: Some
very difficult because the word for a "willte dog" may have no etymologic connection at all with the word for "black dog," etc.
very difficult because the word for a "willte dog" may have no etymologic connection at all with the word for "black dog," etc.
A-Companion-to-the-Cantos-of-Ezra-Pound-II
Christian's .
.
.
: Pseudonym of Herbiet [80:319].
14. the corridor 1/2 . . . : Pound must have had a vital memory of Herbiet's portrait of a lady (? ) with hat and gloves. He asked at 80/510, "What the deuce has . . . [he] done
with . . . [it]? " and says here, "[it] must be somewhere. " If one could find it, quite like? ly it would have in the background a narrow corridor with a window looking out onto a bridge in the far distance [93:162], which suggested to Pound "a bridge over worlds"
[Frags. j802].
IS. "moyens . . . inconnus": F, "means of existence unknown. "
16. Anselm: St. A. , c. l034? 1109, archbish? op of Canterbury (1093? 1109), an Italian scholar who became a monk in France, where he was befriended by Lanfranc and followed him as prior at Bec in 1062; he later followed him to Canterbury in En? gland. He was made archbishop against his will and became involved in the terrible problems of investiture but held out strongly against Henry I, who finally yielded. In his most notable work, Monologium (1063), he is one of the first theologians to argue the compatibility of faith and reason. Pound found him important, not only because of his rationality in discussing the Mysterium but also because he was a significant figure in the development of democratic freedoms.
In the Bridson interview he said: "You can be damn well thankful to St. Anselm, be? cause all your liberties back before 'Maggie Carter' as they used to call her in the law schools in America-I mean the fight be- tween him and William Rufus, the dirty bandit-all your liberties come out of that"
[ND 17, 173] . The connection Pound makes between Anselm and the Magna Carta is a comment on the structure of The Cantos. Canto 104 prepares the way for the great climax of the Magna Carta cantos, 107? 109.
17. scripsit: L, "wrote. "
18. "non . . . sapientia": L, "not in space, but in knowing. " A part of Anselm's ontolo~
? ? ? ? 684
105/746-748
gical argument: "our ability to conceive of an Infinite Being necessarily entails the exis~ tence of that being. " Pound mentions this not because of some minor historical interest but because it is a vital part of his own religion, as is the idea of the compatibility of faith and reason. By the end of the 19th century, many had concluded it was "either/or": faith or reason. This conclusion is a false dichotomy. No "false middles," please! [104:109J. [Migne, vol. 158, chap. 2, col. 146-147; JW,Pai, 2? 3, 400J.
19. non pares: L, "not equaL" From a state- ment in the Monologium which says that members of the Trinity are not equal in worth [ibid. J.
20. rerum naturas: L, "nature of things. " Taken from a passage in the Monologium which translates: "every created nature takes its place in a higher grade of the worth of essence, the more it seems to approach there" [ibid. J. That is, all things are not, as they are in pantheism, equally beautiful, valuable, or good: differences exist.
poems 687ff. J.
[Migne,
V ol.
158, chap.
2, col.
mind mirrors the image but in itself is not the image. " This construction aligns Anselm with antecedent Neoplatonic light- philosophers.
38. Sapor . . . pulchritudo: L, "flavor . . . beauty. " Anselm'sProslogion [chaps. 17 and 18J says that a nonknower "looks around him and doesn't see beauty" and "tastes, yet doesn't know savour [saporem]" [Migne, vol. )58, cols. 236-237; JW, Pai, 2? 3, 402J.
39. ne . . . intellectu: L, "that it not be divisible in the intellect. " An amalgam of phrases from several places in Anselm, who makes the point that wisdom is whole and entire in itself and cannot be reached by logic alone [JW, Pai, 2-3, 402J .
40. (insulis fortunatis): L, "to the blessed isles. "
. . .
42. Puteus Cantauriensis: L, "Canterbury Well. " Legend says that when, as archbishop of Canterbury, Anselm visited Uberi, 9 mi. E of Capua, to write Cur Deus Homo (Why Did God Live), there was a drought. The monks dug a weIl where Anselm told them to and it produced water with healing pro? perties. Thereafter, the well was, named after him [Migne, vol. 158, cols. 100? 101J.
