem expressed there still seem valid. Since the work on this volume has revealed nothing but support for those premises, none of that material is repeated here. Also since cross-references continuously require that this volume be read with Volume I at hand, the tables of Abbreviations and other apparatus will not be repeated either. But a supplementary bibliography of works that have appeared since 1979 will be found at the end of this volume, along with an index to The Cantos.
With slight modifications, the procedures adopted for Volume I are the same also. In that
volume, for people whose names occurred often in the text, the information available was
distributed among the several glosses in order to alleviate the textual aridity of nothing but a
series of cross-references. But for such people as Antoninus Pius who is mentioned eighteen
times in the poem, this procedure was given up for Volume II. I have used the space saved to
develop a few fairly long glosses in order to show the extraordinary significance one or two
words in the text often has. For example, "Wolverine" [103:57] might have been glossed briefiy: "An ironclad ship built in the early 1840s in order to achieve naval parity with Canada on Lake Erie. " But, the reader might be satisfied with that and miss Pound's point of mention? ing it at all. The central issue involves the wisdom of Millard Fillmore, a vastly and unjustly underrated American statesman. Most of the people who inhabit Thrones are there because they have been neglected or mistreated by historians either deliberately or carelessly. Since they tried to improve the human condition, justice [96:headnote] requires that at last they be honored as they deserve.
Again, "prana" [94: 18] might have been dealt with in one sentence: "The energy principle of Hatha Yoga in occult Hinduism. " But since the hypothesis of the Companion is that The Cantos is a great religious poem, such a gloss would have misled by default. Pound practiced prana at St. E's: that is, continuously over the years he literally did some of the breathing, sitting, and meditation exercises. To his mind, Richard of St. Victor [SF, 71? 72] would have done no less. But he also practiced some of the rituals of a number of other religions including Confucianism (with incense burning), the Bahai, and even the rites of some Christian sects-if the Quakers can be so-called. In fact he finds the rites of celebration, reverence, and rejoicing of all religions to be intracompatible: the practices of Hatha Yoga might well be cheered by the Bahai, a point to be emphasized because Pound had a lifelong interest in the Bahai [46:22; 96:93]. Still more, his personal religious beliefs and life style are better expressed by some ideas of the Bahai than they are by any other religious creed.
For, as did Pound, the Bahai believe "that God can be known to man through manifesta?
tions, that have corne at various states o f human progress . . . . Bahaists believe in the unity o f all religions, in universal education, in world peace, and in the equality of men and women. . . . Emphasis is laid upon simplicity of living and upon service to suffering fellow men" [CE]. Pound would not start a new religion; he would rather a person were true to the vision of the founder of his own. He would not talk as a religious, he would rather be religious. For Pound, "the essence of religion is the present tense" [SP, 70] . He said, "The religious man communes every time his teeth sink into" bread crust" [ibid]. By this, he meant something disarmingly
vii
? viii Preface
Preface ix
simple: the religious man prays every time he eats, or does anything else for that matter. He said, "he who works prays" [91 :6]. He also said: he who loves prays; he who lusts prays; he who procreates prays; he who sings, dances, paints, or writes poetry prays, and so on, minute by minute, because in all these things it is "the still small voice" or the divinity, or the "inti- mate essence" in the mind and heart of man that is being expressed: "nothing is either good or bad but thinking makes it so. " The most terrible results may come when what one thinks is good is evil or what one thinks is evil is in reality good. Wherefore create nO dogma to coerce the acts of others and thereby create destructive fanaticisms [SP, 70, 150]. Believing these things, Pound might well have responded in the way Abdul Baha did to the man who wanted to "speak of religion. " Said Abdul, "I must dance" [46/232]. Indeed, the Bahai would endorse the intent of all the great religious thinkers celebrated in The Cantos such as Averroes, Avicenna, st. Anselm, Lord Herbert of Cherbury and Erigena. They are there not because Pound had an interest in curious and arcane historical figures, but because he believed what they said is true: true enough to live by. Thus, glosses for some of these people, such as st. Anselm rl05:16. 18. 31. 37. etc. l. have been longer than most.
Extended glosses have sometimes been written for other reasons. For "DROIT FAIT" [108:7], I might have written, "part of traditional formula by which English monarchs made acts of parliament legal. " That is true enough. But behind this "gist" or "pith" or "luminous detail" lies one of the most dramatic moments in English history. In the days before the mo- ment arrived, a hundred strong men had literally been reduced to tears. Although space did not allow the development of very many such moments, the reader can be assured that behind many a phrase and the brief gloss given for it there lies a dramatic story of great religious, historical, economic, and ethical interest: in The Cantos all four are always at issue, a sort
of rhyme with the Four Tuan, a recurrent theme in the poem.
Most of the time Pound acts only as a recorder, putting down what the hundreds of charac-
ters in the poem actually did and said. He believes that professional historians have mythified and falsified the past. Thus he goes always to the original records and documents. If the fact exists, he will find it. During the St. E. 's years he had a team of people hunting down data at the Library of Congress. Their research was pointed, never random. They went anned with precise directions such as, "I want to know exactly what Benton said about the motion to clear the United States Senate, after passage of the motion to expunge, and exactly the hour of the night he said it" [89:258] !
Pound did his best to obtain the best authority available and never falsifies the records. But sometimes his use of the record is biased. This aspect of the poem is perhaps expressed best with his attitude toward Disraeli and the Rothschilds. The events Pound refers to in the poem are well documented. But one would have to be passionately anti-British not to believe that both Disraeli and the Rothschilds acted brilliantly, with loyalty to the crown, and in good faith
[86:56,61].
The whole poem is colored by Pound's passionately held beliefs: in fact much of its power
and intensity derive from this very passion which becomes the power in the shape of the poetic line and the great harmonic rhythms of the poem as a whole. But otherwise, Pound intruded personally into the text only a few times: e. g. , at 24/112; 62/350; 76/458 with such words as "ego scriptor" [76:129]. His intent in such intrusion is to remind the reader that the poem is being written by a living person, a responsible "I" with a name and address [78:48]; by one who was there and can testify, or can remember; or to suggest that the kind of thing that went on at some critical moment in the past is still going on [103:46]. For similar reasons, I have intruded into the text of the Companion several times to show that the glosses are written by a living person, who expects to be responsible for what is said and done, or to spell out an irony that might otherwise be missed [97:153; 113:30].
