Mark's Square with
emblematic
lions set on pillars at the front.
A-Companion-to-the-Cantos-of-Ezra-Pound-II
: A
this entry: "1858-15. 0-The British Crown resumes its prerogative of the government of India. End of the East India Company"
[HMS, 397].
151. Sylla . . . Byzantium: A table entitled "The Roman Ratio" has these entries: "78 B. c. -9-Sylla. Social Wars. " And, "A. D. 1204-Alexis IV, sovereign? pontiff. Fall of the [Byzantine] Empire" [ibid. ].
152. "The signal . . . Marble": "In 1868, one of the two great national parties . . . [in favor of retaining] the greenback . . . was suddenly deserted by its leaders on the eve of the Presidential election and . . . defeated
coins . . .
fact] to buy the gold . . . and sell it . . . at
cent per cent profit" [HMS, 387? 388].
137. 18, CHARLES . . . 5: An act of Charles II which to Pound was the climax of a long process that finally put the right of coinage into the hands of banks. "The Brit- ish East India Company . . . struck idola? trous coins, under native permission, in 1620; and, with the door thus ajar to private coinage, it was easily pushed wide open. An intrigue with this object was introduced . . , during the reign of Charles I, which bIos? somed during that of his SOD, in the Act 18 Charles II. , c. 5, an Act that bargained away the Measure of Value" [HMS, 388].
138. 1816: "In 1816 the Crown was per? suaded to suspend the exercise of its power over the ratio. In this manner was silver demonetized. By the . . . Mint Act of 1870 [of Queen Victoria] . . . the last remnant of a prerogative whose exercise is essential to the autonomy of the State was innocently surrendered to private hands" [HMS, 389].
139. "Victoria . . . ": [35:48]. The caption under a Max Beerbopm cartoon.
140. Ideogram: I [M3002], "right conduct" or "public spirit. "
141. Goldsmiths: Concerning the power of goldsmiths Del Mar says: "These tremendous powers have been wielded . . . in so narrow
at Washington, 1876" [HMS, 39In. ].
said] a local
dearth of
[but in
polls. . . .
The signal of
Pistis Sophia [Peck, Pai, 1? 1, 28]. 144. Gansl . . . death: "Consult the
writer's [Del Mar's] examination of Mr Albert Gansl, banker and agent of the Rothschilds before the U. S. Monetary Commission, printed . . .
. . .
146. "Portcullis . . . devices": In a table entitled "Ratio of Silver to Gold in India," we read: "1677-East India Company autho? rized by the British Crown [then Charles II] to coin gold, silver, copper, or lead, with its own devices" [HMS, 396].
": "The
145. "Duped
1873 were duped into doubling their indebt? edness [have dispensed] . . . with that mis? chief of Private Coinage. . . . Most of them now exercise. . . a more or less complete control over their own monetary systems"
[HMS, 392].
147. Assyria . . . somewhere:
epoch of Mahomet, . . every state in the West . . . [seemed] to value its gold coins at twice the quantity of silver for which they exchanged in the Orient. Such was the case with Assyria, Babylonia, Persia, Macedon . . . and Imperial Rome" [HMS, 393].
148. (abbreviare): L, I, "to abridge, short? en. " Various tables in the source show that over the years [1650 B. C. to A. D. 1893] the differences between the Orient-to-West ra- tios became smaller [HMS, 394-400].
149. Steed: Henry Wickham S. (1871? 1956), foreign ed. of the London Times, author of numerous books, lecturer on Central Euro- pean history at King's College. Also owner and ed. of the Review o f Reviews, founded by W. T. Stead in 1890 [100: 107].
States which in
"Down to
the
table [cf. 146
above] has
154. Geryon: [51:16].
155. novelle piante: I, "new plants" [Pur. XXXII1, 143? 144]. The passage reads: "I turned myself remade like new plants with new leaves [novella fronda] ". Dante, atop Mount Purgatory, faces a new life by cutting away the old [JW].
156. Ideogram: Hsin [M2737]. Part of "Make new, day by day make new" on T'ang's washbasin [53:40-43]. Pound said of this ideogram: "[It] shows the fascist ax for the clearing away of rubbish . . . the tree, organic vegetable renewal" [J/M, 113].
157. Ideogram: Ch'in! [MlI07] , "rela? tives" or "people. " Pound translates the character, "the way people grow," in the Ta
Hio [CON,27].
