Ambrose,
entitled
De Moribus Brachmanorum.
A-Companion-to-the-Cantos-of-Ezra-Pound-II
.
.
: Identified in Beinecke drafts as sumner Welles, 1892?
1961, Ameri?
can diplomat and expert in Latin-American affairs, who under FDR became assistant and then undersecretary of state.
After his retirement, he was found unconscious and half-frozen on his estate, where he had apparently fallen into a stream [BK: NY Times, 27 Dec.
1948].
Pound thought highly of Welles and thought if people had listened to him WWII might have been avoided [EP, Speaking, 306?
308].
16. Mazarin: Jules M. , 1602? 1661, French statesman and cardinal who succeeded Richelieu in 1642. An effective negotiator who won concessions at the Peace of West-
I. Supreme Court: Because the high court was systematically declaring the legislation of the New Deal unconstitutional, President Roosevelt proposed the court be increased from nine judges to twelve. His political ene? mies orchestrated a chorus of protest so that the proposal failed to carry.
2. Senator Wheeler: Burton Kendall W. , 1882? 1975, a Democrat from Montana elected to the U. S. Senate in 1922. After a brief flirtation with the Progressive party of Robert La Follette, he returned to the Democratic party and backed much of the
New Deal legislation. But as war loomed in Europe, he became a leading exponent of isolationism and by 1940 had broken with Roosevelt because of his pro-Allied posture, his attempt to "pack the Supreme Court," and other matters.
trial, it is a measure . . . "[BA, 223].
Theory,
3. some Habsburg . . .
: [86:78].
II. Jo Skelton: John S. , ca. 1460? 1529, the creator of Skeltonic verse, pilloried Cardinal Wolsey with unrestrained enthu? siasm during the reign of Henry VIII but he was never "committed. "
12. Wiseman: Sir William George Eden W. (b. 1885), served in WWI and was gassed at Ypres. In 1917, as chief of British Intelli? gence in the U. S. , he so impressed Colonel House (Wilson's inside man) that he called
4. Eu ZoOn: H, "living well. " The capitol 0 indicates the word has two syllables.
S. Not . . . liberties: Arguments about not tampering with the Supreme Court: the issue was not that the court should never in prin-
of debt
8. increase
expedient of the New Deal was the creation of money by debt, which is anathema to Social Creditors because the same effect could be managed without going into debt.
Cesaire J. ,
1852?
: The
temporary
? ? 646
100/713-714
100/714-715
647
phalia (1648), but his financial abuses led to trouble with the Fronde. He won but put the state into great debt.
17. PERENNE BELLUM: L, "Everlasting War. "
18. Code out of . . . : The Napoleonic Code. N)s contribution to civilization should be looked for not in his everlasting wars (he must always be going somewhere [34/165]) but in his codification of the laws.
19. Peloponesus: The western Greek penin- sula dominated by Sparta, whence came the legal code of Lycurgus.
20. Maison Quarree: [Carree]: An ancient (ca. 2d cent. ) building at Nimes, France, called by many the most perfect Roman temple to survive. It inspired President Jefferson in the design of Monticello [31 :22] .
21. Gave . . . trade: The Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 passed from France to England the monopoly (for 30 years) of supplying Negro slaves to the Spanish colonies. The contracts were earlier passed from the Dutch to the French. No special change is recorded for
1708.
22. Gibraltar: Controlled by the Turks, then by the Spanish, then by the Moors, and after 1462 by the Spanish again, it passed into the control of the English in 1704, which in effect gave them control over at least part of the slave trade.
23. Medicis: Marie de M. , 1573? 1642, queen of France, second wife of Henry IV. After he was assassinated (1610), she became regent for her son Louis XIII. She engaged in power struggles for over 30 years and was sometimes exiled, sometimes restored. Richelieu helped force her final exile in 1630, when she fled first to the Netherlands and then to England. Finally rejected by her son? in-Iaw, King Charles of England, and by Philip N of Spain, who would not allow her back into the Netherlands, she was accepted into the city of Cologne by a prince-
archbishop who felt Christian sympathy for her misery [Cleugh, Medici, 314-330]. Her
anti-Hapsburg posture during the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648) and her personal intriguing behind the scenes from Gibraltar to Compeigne, may have put her on the wrong side in Pound's mind.