"
II
A great deal of the work on the glosses for the later cantos was done between 1972 and 1975. In 1972, I started collecting materials for an alphabetical supplement to the old Index to cover Cantos 85-120. A part of the work was farmed out to various experts. James Wilhelm completed cards for all the Italian and Provenryal materials. Latin source materials were divided between James D. Neault who did the first half of the text and John Espey who did much of the last half. To these people, I am much indebted. But in June of 1975, when the decision to do the Companion, canto by canto from the beginning, was made that work was put aside. Considerations of space (my firm belief that the Companion should not exceed the length of the poem) made it necessary to reduce a lot of their early work, especially quotes from the original languages, to much briefer forms.
The numerous scholars who have done exegetical work on The Cantos in Paideuma and other journals have been given credit in individual glosses and the headnotes for each canto. But three people must be mentioned in particular. Although quite a lot of the work on the Chinese sources of Rock-Drill had been done by 1975, Thomas Grieve's thesis [Pai, 2 & 3, 361-508] became very helpful: his work saved much space in locating exact sources and reduced the need for continuous documentation. Special credit too should be given to Charles Watts whose thesis on the sources of Cantos 88 and 89 saved much time. But most of all I am indebted to David Gordon who has been a helper and an adviser in numerous ways. His work on The Sacred Edict cantos (98-99) has been a sine qua non. Especially for the Companion, he spent time at the Beinecke studying Pound's annotations of the Wen-Ii text and prepared a 185-page manuscript recording his discoveries which will be published as soon as possible. Almost all the glosses of Canto 99 are based on this work. Also the study he did on the Coke Cantos [Pai, 4-2 & 3, 223-229] was a great help. Other people who knew Pound at St. E's have also been helpful. The notes provided by Reno Odlin, William French, or Sheri Martinelli have been recognized by their initials in brackets: RO, WF, or SM. Mary de Rachewiltz, Marcella Spann Booth, and Hugh Kenner read the manuscripts for the Pisan Cantos and Rock-Drill. Mary de R. caught several errors because of her firsthand knowledge of the Italian scene; for example, I had glossed Vecchia [76/452] as "I, old lady. " Mary could say that "the old road under St. Pantaleo at St. Ambrogio is meant. " And so on. With the notes of Marcella Booth I've used two proce"dures. During Pound's last year at St. E's, she asked him numerous questions about the cantos through Rock-Drill which were in print at that time. Some times she copied into the margin of her text exactly what he said in quotes. Sometimes, she summarized what he said in her own words or by writing a brief cue. In the Companion, I've preserved this distinction. At the end of my gloss I've inserted her comments after the initials MSB either in quotes [74:176] or without
[74: 197]. Similarly Hugh Kenner could make a number of corrections or additions to the text based on notes he obtained from Pound directly or on his detailed knowledge of the text. His additions are discriminated as coming from Pound himself or his own knowledge, and accompanied by the initials: H. K. Then there is Colin McDowell of Victoria, Australia, who in 1982 dropped by and was immediately put to work checking manuscripts for Thrones, a section of the poem he had been working on for some years. He made several valuable contri- butions. Several additional abbreviations should be added to the list of authors frequently cited: M de R, for Mary de Rachewiltz; OP, for Om" Pound; WF, for William French; MB, for Massimo Bacigalupo; MSB, for Marcella Spann Booth; HM, for Harry Meacham; and EM, for Eustace Mullins.
New abbreviations should also be added to the list of languages: A, Arabic; Af, African dialect; D, Danish; NF, Norman French; OG, Old German; Per, Persian; Pg, Portuguese and Skt, Sanskrit. In translating names from Arabic, western authorities disagree on forms. Except for
? x Preface
74/425
361
quotes from sources, I use Mohammed as standard for the Prophet. But for Abd-el-Melik, there is no clear preference established by custom. Thus, where Pound's major source uses Abd-l-melik as in Canto 96, I use that form, but when the source uses Abd-el-melik as in Cimto 97, I do, too. Finally, three abbreviations should be added to the table of Standard Reference Works: CE, Colombia Encyclopedia; OCM, Oxford Companion to Music; HMS, History ofMonetary Systems; and L&S, Liddell and Scott's, Greek-English Lexicon.
III
The Companion is conceived to be a logical and necessary step on the way to a variorum edition of The Cantos. But much work remains to be done before that task can be started. First the text of both volumes of the Companion must be tested, corrected, and authenticated by the scholars who use it. Then revisions must be made, making use of new scholarly work that can be expected to appear continuously. In time, a deficiency of the present texts can, I hope, be resolved. Some of the infonnation in the glosses I had gathered for my own use over the years. Those notes do not always tell who first made important discoveries. It would be most helpful if any scholars whose work has not been recognized would send me documentary information so that future editions can give them appropriate acknowledgment.
Other acknowledgments I can now make with great pleasure. I am much indebted to the National Endowment for the Humanities for a grant that gave me two-thirds released time from teaching for three semesters and provided other support during that time. Without that assist- ance, the preparation of Volume Two would certainly have taken several additional years. And along with all Pound scholars, lowe many thanks to Donald Gallup of the Beinecke Library at Yale and to those who preside over the Pound archives there.
Administrative officers of the University of Maine at Orono have given me continued sup- port over a number of years, Presidents Howard Neville and Paul Silverman, Vice Presidents Frederick Hutchinson and Kenneth Allen, Deans Gordon Haaland and Karl Webb in particular, as have Professors Joseph Brogunier, and Burton Hatlen of the English Department. The whole staff of the Folger Library at Orono have been most helpful, but I want to thank in particular Charlotte Huntley, Thomas Patterson, and Margaret Menchen of the Reference Department and Carol Curtis and Dorothy Hutchins of Interlibrary Loan_ The work could never have reached its present state of completeness without them.
To my own office staff and assistants I am most indebted. To Nancy Nolde, my main research and administrative assistant, who since 1975 has kept all the dozens of parts of the project in order; to Marilyn Emerick who has done a yoeman's amount of typing; and to Dirk Stratton, a graduate assistant, who has spent hours alone and in team work with Nancy in making my handwriting intelligible to typists, in checking quotes against sources, and in check- ing the numbers in cross-references, dates, and documentation. Barbara Ramsay-Strout deserves much credit for detailed work on the Index, and Steve Boardway for organizing the Chinese part of the Index. In addition lowe much to the faculty at large which, as with any univer- sity faculty, is likely to have someone who can be consulted with profit about almost anything in human history. And finally, we are all indebted to the remarkable editorial team in the Los Angeles office of the University of California Press which made our task less difficult.
In its final form Volume I has 4,772 numbered glosses and Volume II, 5,649 for a total of 10,421. Although I accept the responsibility for writing and testing the accuracy of all of them, the acknowledgments here and throughout the text of the Companion should indicate that the work is the product of dozens of Pound scholars, worldwide, done over a period of fifty years.
