No More Learning

is it far
. . . :
Recurrent
leit-motif
84. Lidya: Lydia Yavorska, 1874-1921, a Russian-born actress (and erstwhile wife of Prince Vladimir Bariatinsky) who acted in London, 1910-1921. She prob. told Pound the story of the executioner. Pound may have seen her accost Henry James: "Men of my time have witnessed 'parties' in London gardens where . . . everyone else (male) wore grey 'toppers. ' As I remember it even Henry James wore one, and unless memory blends two occasions he wore also an enormous checked weskit" [GK, 82].
85. Mr. James: [7:13; 74:191].
86. "Cher maItre": F, "Dear Master. " 87. fish-tails: The Sirens.
122. IiELVe. ? . . : Cythera. "
H, "You are
fearful,
'I
of the Sirens to 189-190].
Odysseus
[Od. XII,
89. Eos nor Hesperus: The Morning and Evening stars here [80: 110].
90. Silenus: A satyr, sometimes called the son of Hermes or Pan, who was a companion o f Dionysus.
91. Casey: Corporal at the DTC.
92. bassarids: Thracian maenads.
93. Maelids: Tree nymphs [3: 12] .
94. cossak: [cf. 84 above]. He executes because he likes to.
95. Salazar . . . : Trainees at DTC.
ably many of the trainees, especially black soldiers, had names of early presidents of the United States and even of famous non? presidents such as Calhoun.
96. Calhoun: [34:48]. The "Retaliate" theme, developed in detail in Cantos 87-89, is first sounded here.
97. Priapus: God of fertility, son of Dionysus and Aphrodite.
99. having root . . . : Perhaps the Analects IV, 16: "The proper man under- stands equity, the small man, profits" [CON, 207].
100. lo! : A Greek salute usually translated, "Hail! "
101. you can make, . . converts: The China miSSionary heard here may be the one at 28/136.
102. Sweetland: Prob. one of the trainees at the DTC.
103. EAET/OOV: H, "have mercy. "
104. Kyrie eleison: H, "Lord, have mercy. " Phrase from Orthodox liturgy and Roman Mass.
Presum?
idea of
123. KOP1J . . . : H, "Daughter [Persephone],
? 428
79/492
80/493 429
and Delia [Artemis/Dianaj, and Maia [mother of Hermes] . "
124. KV7TP" . . . : "Cyprus Aphrodite. "
125. Kv81]p"': H, "Cythera [Aphrodite]. "
126. aram . . . vult: L, "The grove needs an altar. " Recurrent theme which climaxes at 90/607 when, in a visionary passage, the
grove gets its altar [74:441].
127. Cimbica: Writing about the work of W. H. Hudson, Pound said: "He would lead us to South America. . . for the sake of meeting a puma, Chimbica, friend of man, the most loyal of wildcats" [SP, 431]. A rhyme with other animals of the cat family who have significance as manifestations
of the divine presence in nature.
94? 100; Peck, Pai, 1-1,9; Flory, Pai, 5-1, 45-46: HK, Pai, 2-3, 492; CFT,Pai, 5-1, 69-76;Surette,Pai,6-1, 111-13;BK,Pai,5-2, 350; JW, Pai, 12-1,55-75; DP, Barb, 274-284; WB,Rose, passim; HK, Era, 72-74, 113-114, 476-481, 488-489, passim; Achilles Fang, "Materials for the Study of Pound's Cantos," Ph. D. disser- tation, Harvard University, 1958, Vols. II, III, IV; Michael King, "Ezra Pound at Pisa: An Interview with John L. Steele," Texas Quarterly, XXI,4, Winter 1978,49-61 [King, "Steele"]. NS, Life, 45, 322; R. Sieburth, Instigations, Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1978, 15; Charles Norman, Ezra Pound, New York, Mac- millan. 1960 [CN, Pound] : CB-R, ZBC, 106.
Glossary
6. Finlandia: A tone poem by the Finnish composer Sibelius.
7. Debussy: Claude D. , 1862-1918. French composer.
8. pains au lai! : F, "milk rolls"
9. eucalyptus: On the day Pound was arrested by the Partisans, he picked up a seed of the eucalyptus tree on the salita and carried it as a good luck charm.