43. a partridge: Anselm fell ill and wouldn't eat. The monks protested that he must until he finally said he might eat a partridge. The monks couldn't find one, but a stable boy found a martyram [marten: a kind of weasel ("martin" is a misprint)J with a partridge in its mouth. Anselm ate it and was cured
[ibid. , I12-I13J.
44. Ideograms: Kuei [M3634J, "spirits"; chao [M239] , "to appeal to. "
220: "Saca & Socne, on strande & on Streame, on wudan & on feldan . . . " [JEJ. But "Sake et sake appears to be a formulaic phrase denoting certain manorial privileges, derived from Domesday Bk [I. 225 b/2J : "Gitda tenuit cum saca & soca. "; e. g. , Stow says, HI . . . will and command, that they shall inioy the same well and quietly and honourably with sake and sake" [Surv. 36J . The words came to mean a district within a shire that could comprise a number of towns: "Coningsburg in Yorkshire . . . had twenty eight Towns and hamIets within its sake" [Blount, Anc. Tenures 91. But the words carne to have other meanings: "You send a sack of corn to the soakmiIl, and you get back half a sack of flour" [OEDJ. Says Donald Davie: "Sake persists in placenames; e. g. . . . Thorpe-Ie-Soken, and Kirby. le-Soken, both villages in Essex near where I lived between 1964 and 1968, which figure in the Essex Poems I wrote during those years". "Strande" is a variant of "strande": "beach" or "broad traffic way. " The last two words are translated in the next line.
46. liberates: L, "liberties. "
47. consuetudines: L, "habitual rights. " Such rights ultimately determined legal rights in English law [Migne, vol. 159, cols. 336,337,352, 375, 383J .
48. Rochester: City in Kent, SE England, site of 12th? century cathedral built at place where St. Augustine founded a mission in 604.
49. Rufus: William II, "the Red," king of England (1087? 1100). Opposed Anselm's stand on investiture on the grounds of state rights. He raised rents 8 times their original value (5 to 40) for use of the land ("usu terrae"). Usu suggests usury [JW, Pai, 2? 3, 402J.
50. Unitas Charitatis: L, "Unity of Charity. "
51. consuetudo diversa: L, "diverse in cus- toms. " Anselm argued that people might be united as one in Christ under God and king, but they were diverse in their operations or
21. Lanfranci . . . : L, "They feared wisdom of Lanfranci" [cf. 16 aboveJ .
22. old Gallagher: [87:134J.
the
23. Sodom . . . Napoleon: Ref. to the
the Rothschilds pulled on Napoleon to get gold to Arthur Wellesley during the pennino sula campaign [86:56J.
24. Ideograms: "Hou Chi," name of the minister of agriculture under Shun, later worshipped as the god of agriculture.
25. stando . . . Terrestre: I, "standing in the Earthly Paradise. " In Dante's cosmography, on top of Mt. Purgatory.
26. sheep on Rham . . .
: Some
very difficult because the word for a "willte dog" may have no etymologic connection at all with the word for "black dog," etc.
27. "Meas nugas": L, "my trifles. " Taken from Catullus's dedicatory poem 1. 4. St. An- selm quotes the phrase to describe ills own more frivolous writings: prob. his own
dialects
are
trick
28. "L'adoravano . . . Lucia": I, "They adore it . . . like St. Lucy" (a town in SE Italy). The anecdote concerns a stone statue of the pagan god Cupid. Because the people adored it, the church official had to put it out of sight. Pound tells elsewhere the same story as taking place at Terracina [JIM, 30? 31J.
29. Barocco, anima: I, "baroque, soul. "
30. anima . . . vagula, tenula: L, "soul wandering, tenuous. " Line from Hadrian's poem to his soul which Pound played with in one of his own early poems [P, 39J.
31. "non genitus" Caput 57, "discenden~ do": L, " 'not born' Chapter 57, 'descend- ing. ' " In chapters 56 and 57 of the Monolo- gium, the point is made that the Father and Son, the Highest Nature, do not give birth to the Spirit of Love (Third Person of the Tri- nity): that spirit is inborn, a mysterious breathing? forth from the Highest Nature. Pound has changed the Latin discedendo ("removing") to a hybrid Latin-Italian word to suggest "descending" [JW, ibid. ].