. )
CANTO LXXIV
Sources
Leo Frobenius and Douglas Fox, African Genesis, 1937, reissued by Benjamin Blom, New York, 1966; James Legge, The Four Books, Shanghai, 1923 [Legge]; the Bible; :'. 1_ E. Speare, The Pocket Book of Verse, 1940; Time, European edition; Stars and Stripes, editions of Paris and Mediterranean Theatre, May- October; Homer, Od. IX, II, XII, XI; Dante, Pur. X, Inf. XXVII, XXXII, XXXIII; Virgil, Aeneid I; Aristotle, Nicomachean
[Ethics] ;Lyra Graeca I; Oxford Book ofGreek Verse [OBGV]. Background
EP, SP, 320, 338-339, 314, 284; LE, 166; SR, 91, 101; GK, 58-59,34,81-83,229; CNTJ, 98-104; PE, 125-126; T, 427; PD, 42-50, 3-10; ABCR, 43-44; F. C. Burkitt, The Religion of the Manichees, Cambridge, 1925; Frances Frenaye, The Fall of Mussolini, His Own Story by Benito Mussolini, New York, 1945, a trans. of Una "Cicogna" sui gran Sasso by Ed. Mondadori, Milan, 1945; Sir Montagu Webb, India's Plight, Daily Gazette Press, Karachi, 1914; Douglas C. Fox, "Warkalemada Kolingi Yaoburrda," Townsman, vol. 2, no. 7, August, 1939; Michael King, "Ezra Pound at Pisa: An Interview with John L. Steele," Texas Quarterly, vol. XXI, no. 4, Winter; 1978; Achilles Fang, Ph. D. dissertation, Harvard Univ. , II, III, IV; Erich Maria Re- marque, All Quiet on the Western Front, 1929; E. Gilson, La Philosophie du Moyen Age, Paris, 1925; George Anthiel, Bad Boy of Music, New York, 1945; Villon, Testament; CFT, Basil Bunting: Man and Poet [Bunting]; Ford Madox Ford, Mightier than the Sword, London, 1938.
Exegeses
HK, Era, 458; DP, Pai, 9-2, 313-317; DG, Pai, 6-1,42; CFT, Pai, 3-1,98-100,93-94; HK, Pai, 1-1,83; Tay, Pai, 4-1, 53; Michaels, Pai, 1-1,37-54; CFT, Pai, 2-3, 458, 451; Hunting, Pai, 6-2,179; Surrette, Pai, 3-2, 204; Shuldiner, Pai, 4? 1, 73, 81; Moody, Pai, 4-1,6-57; Knox, Pai, 3-1, 71-83; EH, Pai, 2-2, 336; Hankins,Pai, 2-2, 337; Martin, Pai, 6-2, 167-173; Nasser, Pai, 1-2,207-211; GD, Pai, 8-2, 335-336; D'Epiro, Pai, 10-2, 297-301; Elliot, Pai, 8-1,59; BK,Pai, 10-2,307; DD, Ezra Pound, 78.
[It is known that Pound had very few books at Pisa: the Bible, The Four Books he had with him when arrested, The Pocket Book of Verse he found in the camp, a few copies of Time magazine that were passed around, perhaps a random newspaper at times, and a small number of unidentified books available in a
? 362
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74/425-426
geography; not as you would find it if you had a geography book and a map, but as it would be in 'periplum,' that is, as a coasting sailor would find it" [ABCR, 43-44]. Here, the great periplum is the voyage of Helios.
13. Herakles: The pillars of Herakles [Her- cules] denote the cliffs on either side of the Strait of Gibraltar.
14. Lucifer: The planet Venus when it is the morning star. In its periplum it might appear from Pisa to be descending in the west over North Carolina. But, more important, Lucifer has serious occult significance to the group close to G. R. S. Mead that Pound knew in his early London years. Mead coedited, with Helene Blavatsky, a journal called Lucifer, which had an article on Plotinus [vol. 16, April 15, 1895] which may well have introduced Pound to the works of Thomas Taylor and reinforced his interest in all the Neoplatonic light philoso- phers [documents provided by WF] . Identi- fication has been controversial, however [cf. Pai, 9-2, 313; Pai, 8? 2, 335-336; Pai, 10? 2, 297-301].
15. N. Carolina: Line probably refers to a shower of meteorites that, according to a dramatic article in the Saturday Evening Post [Sept. 9, 1944, p. 12], fell on a band of states includingNC [Pearlman, Pai, 9? 2, 313? 317].
A Companion to the Cantos of Ezra Pound by
Carroll F. Terrell
Published in Cooperation with The National Poetry Foundation University of Maine at Orono Orono, Maine
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS Berkeley . Los Angeles ? London
? ? ? ? ? The preparation of this volume was made possible (in part) by a grant from the Program for Research Tools and Reference Works of the National Endowment for the Humanities, an independent Federal agency.
The Cantos 361 Supplementary Bibliography 727
Published in Cooperation with
The University of Maine at Orono Orono, Maine
University of California Press
Berkeley and Los Angeles, California
University of California Press
London, England
Copyright (C) 1984 by
The Regents of the University of California ISBN: 0-520-04731-1
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data:
Printed in the United States of America
'2345 678 9
?
78? 054802
Preface
vii
Index to The Cantos
729
Contents
? Preface
I
After completing the glosses for this volume of the Companion, I read again the preface to Volume I to see if the premises and hypotheses about the poem expressed there still seem valid. Since the work on this volume has revealed nothing but support for those premises, none of that material is repeated here. Also since cross-references continuously require that this volume be read with Volume I at hand, the tables of Abbreviations and other apparatus will not be repeated either. But a supplementary bibliography of works that have appeared since 1979 will be found at the end of this volume, along with an index to The Cantos.
With slight modifications, the procedures adopted for Volume I are the same also. In that
volume, for people whose names occurred often in the text, the information available was
distributed among the several glosses in order to alleviate the textual aridity of nothing but a
series of cross-references. But for such people as Antoninus Pius who is mentioned eighteen
times in the poem, this procedure was given up for Volume II. I have used the space saved to
develop a few fairly long glosses in order to show the extraordinary significance one or two
words in the text often has. For example, "Wolverine" [103:57] might have been glossed briefiy: "An ironclad ship built in the early 1840s in order to achieve naval parity with Canada on Lake Erie. " But, the reader might be satisfied with that and miss Pound's point of mention? ing it at all. The central issue involves the wisdom of Millard Fillmore, a vastly and unjustly underrated American statesman. Most of the people who inhabit Thrones are there because they have been neglected or mistreated by historians either deliberately or carelessly. Since they tried to improve the human condition, justice [96:headnote] requires that at last they be honored as they deserve.