10. "Come pan, nifio! ": S, "Eat bread, boy. "
CANTO LXXX Sources
Ain' committed . . . : Opinion of why
Time, Aug. 13, Aug. 6, Jul. 2, 1945; Homer, ad. x, V; Horace, Odes I; James Legge, The Four Books, Shanghai, 1923 [Legge]; Thomas Lovell Beddoes, Death's Jest-Book; T. S. Eliot, The Waste Land, Ash Wednesday; Horace, Ars Poetica; Dante, In! V. IX; Shakespeare, Twelfth Night IV, Julius Caeser III, sc. 2; Samuel Johnson, The Plays of William Shakespeare, 1765;Pierre de Ronsard, Sonnets pour Helene, II; Wyndham Lewis, Blasting and Bombardiering, London, 1937 [Blasting]; Enrico Pea, Moscardino, trans. Ezra Pound, New York, New Directions, 1955; EP,CON, 218, 257, 229, 99,247, 145:P,271,257,39, 192,28; Morris Speare, The Pocket Book o f Verse, 1940 [Spear].
Background
EP,L, 21, 95,131,331,333,338,341,179,52, 228;GK, 199, 88-89,200, 80-81,309-310, 179, 185, 189, 110, 180-181,227, 31, 79, 146; PE, 23, 29, 205, 11; NEW, 163; SP, 414, 378-383, 24,115-117, 124,418; ABCR, 43, 79-80;LE, 431-440, 276;SR, 161,84,208; Michael Holroyd, Augustus John, New York, 1974 [Holroyd, John]; Dictionary of Literary Biography, vol. 4; American Writers in Paris, 1920-1939, by George Wickes, Detroit, 1980; John Gould Fletcher, Life is My Song, New York, 1937; George Santayana, Persons and Places, vols. 1, 2, New York, 1944-45; Ford Madox Ford, Portraits from Life, New York, 1937; Poetry, March 1918; Julian Franklin, Heraldry, London, ARCU, 1965.
Exegeses
Chilanti, Pai, 6-2, 245; Shuldiner, Pai, 4-1,73-78; Nassar, i'ai, 1-2, 210; Davie, Pai, 6-1, 102; Kimpel, Pai, 10-2,308; CFT, Pai, 3-1,
1.
he's in the DTC expressed by Mr. A. Little- or one of the trainees.
2. GEfJ. t<:: H, "law (not as fixed by statute, but) as established by custom: justice, right" [L&S]. The vagaries of justice come from murderers and rapists receiving sentences similar to ones received by those guilty of
minor transgressions.
3. Amo ergo sum: L, "I love; therefore I am. " Rephrasing of the Cartesian cogito. A musical figure often used by Pound.
4. Margot: M. Asquith [38:22]. Time [Aug. 6, 1945] carried her obituary: "Died. Margot Asquith, 81, The Countess of Oxford and Asquith, witty widow of British Prime Minister (1908-16) Herbert H. Asquith, longtime society enfant terrible. . . . Her lifetime of audacities included writing a note in pencil to Queen Victoria, declining to stay at a dinner party despite King Edward's request. " Pound was fond of her. She ordered copies of Blast in advance [Fletcher, Life is My Song, 137] and had her portrait
sketched by Gaudier-Brzeska [Fang, II, 82].
5. Walter: W. Morse Rummel, 1887-1953, German pianist and composer who was much interested in 12th- and 13th-century French songs. Pound lived with him for months at a time in Paris and mentions him often [L, 21, 95, 131; GK, 199]. Like Michio Ito [77: 86] , he seems to have lacked a coin for the gas meter at times.
II. Spanish [45 :5].
bread: Before
adulteration
12. senesco sed amo: L, "I age, but I love. "
13. Madri' . . . : Spanish cities Pound re- membered from his younger days as a guide there.
14. Gervais: Brand name of a French dairy company.
15. Las Menilias: A painting by Velasquez of "the page girls" of the queen, which Pound saw at the Prado Museum along with several others he lists here.
16. Philip . . . : Portraits of Philip III on horseback, ca. 1635: Philip IVan horseback, ca. 1635; Philip IV hunting wild boar, ca. 1638; Philip IV in hunting suit but not on horseback, etc.
? 430
80/493-494
29. Turgenev: Ivan T. , 1818-1883, Russian novelist who was much influenced by his many years of friendship with Flaubert. The sentiment about death comes from his Une Nichee de Gentilshommes, which Pound frequently cited [PE, 23; GK, 200; SP, 414J.