32. Guido C. : G. CavaIeanti [4:46J.
33. vera imago: L, "true image. " Anselm said that "the mind itself is a mirror [of Highest NatureJ and its image. " The word "true" is added later. The idea is implicit in Cavalcanti's Donna Mi Prega [36/177J .
34. via mind . . . : A key statement in Pound's light? divinity imagery.
35. "rationaIem": L, "reason. "
36. "intenzione": I, "intended design. "
37. Ratio . . . imago: L, "Reason, moon mirror is not the image. " Anselm stresses the importance of reason but also its limitations, which cannot lead directly to total Memory, the Father. The words "minour, not image" may seem not to be from Anselm, who dis- tinctly says that the mind is an image of what it sees; but Pound prob. intends: "the
. . .
105/748-749
685
41. fertur
bees . . . beehives of the sky-temple (Urania) with light as cloak. " A pastiche of phrases enacting the flight of the mind to the High? est Nature, which Anselm compared to the flight of bees. A rhyme with the soul as sparks rising [5:6J .
amictus:
L, "carried
like
45. et sake . . . woden: [OE/NFJ.
mate source, Charter Hen. II in Anglia VII.
Proxi?
? ? ? ? ? ? ? 686
customs; since they were so created they should have the liberties to be so.
52. Khati: [93:2].
53. "ordine": I, "order"; L, "by order. "
54. Boamund: Bohemond I, c. 1056-1111, prince of Antioch after its capture from the infidels in 1098 during the first crusade. A violent exponent of brute force, he double- crossed the Byzantine emperor Alexius I, who defeated and humiliated him in 1108.
55. Alexis: Alexius Comnenus, 1048-118, Byzantine emperor (1081-1118). He repelled the first crusade invaders, Robert Guiscard and Bohemond.
56. Boniface: Prob. Pope B. VIII, Dante's great enemy.
57. Clermont: The capital of the Puy-de- Dome [100: 132] Dept. in SE France and long the center of religious activity [cf. 63 below]. It was also the center of the strug- gles between Boniface VIII and Philip IV of France. In these struggles the public did get excited at times. Once, when an emissary of Philip with an army behind him actually struck the pope, the outraged public literally drove the army away and rescued mm.
58. George Fifth: 1865-1936, king of En- gland (1910-1936). He was against England's becoming involved in WWI but loyally sup- ported the government. Pound wrote about seeing him on Armistice Day, Nov. 11, 1918, with "the crowds cheering" and "the general enthusiasm for George on his drive through the drizzle in an open carriage, with no es- cort save a couple of cops. Poor devil was looking happy, I should think, for the first time in his life. I happened to be in Picca- dilly about two feet from the carriage" [L, 141].
59. the Bard's death: Charles I was executed in 1649, 33 years after the death of Shake- speare: a king who also "willed no wrong. "
60. "Dalleyrand": Talleyrand, whose family came from Perigord near Hautefort (Alta- fort), the four-towered castle of Betrans de
105/749 Born [cf. "Sestina: Altaforte" and "Near
Perigord," P, 28, & 151-157]. The heavy dialect gives "Dalleyrand of Berigord," with the D and B initial sounds. D and B are also the initials of David Blumenthal, who bought the castle and lived there. Pound used to tell a story about Blumenthal's quick wit: "One evening at dinner a guest asked what the initials D. E. on the cutlery stood for. Blumenthal replied: "Dalleyrand Beri- gom' " [NS, Reading, 112].
61. "en gatje": [85:87]: "en gatge": P, mortgage (the castle).
62. Urban: Pope Urban II (1088-1099). He preached the call for the first crusade at Cler- mont in 1095, which is seen by Pound to be a needless instigation o f destructive wars against the infidels. He is also culpable for not taking a strong enough stand against ruthless rulers like William Rufus to prevent them from raising the rents [cf. 49 above].
63. Charles of the Suevi: L, "of the Swa- bians," called Charles the Fat, who became king of Spain in 876 and Frankish emperor (881-887). He witnessed a miraculous vision that caused him to abdicate the throne. The event is related in Migne in a chap. entitled "Visio Caroli" ("Vision of Charles"). He said he was led by a ball of light ("lucifiuum glomus") looped over his shoulder ("jactavit super scapulas meas filum glomeris") to sur- vey souls (especially those of priests) cast into dark perdition, his father in purgatorial pain, and his predecessors, Lothair I and his son Louis II, ensconced in paradisal joy, with Lothair on a rock of Topaz [104:116]. Said Charles: "suddenly I was seized by my spirit . . . and he held in his hand a solid ball emitting the brightest ray of light . . . and he began to unwind it and said to me: 'Take a thread of this brilliant light, and tie and knot it firmly around the thumb of your right hand, because you will be led by this through the labyrinthine punishments of Hell'" [JW,Later, 165].