Again, "prana" [94: 18] might have been dealt with in one sentence: "The energy principle of Hatha Yoga in occult Hinduism. " But since the hypothesis of the Companion is that The Cantos is a great religious poem, such a gloss would have misled by default. Pound practiced prana at St. E's: that is, continuously over the years he literally did some of the breathing, sitting, and meditation exercises. To his mind, Richard of St. Victor [SF, 71? 72] would have done no less. But he also practiced some of the rituals of a number of other religions including Confucianism (with incense burning), the Bahai, and even the rites of some Christian sects-if the Quakers can be so-called. In fact he finds the rites of celebration, reverence, and rejoicing of all religions to be intracompatible: the practices of Hatha Yoga might well be cheered by the Bahai, a point to be emphasized because Pound had a lifelong interest in the Bahai [46:22; 96:93]. Still more, his personal religious beliefs and life style are better expressed by some ideas of the Bahai than they are by any other religious creed.
For, as did Pound, the Bahai believe "that God can be known to man through manifesta?
tions, that have corne at various states o f human progress . . . . Bahaists believe in the unity o f all religions, in universal education, in world peace, and in the equality of men and women. . . . Emphasis is laid upon simplicity of living and upon service to suffering fellow men" [CE]. Pound would not start a new religion; he would rather a person were true to the vision of the founder of his own. He would not talk as a religious, he would rather be religious. For Pound, "the essence of religion is the present tense" [SP, 70] . He said, "The religious man communes every time his teeth sink into" bread crust" [ibid]. By this, he meant something disarmingly
vii
? viii Preface
Preface ix
simple: the religious man prays every time he eats, or does anything else for that matter. He said, "he who works prays" [91 :6]. He also said: he who loves prays; he who lusts prays; he who procreates prays; he who sings, dances, paints, or writes poetry prays, and so on, minute by minute, because in all these things it is "the still small voice" or the divinity, or the "inti- mate essence" in the mind and heart of man that is being expressed: "nothing is either good or bad but thinking makes it so. " The most terrible results may come when what one thinks is good is evil or what one thinks is evil is in reality good. Wherefore create nO dogma to coerce the acts of others and thereby create destructive fanaticisms [SP, 70, 150]. Believing these things, Pound might well have responded in the way Abdul Baha did to the man who wanted to "speak of religion. " Said Abdul, "I must dance" [46/232]. Indeed, the Bahai would endorse the intent of all the great religious thinkers celebrated in The Cantos such as Averroes, Avicenna, st. Anselm, Lord Herbert of Cherbury and Erigena. They are there not because Pound had an interest in curious and arcane historical figures, but because he believed what they said is true: true enough to live by. Thus, glosses for some of these people, such as st. Anselm rl05:16. 18. 31. 37. etc. l. have been longer than most.
Extended glosses have sometimes been written for other reasons. For "DROIT FAIT" [108:7], I might have written, "part of traditional formula by which English monarchs made acts of parliament legal. " That is true enough. But behind this "gist" or "pith" or "luminous detail" lies one of the most dramatic moments in English history. In the days before the mo- ment arrived, a hundred strong men had literally been reduced to tears. Although space did not allow the development of very many such moments, the reader can be assured that behind many a phrase and the brief gloss given for it there lies a dramatic story of great religious, historical, economic, and ethical interest: in The Cantos all four are always at issue, a sort
of rhyme with the Four Tuan, a recurrent theme in the poem.
Most of the time Pound acts only as a recorder, putting down what the hundreds of charac-
ters in the poem actually did and said. He believes that professional historians have mythified and falsified the past. Thus he goes always to the original records and documents. If the fact exists, he will find it. During the St. E. 's years he had a team of people hunting down data at the Library of Congress. Their research was pointed, never random. They went anned with precise directions such as, "I want to know exactly what Benton said about the motion to clear the United States Senate, after passage of the motion to expunge, and exactly the hour of the night he said it" [89:258] !
Pound did his best to obtain the best authority available and never falsifies the records. But sometimes his use of the record is biased. This aspect of the poem is perhaps expressed best with his attitude toward Disraeli and the Rothschilds. The events Pound refers to in the poem are well documented. But one would have to be passionately anti-British not to believe that both Disraeli and the Rothschilds acted brilliantly, with loyalty to the crown, and in good faith
[86:56,61].
The whole poem is colored by Pound's passionately held beliefs: in fact much of its power
and intensity derive from this very passion which becomes the power in the shape of the poetic line and the great harmonic rhythms of the poem as a whole. But otherwise, Pound intruded personally into the text only a few times: e. g. , at 24/112; 62/350; 76/458 with such words as "ego scriptor" [76:129]. His intent in such intrusion is to remind the reader that the poem is being written by a living person, a responsible "I" with a name and address [78:48]; by one who was there and can testify, or can remember; or to suggest that the kind of thing that went on at some critical moment in the past is still going on [103:46]. For similar reasons, I have intruded into the text of the Companion several times to show that the glosses are written by a living person, who expects to be responsible for what is said and done, or to spell out an irony that might otherwise be missed [97:153; 113:30].
"
II
A great deal of the work on the glosses for the later cantos was done between 1972 and 1975. In 1972, I started collecting materials for an alphabetical supplement to the old Index to cover Cantos 85-120. A part of the work was farmed out to various experts. James Wilhelm completed cards for all the Italian and Provenryal materials. Latin source materials were divided between James D. Neault who did the first half of the text and John Espey who did much of the last half. To these people, I am much indebted. But in June of 1975, when the decision to do the Companion, canto by canto from the beginning, was made that work was put aside. Considerations of space (my firm belief that the Companion should not exceed the length of the poem) made it necessary to reduce a lot of their early work, especially quotes from the original languages, to much briefer forms.