24. John Law: 1671-1729, Scottish banker and financier who went to France, which chartered his Banque Generale in 1716 and allowed the bank to issue paper currency. After 1719 the bank's paper became guar- anteed by the state, and the stock issued by it soared to ridiculous prices as the bank became involved in colonial speculation such as the Mississippi scheme. Before the bubble burst, insiders cleaned up by selling their stock. When it did burst, thousands of inves- tors were left destitute, the government was weakened, and Law left in disgrace. He became a gambler in Venice and in 1729 died and was interred there in the church- yard of St. Moise west of St. Mark's Square.
It wasn't the idea of the state bank issuing currency that was bad, however-that worked beautifully and, for a brief time, created great prosperity. It was the unre- strained speculation of big money men-who misused both the bank and the state-that was disastrous. For Pound, Law demon- strated that the state could extend credit and create prosperity: thus, he should not lie in a grave unhonored.
25. SUMBAINAI: H, "coheres" [WT, 50: "What / SPLENDOUR / IT ALL COHERES"; 109:17; 116:20].
26. Grevitch: Inmate at St. Elizabeths [MSB, Pai, 3-3, 332].
27. Young Labarre: For a few schoolboy pranks involving "the desecration of cru- cifixes," this chevalier was sentenced to be tortured, mutilated, beheaded, and burned. Some of Voltaire's works were found in his possession, including the Dictionnaire philo- sophique, which "was burned with [La- barre's] corpse" [Sieburth,Pai, 6-3, 386].
28. Cavour: [61:19].
29. Hohenlohe: Chlodwig Karl Viktor, Furst zu H. , 1819-1901. As a premier of
Bavaria, he supported German unification and the program of Bismarck. He was ambas- sador to Paris after the War of 1870, and, later, governor of Alsace-Lorraine (1885- 1894). Pound sees the settlement of that war as a wise one that maintained the peace in Europe until the usurers created WWI.
the Franco-Prussian War was to be the war to end all wa! s.
38. Clodovic: [Cf. 29 above].
39. U1tramontaines: L, "Beyond the moun- tains. " Name given to Catholics whose first allegiance was to the pope, on the other side of the Alps, rather than to the king of France itself. They were opposed to the Gal1icans, who said France first and pope after. The term was revived in 19th-century Germany and Austria and applied to the Old Catholics.
. . .
41. "JESUS . . . for . ": The reaction of Queen Elizabeth. The source is Braoks Adams [RO, Pai, 6-2, 181]; but her concern in Adams is with the number of clergy, not with money: "Jesus (quoth the queen) 13,000 it is not to be looked for, I thinke the time hath been, there hath not been 4. preachers in a diocesse, my meaning is not you should make choice of learned minis- ters only for they are not to be found, but of honest, sober, and wise men, and such as can read the scriptures and homilies well unto the people" [BA, Civilization, 225].
42. ploughing . . . solid: A central theme of the poem: Justice comes from the growing of food to feed the people and in using words precisely-in law, the press, the schoolroom, economics, and politics.
43. V on Moltke: Helmuth Karl Bernhard, Graf von M. , 1800-1891, a great Prussian field marshal, who trained his armies so well he won the Danish War (1864), the Austro- Prussian War (1866), and the Franco-Prussian War (1870). He could also be charming at the court of Napoleon III at Fontainebleau.
44. "In locis . . . viventia": "In desert places / we rejoice in the middle of the woods. / are sheared, you kill, they are milked / by which you till the land. / You
30. Chez . . . civilizee: F, "In our the press is still very little civilized. "
country
31. Napoleon Third: 1808-1873, president of the Second Republic, 1848-1852, emperor of the French, 1852-1870.
32. '69: southern Slavs . . . : By the terms of the Treaty of Paris (1856), Russia agreed to a neutralization of the Black Sea and to cease efforts to dominate the Slavic popUla- tions of the old Ottoman Empire. But by the late 60s, Russia was making serious efforts to control these areas and gain access to the southern seas. These efforts were rebuffed by a pan-Slavic movement, including a secret society formed in 1869. Led first by Baku- nin as a revolutionary movement against the Tzar, it was used by the southern Slavs as a means of keeping out of the Russian empire. The movement caused only a reaction: the Black Sea clauses were repudiated by Russia in 1870 [Clarkson, Russia, 284-308] . .
33. Zollverein: G, "customs union:" The political unification of Germany was much assisted by the preceding economic unifica- tion called the Zollverein, in which, over a period of 30 years, the small German states dropped tariffs amongst themselves and erected a common tariff barrier against outside states. The success of this venture became one of the models for the post-WWII European Common Market.