64. Antoninus: [78:56].
65. Athelstan: Ruled 924-940. His distribu-
1
105/749-750
tions are recorded in William of Malmes- bury's Deeds ofEnglish Kings.
66. Ethelbald: King E. , 716-757. He ruled "ut omnia monasteria . . . a publicis vecti- galibus . . . absolvantur" ("that all monas- teries be absolved from public taxes").
67. Egbert: King o f Wessex (802-839). Sometimes referred to as the first king of England, he really had control of only small areas of the island.
68. consuetudiness: [cf. 47 above].
69. Paschal: From letter 85, in which Pope
Paschal II (1099-1118) wrote to Anselm tel- ling him to withstand the efforts of English kings to control investiture of bishops
687
77. Anselm . . . Rufus: A question of the investiture of bishops as well as monetary matters.
78. "Ugly? . . . whore! ": adapted from one of Anselm's "nugas" called "Song on Con- tempt of the World. " The lines translate: "If anyone has a base wife, he loathes and hates her; / If pretty, he anxiously fears adul- terers" [Migne, vol 158, col. 697; JW,Later,
161] .
79. Anselm . . . weak: Because of his ex- hausting struggles, A. had periods of depres- sion, perhaps not helped by stomach trou- ble. A rhyme with Plotinus [99:60]?
80. Trinity: [cf. 31 above]. Pound de- spaired for years over the great destruction wreaked on some sects of the Christian church by other sects on just the one issue of what he called "the numbers game. " One can refer to the three sides of a box and be clear only one box is at issue.
81. Essentia . . . : L, "Essence, feminine, immaculate, unstainable," Anselm sees the essence of all created things as part of the breath (anima) or loving spirit of the Father and Son and hence spotless and pure. The Latin words for "essence," and even "the Father," the highest nature (summa natura), all end in -a and are feminine.
14. the corridor 1/2 . . . : Pound must have had a vital memory of Herbiet's portrait of a lady (? ) with hat and gloves. He asked at 80/510, "What the deuce has . . . [he] done
with . . . [it]? " and says here, "[it] must be somewhere. " If one could find it, quite like? ly it would have in the background a narrow corridor with a window looking out onto a bridge in the far distance [93:162], which suggested to Pound "a bridge over worlds"
[Frags. j802].
IS. "moyens . . . inconnus": F, "means of existence unknown. "
16. Anselm: St. A. , c. l034? 1109, archbish? op of Canterbury (1093? 1109), an Italian scholar who became a monk in France, where he was befriended by Lanfranc and followed him as prior at Bec in 1062; he later followed him to Canterbury in En? gland. He was made archbishop against his will and became involved in the terrible problems of investiture but held out strongly against Henry I, who finally yielded. In his most notable work, Monologium (1063), he is one of the first theologians to argue the compatibility of faith and reason. Pound found him important, not only because of his rationality in discussing the Mysterium but also because he was a significant figure in the development of democratic freedoms.
In the Bridson interview he said: "You can be damn well thankful to St. Anselm, be? cause all your liberties back before 'Maggie Carter' as they used to call her in the law schools in America-I mean the fight be- tween him and William Rufus, the dirty bandit-all your liberties come out of that"
[ND 17, 173] . The connection Pound makes between Anselm and the Magna Carta is a comment on the structure of The Cantos. Canto 104 prepares the way for the great climax of the Magna Carta cantos, 107? 109.
17. scripsit: L, "wrote. "
18. "non . . . sapientia": L, "not in space, but in knowing. " A part of Anselm's ontolo~
? ? ? ? 684
105/746-748
gical argument: "our ability to conceive of an Infinite Being necessarily entails the exis~ tence of that being. " Pound mentions this not because of some minor historical interest but because it is a vital part of his own religion, as is the idea of the compatibility of faith and reason. By the end of the 19th century, many had concluded it was "either/or": faith or reason. This conclusion is a false dichotomy. No "false middles," please! [104:109J. [Migne, vol. 158, chap. 2, col. 146-147; JW,Pai, 2? 3, 400J.