The numerous scholars who have done exegetical work on The Cantos in Paideuma and other journals have been given credit in individual glosses and the headnotes for each canto. But three people must be mentioned in particular. Although quite a lot of the work on the Chinese sources of Rock-Drill had been done by 1975, Thomas Grieve's thesis [Pai, 2 & 3, 361-508] became very helpful: his work saved much space in locating exact sources and reduced the need for continuous documentation. Special credit too should be given to Charles Watts whose thesis on the sources of Cantos 88 and 89 saved much time. But most of all I am indebted to David Gordon who has been a helper and an adviser in numerous ways. His work on The Sacred Edict cantos (98-99) has been a sine qua non. Especially for the Companion, he spent time at the Beinecke studying Pound's annotations of the Wen-Ii text and prepared a 185-page manuscript recording his discoveries which will be published as soon as possible. Almost all the glosses of Canto 99 are based on this work. Also the study he did on the Coke Cantos [Pai, 4-2 & 3, 223-229] was a great help. Other people who knew Pound at St. E's have also been helpful. The notes provided by Reno Odlin, William French, or Sheri Martinelli have been recognized by their initials in brackets: RO, WF, or SM. Mary de Rachewiltz, Marcella Spann Booth, and Hugh Kenner read the manuscripts for the Pisan Cantos and Rock-Drill. Mary de R. caught several errors because of her firsthand knowledge of the Italian scene; for example, I had glossed Vecchia [76/452] as "I, old lady. " Mary could say that "the old road under St. Pantaleo at St. Ambrogio is meant. " And so on. With the notes of Marcella Booth I've used two proce"dures. During Pound's last year at St. E's, she asked him numerous questions about the cantos through Rock-Drill which were in print at that time. Some times she copied into the margin of her text exactly what he said in quotes. Sometimes, she summarized what he said in her own words or by writing a brief cue. In the Companion, I've preserved this distinction. At the end of my gloss I've inserted her comments after the initials MSB either in quotes [74:176] or without
[74: 197]. Similarly Hugh Kenner could make a number of corrections or additions to the text based on notes he obtained from Pound directly or on his detailed knowledge of the text. His additions are discriminated as coming from Pound himself or his own knowledge, and accompanied by the initials: H. K. Then there is Colin McDowell of Victoria, Australia, who in 1982 dropped by and was immediately put to work checking manuscripts for Thrones, a section of the poem he had been working on for some years. He made several valuable contri- butions. Several additional abbreviations should be added to the list of authors frequently cited: M de R, for Mary de Rachewiltz; OP, for Om" Pound; WF, for William French; MB, for Massimo Bacigalupo; MSB, for Marcella Spann Booth; HM, for Harry Meacham; and EM, for Eustace Mullins.
New abbreviations should also be added to the list of languages: A, Arabic; Af, African dialect; D, Danish; NF, Norman French; OG, Old German; Per, Persian; Pg, Portuguese and Skt, Sanskrit. In translating names from Arabic, western authorities disagree on forms. Except for
? x Preface
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361
quotes from sources, I use Mohammed as standard for the Prophet. But for Abd-el-Melik, there is no clear preference established by custom. Thus, where Pound's major source uses Abd-l-melik as in Canto 96, I use that form, but when the source uses Abd-el-melik as in Cimto 97, I do, too. Finally, three abbreviations should be added to the table of Standard Reference Works: CE, Colombia Encyclopedia; OCM, Oxford Companion to Music; HMS, History ofMonetary Systems; and L&S, Liddell and Scott's, Greek-English Lexicon.
III
The Companion is conceived to be a logical and necessary step on the way to a variorum edition of The Cantos. But much work remains to be done before that task can be started. First the text of both volumes of the Companion must be tested, corrected, and authenticated by the scholars who use it. Then revisions must be made, making use of new scholarly work that can be expected to appear continuously. In time, a deficiency of the present texts can, I hope, be resolved. Some of the infonnation in the glosses I had gathered for my own use over the years. Those notes do not always tell who first made important discoveries. It would be most helpful if any scholars whose work has not been recognized would send me documentary information so that future editions can give them appropriate acknowledgment.
Other acknowledgments I can now make with great pleasure. I am much indebted to the National Endowment for the Humanities for a grant that gave me two-thirds released time from teaching for three semesters and provided other support during that time. Without that assist- ance, the preparation of Volume Two would certainly have taken several additional years. And along with all Pound scholars, lowe many thanks to Donald Gallup of the Beinecke Library at Yale and to those who preside over the Pound archives there.
Administrative officers of the University of Maine at Orono have given me continued sup- port over a number of years, Presidents Howard Neville and Paul Silverman, Vice Presidents Frederick Hutchinson and Kenneth Allen, Deans Gordon Haaland and Karl Webb in particular, as have Professors Joseph Brogunier, and Burton Hatlen of the English Department. The whole staff of the Folger Library at Orono have been most helpful, but I want to thank in particular Charlotte Huntley, Thomas Patterson, and Margaret Menchen of the Reference Department and Carol Curtis and Dorothy Hutchins of Interlibrary Loan_ The work could never have reached its present state of completeness without them.
To my own office staff and assistants I am most indebted. To Nancy Nolde, my main research and administrative assistant, who since 1975 has kept all the dozens of parts of the project in order; to Marilyn Emerick who has done a yoeman's amount of typing; and to Dirk Stratton, a graduate assistant, who has spent hours alone and in team work with Nancy in making my handwriting intelligible to typists, in checking quotes against sources, and in check- ing the numbers in cross-references, dates, and documentation. Barbara Ramsay-Strout deserves much credit for detailed work on the Index, and Steve Boardway for organizing the Chinese part of the Index. In addition lowe much to the faculty at large which, as with any univer- sity faculty, is likely to have someone who can be consulted with profit about almost anything in human history. And finally, we are all indebted to the remarkable editorial team in the Los Angeles office of the University of California Press which made our task less difficult.
In its final form Volume I has 4,772 numbered glosses and Volume II, 5,649 for a total of 10,421. Although I accept the responsibility for writing and testing the accuracy of all of them, the acknowledgments here and throughout the text of the Companion should indicate that the work is the product of dozens of Pound scholars, worldwide, done over a period of fifty years.
. )
CANTO LXXIV
Sources
Leo Frobenius and Douglas Fox, African Genesis, 1937, reissued by Benjamin Blom, New York, 1966; James Legge, The Four Books, Shanghai, 1923 [Legge]; the Bible; :'. 1_ E. Speare, The Pocket Book of Verse, 1940; Time, European edition; Stars and Stripes, editions of Paris and Mediterranean Theatre, May- October; Homer, Od. IX, II, XII, XI; Dante, Pur. X, Inf. XXVII, XXXII, XXXIII; Virgil, Aeneid I; Aristotle, Nicomachean
[Ethics] ;Lyra Graeca I; Oxford Book ofGreek Verse [OBGV]. Background
EP, SP, 320, 338-339, 314, 284; LE, 166; SR, 91, 101; GK, 58-59,34,81-83,229; CNTJ, 98-104; PE, 125-126; T, 427; PD, 42-50, 3-10; ABCR, 43-44; F. C. Burkitt, The Religion of the Manichees, Cambridge, 1925; Frances Frenaye, The Fall of Mussolini, His Own Story by Benito Mussolini, New York, 1945, a trans. of Una "Cicogna" sui gran Sasso by Ed. Mondadori, Milan, 1945; Sir Montagu Webb, India's Plight, Daily Gazette Press, Karachi, 1914; Douglas C. Fox, "Warkalemada Kolingi Yaoburrda," Townsman, vol. 2, no. 7, August, 1939; Michael King, "Ezra Pound at Pisa: An Interview with John L. Steele," Texas Quarterly, vol. XXI, no. 4, Winter; 1978; Achilles Fang, Ph. D. dissertation, Harvard Univ. , II, III, IV; Erich Maria Re- marque, All Quiet on the Western Front, 1929; E. Gilson, La Philosophie du Moyen Age, Paris, 1925; George Anthiel, Bad Boy of Music, New York, 1945; Villon, Testament; CFT, Basil Bunting: Man and Poet [Bunting]; Ford Madox Ford, Mightier than the Sword, London, 1938.