34. Ionides: Luke I, [40:26]. A Greek Pound knew during his early London years
[GK,227].
35. Count Usedom: Ironic epithet created for Bismarck.
36. Bismarck: [86:3].
37. ( . . . no more wars . . . ): To Bismarck,
40. aristos
were generally aristocrats. Hence, their ignorance (of the way the usuracrats worked), combined with the similar illiteracy of the plutocrats, allowed France to be "bitched. "
ploots: The
Ultramontaines
? 648
100/715-717
100/717-718
649
shed their blood / their flesh fills you inside / you thus become a living sepulchre of dead bodies. " From a Latin translation of a Greek account of Alexander the Great's conversation with Indian Brahmins, done (prob. ) by st.
Ambrose, entitled De Moribus Brachmanorum.
45. "That Virginia . . . with . . . ": John Randolph [87:10] got some resolutions adopted at Charlotte Courthouse in 1833 which contained these phrases: "That Virginia 'is, and of right, ought to be, a free, sovereign and independent state. ' . . . when . . . Virginia [joined] . . . the other twelve colonies . . . , she parted with no portion of her sovereignity" [BK, Pai 9-3, 425].
46. Oh GAWD! ! ! . . . : Supposedly, Pound's reaction upon discovering that Section X of the Constitution could be used as a bar- rier to some monetary reforms he thought essential, such as the Douglas concept of "local control of local purchasing power"
[96: 118; NS, Reading, 110].
47. George Second encouraged . . . : During
his reign, the production of indigo in the U. S. was encouraged, but . . . [88:93].
clearly from stone to stone" [Par. XX, 19-20] :
55. the sound . . . light: From, "Where I saw begemmed the sixth light" [,par. XX, 17] .
56. lute[s neck: From, "And as sound at the neck of lute / takes its form" [Par. XX, 22-23].
59. Taney: [37:58; 89:57]. President Jack- son appointed him to replace Duane as secretary of the treasury in April 1834. But the Senate refused to confirm.
60. Duane: [34:43]. During the political conflicts over renewing the charter of the Bank of the U. S. , Jackson appointed Duane as secretary of the treasury to replace Louis McLane, who had refused to remove government deposits to the state banks. Duane also refused to carry out the transfer and was replaced by Taney.
61. Erebus: [1:8; 90:27]. Just as Dante does, Pound places men groveling for money here [14:3,4].
62. all gates: [47: 10; 94:20].
63. bab: [bab] A and Per, "gate". In mysti- cal writings it means "the way" and is used to refer to Abdul Baha [96:93], the founder of the Bahai movement [93:162].
64. Pandects . . . Gaius: [94: 21] .
65. Consul for . . . : [94:29].
66. Windsor: Edward VIII [95 :39].
67. Agassiz, Kung: [93:51,52].
68. maison close: F, "closed [sealed or
encircled] house. "
69. Lightfoot: [95:42].
70. Le Portel: [80:422].
71. KREDEMNON: [96:1].
72. DEXATO XERSI: H, "received it in [her] hand" rOd. V,462].
73. AGERTHE: H, "returned again. " While dozens of other events are taking place in the poem, we recall that in Canto I Odysseus started his "Nostos" (journey home). At the end of Rock-Drill, Ino (Leucothea) saved him with her magic veil and protected him on his swim to Phaeacia. Here we note his arrival at the shores where Ina retrieves her
magic veil and the hero goes ashore.
74. two lies: The red-herring technique Pound often deplored and from which he has suffered much. He said to Bridson: "Confusion is caused by package-words. You call a man a Manichaean or a Bolshevik, or something or other, and never find out what he is driving at. The technique of infamy is to start two lies at once and get people arguing which is the truth" [ND. 17, 174-175].
the silk trade as a state monopoly: "[He tried] to divert the trade from the Persian route . . . into the East of Europe. In this he failed, but two Persian monks . . . arrived at Constantinople and imparted their knowl- edge to the emperor" [EB, Vol. XXV, 11th ed. , 97] .
83. monetary (218 A. D. ): No data can be found for this date, but since Landulph's chronology is 7 years less than the accepted [JW, Later, 113], the reference may be to Caracalla's [97:41] new coinage system of A . D . 211 which established the silver-gold r~tio at 12 for 1 [HMS, 49].