80/495
Analects, the Great Learning, and the Doc-
trine o f the Mean. These plus Mencius make up the Four Books.
41. Tsu Tsze: Tzu Hsi, empress dowager of China and actual ruler, 1898-1908.
Pound tells an anecdote from Katherine Carl's book, With the Empress Dowager: "Under the insistence of the Empress she' turned out. . . an excellent work of art, in the course of producing which she observed the Dowager charming birds, definitely luring at least one down from a tree . . . . Mrs. Carl also describes the old lady painting or writing the ideograms, writing them large and with great and delicate perfection" [GK, 80-81J.
42. Confucius: Analects VI, 26: "He went to see (the duchess) Nan-tze. Tse-Lu was displeased. The big man said: Well, I'll be damned, if there's anything wrong about this, heaven chuck me" [CON, 218J.
43. Nancy: N. Cunard, 1896-1965, contem- porary American poet and patron of the arts. Nan-tze in the Analects above suggests this Nancy who had a violent love affair with Henry Crowder, an American Jazz musician [84:9J, which scandalized the expatri- ates in Paris during the late 20s.
44. Hartmann: Sadakichi Hartmann, 1867- 1944, American poet, playwright, and art critic whom Pound thought highly of. He wrote: "Sadakichi Hartmann sends me a SOrt of helter-skelter table . . . and Aristotle is among the 'near great' on his list. I mention this because Sadakichi has lived. Has so lived that if one hadn't been oneself it wd. have been worth while to have been Sadakichi. This is a tribute I can pay to few men (even to those listed in his table of glories:" [GK, 309-310J.
45. Manhattan: Hartmann noted on the title page of his A Tragedy in a New York Flat that it was "written in a New York flat, '95-'96, on nothing a week" [Fang, II, 56J.
46. Hovey: Richard H. , 1864-1900, Ameri- can poet.
431
S. , 1874-1904,
17. the dwarfs: Portrait of the dwarf Sebastian de Morra, ca. 1643-1649; portrait of the dwarf EI Primo. 1644.
18. Don Juan: Painting so named.
19. Breda: Las Lanzas, or The Surrender of
Breda, a painting in which lances are promi- nently displayed; done ca. 1635.
20. the Virgin: The Virgin Delivering the Chasuble to St. Ildefonso, ca 1618-1620.
21. Los Boracchos: The Drinkers, 1629.
22. Las Hilanderas: The Carpet Weavers
(female), painted ca. 1655-1660.
23. the Prado: The National Museum of Painting and Sculpture in Madrid.
24. "Las Americas": Bazaar in Madrid.
25. Symons: Arthur S. , 1865? 1945, British poet and critic important in the develop- ment of symbolism in the 1890s. He may have told the story Ernest Rhys [74:434J reported in Everyman Remembers. "One droll impression connects Symons with Paul Verlaine. It was at a Paris party given by Verlaine in his tiny bedroom. He had been ill. . . . But Verlaine was a humorous host. He produced . . . a ten-franc note, and said . . . 'I have money: I will have pleasure. Go, Jean-and buy a bottle of rum. ' When the rum arrived, as there was only one tumbler, they all drank from it in turn" [pp. 11l? 1l2J. Symons or Rhys probably told this or a similar anecdote at the Tabarin.
26. TabarD! : The Bal Tabarin was a Mont- martre nightclub at 58 rue Pigalle, on the Right Bank.
27. Hennique: Leon H. , 1851-1935, French dramatist and novelist. Speaking of literary lights in France, Pound said: "A few more than middle aged gents had reminiscences. Hennique remembered Flaubert and Maupassant. Men distinctly of the second line conserved this, that, or the other" [GK, 88-89J.
28. Flaubert: Gustave F. , 1821-1880, French novelist.
47. Stickney: American poet.
Trumbull
[1 :7J. Prob. invoked here in
30. Tiresias:
the capacity of seer and prophet.
31. /Y,YA(WC; ? ? . : H, the 4 words do not construe. Pound is trying to recall a line from Homer rOd. X, 490-495] which says, "Bright Persephone has granted reason to the blind man" [Tiresias; 74:366J. MSB's note reads: the blind see to whom Perse- phone still provides intelligence. "
32. Still hath: Recurrent Tireseas [39:18; 47:1J.
epithet for
33. X
y: Quisling [RaJ. [79: 18J .