Exegeses
HK, Era, 458; DP, Pai, 9-2, 313-317; DG, Pai, 6-1,42; CFT, Pai, 3-1,98-100,93-94; HK, Pai, 1-1,83; Tay, Pai, 4-1, 53; Michaels, Pai, 1-1,37-54; CFT, Pai, 2-3, 458, 451; Hunting, Pai, 6-2,179; Surrette, Pai, 3-2, 204; Shuldiner, Pai, 4? 1, 73, 81; Moody, Pai, 4-1,6-57; Knox, Pai, 3-1, 71-83; EH, Pai, 2-2, 336; Hankins,Pai, 2-2, 337; Martin, Pai, 6-2, 167-173; Nasser, Pai, 1-2,207-211; GD, Pai, 8-2, 335-336; D'Epiro, Pai, 10-2, 297-301; Elliot, Pai, 8-1,59; BK,Pai, 10-2,307; DD, Ezra Pound, 78.
[It is known that Pound had very few books at Pisa: the Bible, The Four Books he had with him when arrested, The Pocket Book of Verse he found in the camp, a few copies of Time magazine that were passed around, perhaps a random newspaper at times, and a small number of unidentified books available in a
? 362
74/425
74/425-426
geography; not as you would find it if you had a geography book and a map, but as it would be in 'periplum,' that is, as a coasting sailor would find it" [ABCR, 43-44]. Here, the great periplum is the voyage of Helios.
13. Herakles: The pillars of Herakles [Her- cules] denote the cliffs on either side of the Strait of Gibraltar.
14. Lucifer: The planet Venus when it is the morning star. In its periplum it might appear from Pisa to be descending in the west over North Carolina. But, more important, Lucifer has serious occult significance to the group close to G. R. S.
Preface
I
After completing the glosses for this volume of the Companion, I read again the preface to Volume I to see if the premises and hypotheses about the poem expressed there still seem valid. Since the work on this volume has revealed nothing but support for those premises, none of that material is repeated here. Also since cross-references continuously require that this volume be read with Volume I at hand, the tables of Abbreviations and other apparatus will not be repeated either. But a supplementary bibliography of works that have appeared since 1979 will be found at the end of this volume, along with an index to The Cantos.
With slight modifications, the procedures adopted for Volume I are the same also. In that
volume, for people whose names occurred often in the text, the information available was
distributed among the several glosses in order to alleviate the textual aridity of nothing but a
series of cross-references. But for such people as Antoninus Pius who is mentioned eighteen
times in the poem, this procedure was given up for Volume II. I have used the space saved to
develop a few fairly long glosses in order to show the extraordinary significance one or two
words in the text often has. For example, "Wolverine" [103:57] might have been glossed briefiy: "An ironclad ship built in the early 1840s in order to achieve naval parity with Canada on Lake Erie. " But, the reader might be satisfied with that and miss Pound's point of mention? ing it at all. The central issue involves the wisdom of Millard Fillmore, a vastly and unjustly underrated American statesman. Most of the people who inhabit Thrones are there because they have been neglected or mistreated by historians either deliberately or carelessly. Since they tried to improve the human condition, justice [96:headnote] requires that at last they be honored as they deserve.
Again, "prana" [94: 18] might have been dealt with in one sentence: "The energy principle of Hatha Yoga in occult Hinduism. " But since the hypothesis of the Companion is that The Cantos is a great religious poem, such a gloss would have misled by default. Pound practiced prana at St. E's: that is, continuously over the years he literally did some of the breathing, sitting, and meditation exercises. To his mind, Richard of St. Victor [SF, 71? 72] would have done no less. But he also practiced some of the rituals of a number of other religions including Confucianism (with incense burning), the Bahai, and even the rites of some Christian sects-if the Quakers can be so-called. In fact he finds the rites of celebration, reverence, and rejoicing of all religions to be intracompatible: the practices of Hatha Yoga might well be cheered by the Bahai, a point to be emphasized because Pound had a lifelong interest in the Bahai [46:22; 96:93]. Still more, his personal religious beliefs and life style are better expressed by some ideas of the Bahai than they are by any other religious creed.
For, as did Pound, the Bahai believe "that God can be known to man through manifesta?
tions, that have corne at various states o f human progress . . . . Bahaists believe in the unity o f all religions, in universal education, in world peace, and in the equality of men and women. . . . Emphasis is laid upon simplicity of living and upon service to suffering fellow men" [CE]. Pound would not start a new religion; he would rather a person were true to the vision of the founder of his own. He would not talk as a religious, he would rather be religious. For Pound, "the essence of religion is the present tense" [SP, 70] . He said, "The religious man communes every time his teeth sink into" bread crust" [ibid]. By this, he meant something disarmingly
vii
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Preface ix
simple: the religious man prays every time he eats, or does anything else for that matter. He said, "he who works prays" [91 :6]. He also said: he who loves prays; he who lusts prays; he who procreates prays; he who sings, dances, paints, or writes poetry prays, and so on, minute by minute, because in all these things it is "the still small voice" or the divinity, or the "inti- mate essence" in the mind and heart of man that is being expressed: "nothing is either good or bad but thinking makes it so. " The most terrible results may come when what one thinks is good is evil or what one thinks is evil is in reality good. Wherefore create nO dogma to coerce the acts of others and thereby create destructive fanaticisms [SP, 70, 150]. Believing these things, Pound might well have responded in the way Abdul Baha did to the man who wanted to "speak of religion. " Said Abdul, "I must dance" [46/232]. Indeed, the Bahai would endorse the intent of all the great religious thinkers celebrated in The Cantos such as Averroes, Avicenna, st. Anselm, Lord Herbert of Cherbury and Erigena. They are there not because Pound had an interest in curious and arcane historical figures, but because he believed what they said is true: true enough to live by. Thus, glosses for some of these people, such as st. Anselm rl05:16. 18. 31. 37. etc. l. have been longer than most.