84. Belisarius: Ca. 505-565, Byzantine gen- eral under Justinian 1. He suppressed the Nika sedition (532), defeated the Vandals of Africa (533-534), recovered Italy from the Ostragoths, took Naples and Rome (536), and so on. Since he was handicapped by Justinian's distrust and jealousy, he could only keep the enemy in check and so retired. But he returned to drive the Bulgars from Constantinople (559).
85. NO . . . shares: The anecdote concerns an Allied submarine which the Italian navy might have sunk but didn't because it was insured by the Trieste branch of Lloyd's, an international marine insurance under- writer made up of about 300 different syndi- cates. A rhyme with similar international munitions makers' acts ofWWI [18: 13].
86. De Stael: Anne Louise Germaine Necker, wife of Jacques Necker [68:96], baronne de Stael-Holstein, 1766-1817, whose defense of German culture and romanticism outraged Napoleon. His police caused her flight and exile to Russia and England, but she returned in 1815 to become a great influence on European thought and literature.
87. Santayana: [81:38; 95:66].
88. Nel mezzo: I, "in the middle. " Trans- lation of character [M 1504], "chung. "
89. Ideogram: Fu2-s [MI982], "Buddha" or "the Buddhists" [98:64].
48. Barley . . . tax-free:
49. hilaritas: [83 :9].
50. Letizia: I, "gladness" [Par. XVIII,42].
S1. Virtu: I, "spiritual power to love. " Dante feels this power increasing after his delight, in the preceding line, of seeing Beatrice and doing well [Par. XVIII, 60].
. . .
53. Lume non e . . . : I, "There is no light, if not from the serene [nature of God]"
[Par. XIX, 64] .
54. stone . . . descending:
52. Buona
itself' [Par. XIX, 86-87]. "The primal will is good in itself, I and from itself, which is the highest good, it is never moved" [JW]. A rhyme with directio vo/untalis [77: 57] .
volonta:
I, "Will good in
81. No greek . . . : Since
ranean ethnic groups did sell their own people into slavery, perhaps this indicates for Pound an advanced civilization before Christ.
82. Silk news . . . : Sericulture passed from China to India before 1000 B. C. and, after that, slowly to Persia and the Middle East. Aristotle [Hist. Anim. V, 19(17), 11(6)] mentions the silkworm. Justinian conducted
From "I
hear the murmur of a river / that descends
[88:96].
seem to
57. Jackson . . .
Adams: [88:97]. 58. Tocqueville: [88:84].
\
, "
. ~,
76. Gesetzbuch: G, "law-book; code. "
77. Justin's village: Prob.
16. Mazarin: Jules M. , 1602? 1661, French statesman and cardinal who succeeded Richelieu in 1642. An effective negotiator who won concessions at the Peace of West-
I. Supreme Court: Because the high court was systematically declaring the legislation of the New Deal unconstitutional, President Roosevelt proposed the court be increased from nine judges to twelve. His political ene? mies orchestrated a chorus of protest so that the proposal failed to carry.
2. Senator Wheeler: Burton Kendall W. , 1882? 1975, a Democrat from Montana elected to the U. S. Senate in 1922. After a brief flirtation with the Progressive party of Robert La Follette, he returned to the Democratic party and backed much of the
New Deal legislation. But as war loomed in Europe, he became a leading exponent of isolationism and by 1940 had broken with Roosevelt because of his pro-Allied posture, his attempt to "pack the Supreme Court," and other matters.
trial, it is a measure . . . "[BA, 223].
Theory,
3. some Habsburg . . .
: [86:78].
II. Jo Skelton: John S. , ca. 1460? 1529, the creator of Skeltonic verse, pilloried Cardinal Wolsey with unrestrained enthu? siasm during the reign of Henry VIII but he was never "committed. "
12. Wiseman: Sir William George Eden W. (b. 1885), served in WWI and was gassed at Ypres. In 1917, as chief of British Intelli? gence in the U. S. , he so impressed Colonel House (Wilson's inside man) that he called
4. Eu ZoOn: H, "living well. " The capitol 0 indicates the word has two syllables.
S. Not . . . liberties: Arguments about not tampering with the Supreme Court: the issue was not that the court should never in prin-
of debt
8. increase
expedient of the New Deal was the creation of money by debt, which is anathema to Social Creditors because the same effect could be managed without going into debt.
Cesaire J. ,
1852?
: The
temporary
? ? 646
100/713-714
100/714-715
647
phalia (1648), but his financial abuses led to trouble with the Fronde. He won but put the state into great debt.