19. non pares: L, "not equaL" From a state- ment in the Monologium which says that members of the Trinity are not equal in worth [ibid. J.
20. rerum naturas: L, "nature of things. " Taken from a passage in the Monologium which translates: "every created nature takes its place in a higher grade of the worth of essence, the more it seems to approach there" [ibid. J. That is, all things are not, as they are in pantheism, equally beautiful, valuable, or good: differences exist.
poems 687ff. J.
[Migne,
V ol.
158, chap.
2, col.
mind mirrors the image but in itself is not the image. " This construction aligns Anselm with antecedent Neoplatonic light- philosophers.
38. Sapor . . . pulchritudo: L, "flavor . . . beauty. " Anselm'sProslogion [chaps. 17 and 18J says that a nonknower "looks around him and doesn't see beauty" and "tastes, yet doesn't know savour [saporem]" [Migne, vol. )58, cols. 236-237; JW, Pai, 2? 3, 402J.
39. ne . . . intellectu: L, "that it not be divisible in the intellect. " An amalgam of phrases from several places in Anselm, who makes the point that wisdom is whole and entire in itself and cannot be reached by logic alone [JW, Pai, 2-3, 402J .
40. (insulis fortunatis): L, "to the blessed isles. "
. . .
42. Puteus Cantauriensis: L, "Canterbury Well. " Legend says that when, as archbishop of Canterbury, Anselm visited Uberi, 9 mi. E of Capua, to write Cur Deus Homo (Why Did God Live), there was a drought. The monks dug a weIl where Anselm told them to and it produced water with healing pro? perties. Thereafter, the well was, named after him [Migne, vol. 158, cols. 100? 101J.
43. a partridge: Anselm fell ill and wouldn't eat. The monks protested that he must until he finally said he might eat a partridge. The monks couldn't find one, but a stable boy found a martyram [marten: a kind of weasel ("martin" is a misprint)J with a partridge in its mouth. Anselm ate it and was cured
[ibid. , I12-I13J.
44. Ideograms: Kuei [M3634J, "spirits"; chao [M239] , "to appeal to. "
220: "Saca & Socne, on strande & on Streame, on wudan & on feldan . . . " [JEJ. But "Sake et sake appears to be a formulaic phrase denoting certain manorial privileges, derived from Domesday Bk [I. 225 b/2J : "Gitda tenuit cum saca & soca. "; e. g. , Stow says, HI . . . will and command, that they shall inioy the same well and quietly and honourably with sake and sake" [Surv. 36J . The words came to mean a district within a shire that could comprise a number of towns: "Coningsburg in Yorkshire . . . had twenty eight Towns and hamIets within its sake" [Blount, Anc. Tenures 91. But the words carne to have other meanings: "You send a sack of corn to the soakmiIl, and you get back half a sack of flour" [OEDJ. Says Donald Davie: "Sake persists in placenames; e. g. . . . Thorpe-Ie-Soken, and Kirby. le-Soken, both villages in Essex near where I lived between 1964 and 1968, which figure in the Essex Poems I wrote during those years". "Strande" is a variant of "strande": "beach" or "broad traffic way. " The last two words are translated in the next line.
46. liberates: L, "liberties. "
47. consuetudines: L, "habitual rights. " Such rights ultimately determined legal rights in English law [Migne, vol. 159, cols. 336,337,352, 375, 383J .
48. Rochester: City in Kent, SE England, site of 12th? century cathedral built at place where St. Augustine founded a mission in 604.
49. Rufus: William II, "the Red," king of England (1087? 1100). Opposed Anselm's stand on investiture on the grounds of state rights. He raised rents 8 times their original value (5 to 40) for use of the land ("usu terrae"). Usu suggests usury [JW, Pai, 2? 3, 402J.
50. Unitas Charitatis: L, "Unity of Charity. "
51. consuetudo diversa: L, "diverse in cus- toms. " Anselm argued that people might be united as one in Christ under God and king, but they were diverse in their operations or
21. Lanfranci . . . : L, "They feared wisdom of Lanfranci" [cf. 16 aboveJ .
22. old Gallagher: [87:134J.
the
23. Sodom . . . Napoleon: Ref. to the
the Rothschilds pulled on Napoleon to get gold to Arthur Wellesley during the pennino sula campaign [86:56J.