Extended glosses have sometimes been written for other reasons. For "DROIT FAIT" [108:7], I might have written, "part of traditional formula by which English monarchs made acts of parliament legal. " That is true enough. But behind this "gist" or "pith" or "luminous detail" lies one of the most dramatic moments in English history. In the days before the mo- ment arrived, a hundred strong men had literally been reduced to tears. Although space did not allow the development of very many such moments, the reader can be assured that behind many a phrase and the brief gloss given for it there lies a dramatic story of great religious, historical, economic, and ethical interest: in The Cantos all four are always at issue, a sort
of rhyme with the Four Tuan, a recurrent theme in the poem.
Most of the time Pound acts only as a recorder, putting down what the hundreds of charac-
ters in the poem actually did and said. He believes that professional historians have mythified and falsified the past. Thus he goes always to the original records and documents. If the fact exists, he will find it. During the St. E. 's years he had a team of people hunting down data at the Library of Congress. Their research was pointed, never random. They went anned with precise directions such as, "I want to know exactly what Benton said about the motion to clear the United States Senate, after passage of the motion to expunge, and exactly the hour of the night he said it" [89:258] !
Pound did his best to obtain the best authority available and never falsifies the records. But sometimes his use of the record is biased. This aspect of the poem is perhaps expressed best with his attitude toward Disraeli and the Rothschilds. The events Pound refers to in the poem are well documented. But one would have to be passionately anti-British not to believe that both Disraeli and the Rothschilds acted brilliantly, with loyalty to the crown, and in good faith
[86:56,61].
The whole poem is colored by Pound's passionately held beliefs: in fact much of its power
and intensity derive from this very passion which becomes the power in the shape of the poetic line and the great harmonic rhythms of the poem as a whole. But otherwise, Pound intruded personally into the text only a few times: e. g. , at 24/112; 62/350; 76/458 with such words as "ego scriptor" [76:129]. His intent in such intrusion is to remind the reader that the poem is being written by a living person, a responsible "I" with a name and address [78:48]; by one who was there and can testify, or can remember; or to suggest that the kind of thing that went on at some critical moment in the past is still going on [103:46]. For similar reasons, I have intruded into the text of the Companion several times to show that the glosses are written by a living person, who expects to be responsible for what is said and done, or to spell out an irony that might otherwise be missed [97:153; 113:30].
"
II
A great deal of the work on the glosses for the later cantos was done between 1972 and 1975. In 1972, I started collecting materials for an alphabetical supplement to the old Index to cover Cantos 85-120. A part of the work was farmed out to various experts. James Wilhelm completed cards for all the Italian and Provenryal materials. Latin source materials were divided between James D. Neault who did the first half of the text and John Espey who did much of the last half. To these people, I am much indebted. But in June of 1975, when the decision to do the Companion, canto by canto from the beginning, was made that work was put aside. Considerations of space (my firm belief that the Companion should not exceed the length of the poem) made it necessary to reduce a lot of their early work, especially quotes from the original languages, to much briefer forms.
The numerous scholars who have done exegetical work on The Cantos in Paideuma and other journals have been given credit in individual glosses and the headnotes for each canto. But three people must be mentioned in particular. Although quite a lot of the work on the Chinese sources of Rock-Drill had been done by 1975, Thomas Grieve's thesis [Pai, 2 & 3, 361-508] became very helpful: his work saved much space in locating exact sources and reduced the need for continuous documentation. Special credit too should be given to Charles Watts whose thesis on the sources of Cantos 88 and 89 saved much time. But most of all I am indebted to David Gordon who has been a helper and an adviser in numerous ways. His work on The Sacred Edict cantos (98-99) has been a sine qua non. Especially for the Companion, he spent time at the Beinecke studying Pound's annotations of the Wen-Ii text and prepared a 185-page manuscript recording his discoveries which will be published as soon as possible. Almost all the glosses of Canto 99 are based on this work. Also the study he did on the Coke Cantos [Pai, 4-2 & 3, 223-229] was a great help. Other people who knew Pound at St. E's have also been helpful. The notes provided by Reno Odlin, William French, or Sheri Martinelli have been recognized by their initials in brackets: RO, WF, or SM. Mary de Rachewiltz, Marcella Spann Booth, and Hugh Kenner read the manuscripts for the Pisan Cantos and Rock-Drill. Mary de R. caught several errors because of her firsthand knowledge of the Italian scene; for example, I had glossed Vecchia [76/452] as "I, old lady. " Mary could say that "the old road under St. Pantaleo at St. Ambrogio is meant. " And so on. With the notes of Marcella Booth I've used two proce"dures. During Pound's last year at St. E's, she asked him numerous questions about the cantos through Rock-Drill which were in print at that time. Some times she copied into the margin of her text exactly what he said in quotes. Sometimes, she summarized what he said in her own words or by writing a brief cue. In the Companion, I've preserved this distinction. At the end of my gloss I've inserted her comments after the initials MSB either in quotes [74:176] or without
[74: 197]. Similarly Hugh Kenner could make a number of corrections or additions to the text based on notes he obtained from Pound directly or on his detailed knowledge of the text. His additions are discriminated as coming from Pound himself or his own knowledge, and accompanied by the initials: H. K. Then there is Colin McDowell of Victoria, Australia, who in 1982 dropped by and was immediately put to work checking manuscripts for Thrones, a section of the poem he had been working on for some years. He made several valuable contri- butions. Several additional abbreviations should be added to the list of authors frequently cited: M de R, for Mary de Rachewiltz; OP, for Om" Pound; WF, for William French; MB, for Massimo Bacigalupo; MSB, for Marcella Spann Booth; HM, for Harry Meacham; and EM, for Eustace Mullins.
New abbreviations should also be added to the list of languages: A, Arabic; Af, African dialect; D, Danish; NF, Norman French; OG, Old German; Per, Persian; Pg, Portuguese and Skt, Sanskrit. In translating names from Arabic, western authorities disagree on forms. Except for
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quotes from sources, I use Mohammed as standard for the Prophet. But for Abd-el-Melik, there is no clear preference established by custom. Thus, where Pound's major source uses Abd-l-melik as in Canto 96, I use that form, but when the source uses Abd-el-melik as in Cimto 97, I do, too. Finally, three abbreviations should be added to the table of Standard Reference Works: CE, Colombia Encyclopedia; OCM, Oxford Companion to Music; HMS, History ofMonetary Systems; and L&S, Liddell and Scott's, Greek-English Lexicon.
III
The Companion is conceived to be a logical and necessary step on the way to a variorum edition of The Cantos. But much work remains to be done before that task can be started. First the text of both volumes of the Companion must be tested, corrected, and authenticated by the scholars who use it. Then revisions must be made, making use of new scholarly work that can be expected to appear continuously. In time, a deficiency of the present texts can, I hope, be resolved. Some of the infonnation in the glosses I had gathered for my own use over the years. Those notes do not always tell who first made important discoveries. It would be most helpful if any scholars whose work has not been recognized would send me documentary information so that future editions can give them appropriate acknowledgment.