17. PERENNE BELLUM: L, "Everlasting War. "
18. Code out of . . . : The Napoleonic Code. N)s contribution to civilization should be looked for not in his everlasting wars (he must always be going somewhere [34/165]) but in his codification of the laws.
19. Peloponesus: The western Greek penin- sula dominated by Sparta, whence came the legal code of Lycurgus.
20. Maison Quarree: [Carree]: An ancient (ca. 2d cent. ) building at Nimes, France, called by many the most perfect Roman temple to survive. It inspired President Jefferson in the design of Monticello [31 :22] .
21. Gave . . . trade: The Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 passed from France to England the monopoly (for 30 years) of supplying Negro slaves to the Spanish colonies. The contracts were earlier passed from the Dutch to the French. No special change is recorded for
1708.
22. Gibraltar: Controlled by the Turks, then by the Spanish, then by the Moors, and after 1462 by the Spanish again, it passed into the control of the English in 1704, which in effect gave them control over at least part of the slave trade.
23. Medicis: Marie de M. , 1573? 1642, queen of France, second wife of Henry IV. After he was assassinated (1610), she became regent for her son Louis XIII. She engaged in power struggles for over 30 years and was sometimes exiled, sometimes restored. Richelieu helped force her final exile in 1630, when she fled first to the Netherlands and then to England. Finally rejected by her son? in-Iaw, King Charles of England, and by Philip N of Spain, who would not allow her back into the Netherlands, she was accepted into the city of Cologne by a prince-
archbishop who felt Christian sympathy for her misery [Cleugh, Medici, 314-330]. Her
anti-Hapsburg posture during the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648) and her personal intriguing behind the scenes from Gibraltar to Compeigne, may have put her on the wrong side in Pound's mind.
24. John Law: 1671-1729, Scottish banker and financier who went to France, which chartered his Banque Generale in 1716 and allowed the bank to issue paper currency. After 1719 the bank's paper became guar- anteed by the state, and the stock issued by it soared to ridiculous prices as the bank became involved in colonial speculation such as the Mississippi scheme. Before the bubble burst, insiders cleaned up by selling their stock. When it did burst, thousands of inves- tors were left destitute, the government was weakened, and Law left in disgrace. He became a gambler in Venice and in 1729 died and was interred there in the church- yard of St. Moise west of St. Mark's Square.
It wasn't the idea of the state bank issuing currency that was bad, however-that worked beautifully and, for a brief time, created great prosperity. It was the unre- strained speculation of big money men-who misused both the bank and the state-that was disastrous. For Pound, Law demon- strated that the state could extend credit and create prosperity: thus, he should not lie in a grave unhonored.
25. SUMBAINAI: H, "coheres" [WT, 50: "What / SPLENDOUR / IT ALL COHERES"; 109:17; 116:20].
26. Grevitch: Inmate at St. Elizabeths [MSB, Pai, 3-3, 332].
27. Young Labarre: For a few schoolboy pranks involving "the desecration of cru- cifixes," this chevalier was sentenced to be tortured, mutilated, beheaded, and burned. Some of Voltaire's works were found in his possession, including the Dictionnaire philo- sophique, which "was burned with [La- barre's] corpse" [Sieburth,Pai, 6-3, 386].
28. Cavour: [61:19].
29. Hohenlohe: Chlodwig Karl Viktor, Furst zu H. , 1819-1901. As a premier of
Bavaria, he supported German unification and the program of Bismarck. He was ambas- sador to Paris after the War of 1870, and, later, governor of Alsace-Lorraine (1885- 1894). Pound sees the settlement of that war as a wise one that maintained the peace in Europe until the usurers created WWI.
the Franco-Prussian War was to be the war to end all wa! s.
38. Clodovic: [Cf. 29 above].
39. U1tramontaines: L, "Beyond the moun- tains. " Name given to Catholics whose first allegiance was to the pope, on the other side of the Alps, rather than to the king of France itself. They were opposed to the Gal1icans, who said France first and pope after. The term was revived in 19th-century Germany and Austria and applied to the Old Catholics.
. . .
41. "JESUS . . . for . ": The reaction of Queen Elizabeth. The source is Braoks Adams [RO, Pai, 6-2, 181]; but her concern in Adams is with the number of clergy, not with money: "Jesus (quoth the queen) 13,000 it is not to be looked for, I thinke the time hath been, there hath not been 4. preachers in a diocesse, my meaning is not you should make choice of learned minis- ters only for they are not to be found, but of honest, sober, and wise men, and such as can read the scriptures and homilies well unto the people" [BA, Civilization, 225].