24. Ideograms: "Hou Chi," name of the minister of agriculture under Shun, later worshipped as the god of agriculture.
25. stando . . . Terrestre: I, "standing in the Earthly Paradise. " In Dante's cosmography, on top of Mt. Purgatory.
26. sheep on Rham . . .
: Some
very difficult because the word for a "willte dog" may have no etymologic connection at all with the word for "black dog," etc.
27. "Meas nugas": L, "my trifles. " Taken from Catullus's dedicatory poem 1. 4. St. An- selm quotes the phrase to describe ills own more frivolous writings: prob. his own
dialects
are
trick
28. "L'adoravano . . . Lucia": I, "They adore it . . . like St. Lucy" (a town in SE Italy). The anecdote concerns a stone statue of the pagan god Cupid. Because the people adored it, the church official had to put it out of sight. Pound tells elsewhere the same story as taking place at Terracina [JIM, 30? 31J.
29. Barocco, anima: I, "baroque, soul. "
30. anima . . . vagula, tenula: L, "soul wandering, tenuous. " Line from Hadrian's poem to his soul which Pound played with in one of his own early poems [P, 39J.
31. "non genitus" Caput 57, "discenden~ do": L, " 'not born' Chapter 57, 'descend- ing. ' " In chapters 56 and 57 of the Monolo- gium, the point is made that the Father and Son, the Highest Nature, do not give birth to the Spirit of Love (Third Person of the Tri- nity): that spirit is inborn, a mysterious breathing? forth from the Highest Nature. Pound has changed the Latin discedendo ("removing") to a hybrid Latin-Italian word to suggest "descending" [JW, ibid. ].
32. Guido C. : G. CavaIeanti [4:46J.
33. vera imago: L, "true image. " Anselm said that "the mind itself is a mirror [of Highest NatureJ and its image. " The word "true" is added later. The idea is implicit in Cavalcanti's Donna Mi Prega [36/177J .
34. via mind . . . : A key statement in Pound's light? divinity imagery.
35. "rationaIem": L, "reason. "
36. "intenzione": I, "intended design. "
37. Ratio . . . imago: L, "Reason, moon mirror is not the image. " Anselm stresses the importance of reason but also its limitations, which cannot lead directly to total Memory, the Father. The words "minour, not image" may seem not to be from Anselm, who dis- tinctly says that the mind is an image of what it sees; but Pound prob. intends: "the
. . .
105/748-749
685
41. fertur
bees . . . beehives of the sky-temple (Urania) with light as cloak. " A pastiche of phrases enacting the flight of the mind to the High? est Nature, which Anselm compared to the flight of bees. A rhyme with the soul as sparks rising [5:6J .
amictus:
L, "carried
like
45. et sake . . . woden: [OE/NFJ.
mate source, Charter Hen. II in Anglia VII.
Proxi?
? ? ? ? ? ? ? 686
customs; since they were so created they should have the liberties to be so.
52. Khati: [93:2].
53. "ordine": I, "order"; L, "by order. "
54. Boamund: Bohemond I, c. 1056-1111, prince of Antioch after its capture from the infidels in 1098 during the first crusade. A violent exponent of brute force, he double- crossed the Byzantine emperor Alexius I, who defeated and humiliated him in 1108.
55. Alexis: Alexius Comnenus, 1048-118, Byzantine emperor (1081-1118). He repelled the first crusade invaders, Robert Guiscard and Bohemond.
56. Boniface: Prob. Pope B. VIII, Dante's great enemy.
57. Clermont: The capital of the Puy-de- Dome [100: 132] Dept. in SE France and long the center of religious activity [cf. 63 below]. It was also the center of the strug- gles between Boniface VIII and Philip IV of France. In these struggles the public did get excited at times. Once, when an emissary of Philip with an army behind him actually struck the pope, the outraged public literally drove the army away and rescued mm.