Other acknowledgments I can now make with great pleasure. I am much indebted to the National Endowment for the Humanities for a grant that gave me two-thirds released time from teaching for three semesters and provided other support during that time. Without that assist- ance, the preparation of Volume Two would certainly have taken several additional years. And along with all Pound scholars, lowe many thanks to Donald Gallup of the Beinecke Library at Yale and to those who preside over the Pound archives there.
Administrative officers of the University of Maine at Orono have given me continued sup- port over a number of years, Presidents Howard Neville and Paul Silverman, Vice Presidents Frederick Hutchinson and Kenneth Allen, Deans Gordon Haaland and Karl Webb in particular, as have Professors Joseph Brogunier, and Burton Hatlen of the English Department. The whole staff of the Folger Library at Orono have been most helpful, but I want to thank in particular Charlotte Huntley, Thomas Patterson, and Margaret Menchen of the Reference Department and Carol Curtis and Dorothy Hutchins of Interlibrary Loan_ The work could never have reached its present state of completeness without them.
To my own office staff and assistants I am most indebted. To Nancy Nolde, my main research and administrative assistant, who since 1975 has kept all the dozens of parts of the project in order; to Marilyn Emerick who has done a yoeman's amount of typing; and to Dirk Stratton, a graduate assistant, who has spent hours alone and in team work with Nancy in making my handwriting intelligible to typists, in checking quotes against sources, and in check- ing the numbers in cross-references, dates, and documentation. Barbara Ramsay-Strout deserves much credit for detailed work on the Index, and Steve Boardway for organizing the Chinese part of the Index. In addition lowe much to the faculty at large which, as with any univer- sity faculty, is likely to have someone who can be consulted with profit about almost anything in human history. And finally, we are all indebted to the remarkable editorial team in the Los Angeles office of the University of California Press which made our task less difficult.
In its final form Volume I has 4,772 numbered glosses and Volume II, 5,649 for a total of 10,421. Although I accept the responsibility for writing and testing the accuracy of all of them, the acknowledgments here and throughout the text of the Companion should indicate that the work is the product of dozens of Pound scholars, worldwide, done over a period of fifty years.
. )
CANTO LXXIV
Sources
Leo Frobenius and Douglas Fox, African Genesis, 1937, reissued by Benjamin Blom, New York, 1966; James Legge, The Four Books, Shanghai, 1923 [Legge]; the Bible; :'. 1_ E. Speare, The Pocket Book of Verse, 1940; Time, European edition; Stars and Stripes, editions of Paris and Mediterranean Theatre, May- October; Homer, Od. IX, II, XII, XI; Dante, Pur. X, Inf. XXVII, XXXII, XXXIII; Virgil, Aeneid I; Aristotle, Nicomachean
[Ethics] ;Lyra Graeca I; Oxford Book ofGreek Verse [OBGV]. Background
EP, SP, 320, 338-339, 314, 284; LE, 166; SR, 91, 101; GK, 58-59,34,81-83,229; CNTJ, 98-104; PE, 125-126; T, 427; PD, 42-50, 3-10; ABCR, 43-44; F. C. Burkitt, The Religion of the Manichees, Cambridge, 1925; Frances Frenaye, The Fall of Mussolini, His Own Story by Benito Mussolini, New York, 1945, a trans. of Una "Cicogna" sui gran Sasso by Ed. Mondadori, Milan, 1945; Sir Montagu Webb, India's Plight, Daily Gazette Press, Karachi, 1914; Douglas C. Fox, "Warkalemada Kolingi Yaoburrda," Townsman, vol. 2, no. 7, August, 1939; Michael King, "Ezra Pound at Pisa: An Interview with John L. Steele," Texas Quarterly, vol. XXI, no. 4, Winter; 1978; Achilles Fang, Ph. D. dissertation, Harvard Univ. , II, III, IV; Erich Maria Re- marque, All Quiet on the Western Front, 1929; E. Gilson, La Philosophie du Moyen Age, Paris, 1925; George Anthiel, Bad Boy of Music, New York, 1945; Villon, Testament; CFT, Basil Bunting: Man and Poet [Bunting]; Ford Madox Ford, Mightier than the Sword, London, 1938.
Exegeses
HK, Era, 458; DP, Pai, 9-2, 313-317; DG, Pai, 6-1,42; CFT, Pai, 3-1,98-100,93-94; HK, Pai, 1-1,83; Tay, Pai, 4-1, 53; Michaels, Pai, 1-1,37-54; CFT, Pai, 2-3, 458, 451; Hunting, Pai, 6-2,179; Surrette, Pai, 3-2, 204; Shuldiner, Pai, 4? 1, 73, 81; Moody, Pai, 4-1,6-57; Knox, Pai, 3-1, 71-83; EH, Pai, 2-2, 336; Hankins,Pai, 2-2, 337; Martin, Pai, 6-2, 167-173; Nasser, Pai, 1-2,207-211; GD, Pai, 8-2, 335-336; D'Epiro, Pai, 10-2, 297-301; Elliot, Pai, 8-1,59; BK,Pai, 10-2,307; DD, Ezra Pound, 78.
[It is known that Pound had very few books at Pisa: the Bible, The Four Books he had with him when arrested, The Pocket Book of Verse he found in the camp, a few copies of Time magazine that were passed around, perhaps a random newspaper at times, and a small number of unidentified books available in a
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geography; not as you would find it if you had a geography book and a map, but as it would be in 'periplum,' that is, as a coasting sailor would find it" [ABCR, 43-44]. Here, the great periplum is the voyage of Helios.
13. Herakles: The pillars of Herakles [Her- cules] denote the cliffs on either side of the Strait of Gibraltar.
14. Lucifer: The planet Venus when it is the morning star. In its periplum it might appear from Pisa to be descending in the west over North Carolina. But, more important, Lucifer has serious occult significance to the group close to G. R. S. Mead that Pound knew in his early London years. Mead coedited, with Helene Blavatsky, a journal called Lucifer, which had an article on Plotinus [vol. 16, April 15, 1895] which may well have introduced Pound to the works of Thomas Taylor and reinforced his interest in all the Neoplatonic light philoso- phers [documents provided by WF] . Identi- fication has been controversial, however [cf. Pai, 9-2, 313; Pai, 8? 2, 335-336; Pai, 10? 2, 297-301].
15. N. Carolina: Line probably refers to a shower of meteorites that, according to a dramatic article in the Saturday Evening Post [Sept. 9, 1944, p. 12], fell on a band of states includingNC [Pearlman, Pai, 9? 2, 313? 317].