42. ploughing . . . solid: A central theme of the poem: Justice comes from the growing of food to feed the people and in using words precisely-in law, the press, the schoolroom, economics, and politics.
43. V on Moltke: Helmuth Karl Bernhard, Graf von M. , 1800-1891, a great Prussian field marshal, who trained his armies so well he won the Danish War (1864), the Austro- Prussian War (1866), and the Franco-Prussian War (1870). He could also be charming at the court of Napoleon III at Fontainebleau.
44. "In locis . . . viventia": "In desert places / we rejoice in the middle of the woods. / are sheared, you kill, they are milked / by which you till the land. / You
30. Chez . . . civilizee: F, "In our the press is still very little civilized. "
country
31. Napoleon Third: 1808-1873, president of the Second Republic, 1848-1852, emperor of the French, 1852-1870.
32. '69: southern Slavs . . . : By the terms of the Treaty of Paris (1856), Russia agreed to a neutralization of the Black Sea and to cease efforts to dominate the Slavic popUla- tions of the old Ottoman Empire. But by the late 60s, Russia was making serious efforts to control these areas and gain access to the southern seas. These efforts were rebuffed by a pan-Slavic movement, including a secret society formed in 1869. Led first by Baku- nin as a revolutionary movement against the Tzar, it was used by the southern Slavs as a means of keeping out of the Russian empire. The movement caused only a reaction: the Black Sea clauses were repudiated by Russia in 1870 [Clarkson, Russia, 284-308] . .
33. Zollverein: G, "customs union:" The political unification of Germany was much assisted by the preceding economic unifica- tion called the Zollverein, in which, over a period of 30 years, the small German states dropped tariffs amongst themselves and erected a common tariff barrier against outside states. The success of this venture became one of the models for the post-WWII European Common Market.
34. Ionides: Luke I, [40:26]. A Greek Pound knew during his early London years
[GK,227].
35. Count Usedom: Ironic epithet created for Bismarck.
36. Bismarck: [86:3].
37. ( . . . no more wars . . . ): To Bismarck,
40. aristos
were generally aristocrats. Hence, their ignorance (of the way the usuracrats worked), combined with the similar illiteracy of the plutocrats, allowed France to be "bitched. "
ploots: The
Ultramontaines
? 648
100/715-717
100/717-718
649
shed their blood / their flesh fills you inside / you thus become a living sepulchre of dead bodies. " From a Latin translation of a Greek account of Alexander the Great's conversation with Indian Brahmins, done (prob. ) by st.
Ambrose, entitled De Moribus Brachmanorum.
45. "That Virginia . . . with . . . ": John Randolph [87:10] got some resolutions adopted at Charlotte Courthouse in 1833 which contained these phrases: "That Virginia 'is, and of right, ought to be, a free, sovereign and independent state. ' . . . when . . . Virginia [joined] . . . the other twelve colonies . . . , she parted with no portion of her sovereignity" [BK, Pai 9-3, 425].
46. Oh GAWD! ! ! . . . : Supposedly, Pound's reaction upon discovering that Section X of the Constitution could be used as a bar- rier to some monetary reforms he thought essential, such as the Douglas concept of "local control of local purchasing power"
[96: 118; NS, Reading, 110].
47. George Second encouraged . . . : During
his reign, the production of indigo in the U. S. was encouraged, but . . . [88:93].
clearly from stone to stone" [Par. XX, 19-20] :
55. the sound . . . light: From, "Where I saw begemmed the sixth light" [,par. XX, 17] .
56. lute[s neck: From, "And as sound at the neck of lute / takes its form" [Par. XX, 22-23].
59. Taney: [37:58; 89:57]. President Jack- son appointed him to replace Duane as secretary of the treasury in April 1834. But the Senate refused to confirm.
60. Duane: [34:43]. During the political conflicts over renewing the charter of the Bank of the U. S. , Jackson appointed Duane as secretary of the treasury to replace Louis McLane, who had refused to remove government deposits to the state banks. Duane also refused to carry out the transfer and was replaced by Taney.
61. Erebus: [1:8; 90:27]. Just as Dante does, Pound places men groveling for money here [14:3,4].
62. all gates: [47: 10; 94:20].