58. George Fifth: 1865-1936, king of En- gland (1910-1936). He was against England's becoming involved in WWI but loyally sup- ported the government. Pound wrote about seeing him on Armistice Day, Nov. 11, 1918, with "the crowds cheering" and "the general enthusiasm for George on his drive through the drizzle in an open carriage, with no es- cort save a couple of cops. Poor devil was looking happy, I should think, for the first time in his life. I happened to be in Picca- dilly about two feet from the carriage" [L, 141].
59. the Bard's death: Charles I was executed in 1649, 33 years after the death of Shake- speare: a king who also "willed no wrong. "
60. "Dalleyrand": Talleyrand, whose family came from Perigord near Hautefort (Alta- fort), the four-towered castle of Betrans de
105/749 Born [cf. "Sestina: Altaforte" and "Near
Perigord," P, 28, & 151-157]. The heavy dialect gives "Dalleyrand of Berigord," with the D and B initial sounds. D and B are also the initials of David Blumenthal, who bought the castle and lived there. Pound used to tell a story about Blumenthal's quick wit: "One evening at dinner a guest asked what the initials D. E. on the cutlery stood for. Blumenthal replied: "Dalleyrand Beri- gom' " [NS, Reading, 112].
61. "en gatje": [85:87]: "en gatge": P, mortgage (the castle).
62. Urban: Pope Urban II (1088-1099). He preached the call for the first crusade at Cler- mont in 1095, which is seen by Pound to be a needless instigation o f destructive wars against the infidels. He is also culpable for not taking a strong enough stand against ruthless rulers like William Rufus to prevent them from raising the rents [cf. 49 above].
63. Charles of the Suevi: L, "of the Swa- bians," called Charles the Fat, who became king of Spain in 876 and Frankish emperor (881-887). He witnessed a miraculous vision that caused him to abdicate the throne. The event is related in Migne in a chap. entitled "Visio Caroli" ("Vision of Charles"). He said he was led by a ball of light ("lucifiuum glomus") looped over his shoulder ("jactavit super scapulas meas filum glomeris") to sur- vey souls (especially those of priests) cast into dark perdition, his father in purgatorial pain, and his predecessors, Lothair I and his son Louis II, ensconced in paradisal joy, with Lothair on a rock of Topaz [104:116]. Said Charles: "suddenly I was seized by my spirit . . . and he held in his hand a solid ball emitting the brightest ray of light . . . and he began to unwind it and said to me: 'Take a thread of this brilliant light, and tie and knot it firmly around the thumb of your right hand, because you will be led by this through the labyrinthine punishments of Hell'" [JW,Later, 165].
64. Antoninus: [78:56].
65. Athelstan: Ruled 924-940. His distribu-
1
105/749-750
tions are recorded in William of Malmes- bury's Deeds ofEnglish Kings.
66. Ethelbald: King E. , 716-757. He ruled "ut omnia monasteria . . . a publicis vecti- galibus . . . absolvantur" ("that all monas- teries be absolved from public taxes").
67. Egbert: King o f Wessex (802-839). Sometimes referred to as the first king of England, he really had control of only small areas of the island.
68. consuetudiness: [cf. 47 above].
69. Paschal: From letter 85, in which Pope
Paschal II (1099-1118) wrote to Anselm tel- ling him to withstand the efforts of English kings to control investiture of bishops
687
77. Anselm . . . Rufus: A question of the investiture of bishops as well as monetary matters.
78. "Ugly? . . . whore! ": adapted from one of Anselm's "nugas" called "Song on Con- tempt of the World. " The lines translate: "If anyone has a base wife, he loathes and hates her; / If pretty, he anxiously fears adul- terers" [Migne, vol 158, col. 697; JW,Later,
161] .
79. Anselm . . . weak: Because of his ex- hausting struggles, A. had periods of depres- sion, perhaps not helped by stomach trou- ble. A rhyme with Plotinus [99:60]?
80. Trinity: [cf. 31 above]. Pound de- spaired for years over the great destruction wreaked on some sects of the Christian church by other sects on just the one issue of what he called "the numbers game. " One can refer to the three sides of a box and be clear only one box is at issue.
81. Essentia . . . : L, "Essence, feminine, immaculate, unstainable," Anselm sees the essence of all created things as part of the breath (anima) or loving spirit of the Father and Son and hence spotless and pure. The Latin words for "essence," and even "the Father," the highest nature (summa natura), all end in -a and are feminine.