34.
35. Verdun: [16:37J.
Petain:
36. Blum: Leon B. ,
socialist, statesman, and writer. After he became premier in 1936, he reorganized the Banque de France into the Banque de la France. Prob. Pound meant "bank" by "bidet. " Writing about books one should have in an Oriental series, he said in 1938: "We need the economics volume of the Chinese encyclopedia among other now unavailable works. Probably contains a bit more dynamite to blow up Blum, and the Banque with him" [NEW, Dec. 15, 163; Fang, III, 79J.
37. bidet: F, "sitz-bath. "
38. To communicate . . . : [79:40J.
39. simplex . . . : L, "plain in her neatness" [Horace, Odes 1, 5J .
40. Legge: James L. , 1815-1897, Scottish missionary and sinologist; editor of The Chinese Classics, a translation with critical and exegetical notes, prolegomena, and copious indexes, in 7 vols. (London: 1861- 86), of which Vol. 1 contains the Confucian
1872-1950,
French
!
f
48. Loring: Frederic Wadsworth L. , 1848- 1871, American poet and journalist.
49. Santayana: George S. ,
Madrid, Spain, but moved with his family to the U. S. in 1872. He graduated from Harvard in 1886 and taught philosophy there from 1889 to 1912, except for a year at Cambridge and the Sorbonne. After 1912 he became an expatriate recluse and lived mostly in Italy. His early works, The Sense o f Beauty, 1896, and The Life o f Reason, 5 vols. , 1905-1906, were traditional. But he developed new theories in the 1920s and 30s in such works as The Realms of Being, 4 vols. ; The Realm of Truth, 1937; and The Realm of Spirit, 1940. He appears to have been an avowed materialist, but his doctrines
about faith and the "essences" are difficult to fit into so restricted a mold. He was also a poet whose prose style was called poetic. A novel, The Last Puritan (1935), was a best-seller among the literate. Pound met Santayana in Venice late in 1939 and was much taken with his honesty and corre- sponded with him thereafter [L, 331,333, 318J. Pound prob. read the MS of his memoirs, Persons and Places (Vols. I-II, 1944-1Yt5), sometime in 1940 [81 :37, 40J .
50. Carman: 3liss C. , 1861-1929, Canadian poet and journalist. He spent much time on the open road in the U. S. , singing his poems for food and a place in the barn to sleep.
51. Whitman: In his book Conversations with Walt Whitman, Hartmann mentions "a can of lobster" they ate togeth~r. In a letter to H. , Pound said: "On the strength of the oysters to Walt (who died before the body emerged from the---------------of time) you might git a sandwich" [L, 341J. Pound is telling H. that, because of his meeting with and book about Whitman, he might receive some kind of grant from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences he has just been elected to. He confused the lobster with oysters.
52. Nenni . . . : Pietro N. , 1891-1980, head
1863-1952, b.
? ? 432
80/495-497
80/497-498
433
of the Italian Socialist party, who took an important role in Italian governments after the fall of Mussolini in 1943 [Pai, 6-2, 245], Time [July 2, 1945] carried a note about the government of Feruccio Parri: "Most restive was Vice Premier Nenni, who had hoped to be Premier himself. But liberal philosopher Benedetto Croce had voiced a general opinion: 'Nenni, you cannot be Premier. First, because you are Nenni, second, because you have no idea of admin- istration' " [pp, 34-35] ,
53, Tseng: Tzu Kung, disciple of Confucius who was important in diplomacy. He asked, "What shall we add"," [74:11],
54, Benito: B, Mussolini [41 :2; 74:3], The next 20 lines contain Pound's perception of MussoHni in relation to the people around him who Pound thinks helped destroy a great and idealistic humanitarian.
55. Billyum: W, B. Yeats, who for a while served as senator in the Irish Free State, and flirted, briefly, with the Fascist movement there.
56. 0 woman . . . : First line of a Padraic Colum poem: "0 woman, shapely as the swan, / On your account I shall not die,"
57. Padraic Colum: 1881-1972, an Irish poet Pound much admired,
of
59,Ifaman,,,:Yeatswrotein"APacket for Ezra Pound" [1929]: "My dear Ezra, Do not be elected to the Senate of your coun- try. . . . " This is Pound's response.
60, Palio: I, "horserace" [20:24], Annual event in Siena.
61. "Torre! .