63. bab: [bab] A and Per, "gate". In mysti- cal writings it means "the way" and is used to refer to Abdul Baha [96:93], the founder of the Bahai movement [93:162].
64. Pandects . . . Gaius: [94: 21] .
65. Consul for . . . : [94:29].
66. Windsor: Edward VIII [95 :39].
67. Agassiz, Kung: [93:51,52].
68. maison close: F, "closed [sealed or
encircled] house. "
69. Lightfoot: [95:42].
70. Le Portel: [80:422].
71. KREDEMNON: [96:1].
72. DEXATO XERSI: H, "received it in [her] hand" rOd. V,462].
73. AGERTHE: H, "returned again. " While dozens of other events are taking place in the poem, we recall that in Canto I Odysseus started his "Nostos" (journey home). At the end of Rock-Drill, Ino (Leucothea) saved him with her magic veil and protected him on his swim to Phaeacia. Here we note his arrival at the shores where Ina retrieves her
magic veil and the hero goes ashore.
74. two lies: The red-herring technique Pound often deplored and from which he has suffered much. He said to Bridson: "Confusion is caused by package-words. You call a man a Manichaean or a Bolshevik, or something or other, and never find out what he is driving at. The technique of infamy is to start two lies at once and get people arguing which is the truth" [ND. 17, 174-175].
the silk trade as a state monopoly: "[He tried] to divert the trade from the Persian route . . . into the East of Europe. In this he failed, but two Persian monks . . . arrived at Constantinople and imparted their knowl- edge to the emperor" [EB, Vol. XXV, 11th ed. , 97] .
83. monetary (218 A. D. ): No data can be found for this date, but since Landulph's chronology is 7 years less than the accepted [JW, Later, 113], the reference may be to Caracalla's [97:41] new coinage system of A . D . 211 which established the silver-gold r~tio at 12 for 1 [HMS, 49].
84. Belisarius: Ca. 505-565, Byzantine gen- eral under Justinian 1. He suppressed the Nika sedition (532), defeated the Vandals of Africa (533-534), recovered Italy from the Ostragoths, took Naples and Rome (536), and so on. Since he was handicapped by Justinian's distrust and jealousy, he could only keep the enemy in check and so retired. But he returned to drive the Bulgars from Constantinople (559).
85. NO . . . shares: The anecdote concerns an Allied submarine which the Italian navy might have sunk but didn't because it was insured by the Trieste branch of Lloyd's, an international marine insurance under- writer made up of about 300 different syndi- cates. A rhyme with similar international munitions makers' acts ofWWI [18: 13].
86. De Stael: Anne Louise Germaine Necker, wife of Jacques Necker [68:96], baronne de Stael-Holstein, 1766-1817, whose defense of German culture and romanticism outraged Napoleon. His police caused her flight and exile to Russia and England, but she returned in 1815 to become a great influence on European thought and literature.
87. Santayana: [81:38; 95:66].
88. Nel mezzo: I, "in the middle. " Trans- lation of character [M 1504], "chung. "
89. Ideogram: Fu2-s [MI982], "Buddha" or "the Buddhists" [98:64].
48. Barley . . . tax-free:
49. hilaritas: [83 :9].
50. Letizia: I, "gladness" [Par. XVIII,42].
S1. Virtu: I, "spiritual power to love. " Dante feels this power increasing after his delight, in the preceding line, of seeing Beatrice and doing well [Par. XVIII, 60].
. . .
53. Lume non e . . . : I, "There is no light, if not from the serene [nature of God]"
[Par. XIX, 64] .
54. stone . . . descending:
52. Buona
itself' [Par. XIX, 86-87]. "The primal will is good in itself, I and from itself, which is the highest good, it is never moved" [JW]. A rhyme with directio vo/untalis [77: 57] .
volonta:
I, "Will good in
81. No greek . . . : Since
ranean ethnic groups did sell their own people into slavery, perhaps this indicates for Pound an advanced civilization before Christ.
82. Silk news . . . : Sericulture passed from China to India before 1000 B. C. and, after that, slowly to Persia and the Middle East. Aristotle [Hist. Anim. V, 19(17), 11(6)] mentions the silkworm. Justinian conducted
From "I
hear the murmur of a river / that descends
[88:96].
seem to
57. Jackson . . .
Adams: [88:97]. 58. Tocqueville: [88:84].
\
, "
. ~,
76. Gesetzbuch: G, "law-book; code. "
77. Justin's village: Prob.