158. Ideogram: Tan4 [M6037], "dawn. "
159. o[voc: cxi8[olj;: H, "wine-dark. " Homeric epithet. "Gloss" is the reflected shining [Peck, Pai, 1? 1,21? 23].
160. Sibilla . . . : OE, "Sibyl put it in a book" [91:54;CB? R,ZBC, 198].
161. C,Al7fOPrpVpo" H, "of sea purple. "
162. orixalxo: Form of orichalchi, "of cop?
per"[1:29].
163. xaladines: The last line of the Merrill sonnet quoted earlier, "En casque de cristal rose les baladines" [80:205], ends with this rhyme [78:72]. Merrill and Pound use the word to suggest a certain rare color in the eyes of the goddess. [MB, Trace, 355. 356, has good discussion. ]
164. nature the sign: [90:2].
165. San Marco: Cathedral in St.
Mark's Square with emblematic lions set on pillars at the front. In Canto 102, the "smalltions are there in benevolence" [102/730].
166. Ideogram: Ling [M407l] , "sensiblity" [85: I].
167. Kuanon: [90/606]. The compassion? ate bodhisattva, who has her own salvation boat. Here she replaces Ra? Set [91: 19, 36] .
at the
known as 'The Betrayal,' was given by Man? ton Marble, editor of The New York World, the trusted organ of the party" [HMS, 420].
153. Mr Carlyle: John Griffin Carlisle, 1835? 1910, longtime congressman from Kentucky in both the House and the Senate. He was speaker of the House for 6 years and served in the Senate until Feb. 4, 1893, when he resigned to become secretary of the treasury during Grover Cleveland's second term. He is one of the unsung heroes in the long fight against the money barons. As ear? ly as 1878 he said: "The struggle now going on cannot cease, and ought not to cease, until all the industrial interests of the coun- try are fully and finally emancipated from the heartless domination of the syndicates, stock exchanges, and other great combina- tions of money-grabbers in this country and
in Europe" [Barnes, Carlisle, 36]. [As I write this, Dec. 23, 1982, a tragic irony is clear: the entire industrial world and the developing countries upon which we depend for materials and markets have been brought to the brink of monetary and fiscal disaster, not because the people cannot produce and distribute goods and services, but because of the operations of bankers and the vested interests that support them. Worst of all, no voice such as Carlisle's is heard in the media. The public debates concern "apples and oranges," while the solution to the problem is "preventive medicine"] .
desertion,
621
? ? ? i
622
97/675-677
97/677-678
623
168. 8a7TE7(30C:;: H, "flowering from heav- en," or the "celestial" Nile.
169. Maaovatv: H, "flitting about" rOd. X, 495, 102:41].
170. Bernice: Berenice, the wife of Ptole? my III, placed a lock of her hair in the shrine of her mother-in-law, Arsinoe, at Zephyrium as an earnest of her husband's return from war in Syria. The lock disappeared, but the court astronomer found it as a new constel- lation and called it Coma ["hair"] Berenices
[106:57].
171. folc-loristica: I, "folkloristic. "
172. reserpine: A tranquilizing drug once prepared from rauwolfia alkaloids.
173. Uncle William: W. B. Yeats. See such poems as "Dialogue of Self and Soul," and "Ego Dominus TUliS. "
174. per esempio: I, "for example. "
175. ooArX'IPETl1ot(J(: H, "long-oared. " Ho-
meric epithet [Od. , passim].
176. Ideogram: Jen [M3099], "perfect vir-
tue" or Hunselfishness. " Read left to right.
177. Ideogram: Wei [M7059], "to do or cause. "
preside over all earthly splendors, and she is Fortuna.
184. beata gode: I, "blessed, she enjoys" [Int. VII, 96]. Virgil says of Fortuna that, though cursed by mankind, she "turns her sphere and enjoys her bliss [beata si gode]. "
185. eel in sedge: Dante [Int. VII, 84] de- scribes the secret decisions of Fortuna as inscrutable to men: "hidden like a snake in the grass [oeeulto come in erba l'angue] . "
186. hoc signo: L, "this sign. "
187. Ideogram: Chen! [M346] (tone I, not 4), "fortune" or "luck" [85: 120].
188. pervanche: pervenche, I, F, "periwin- kle"; a small marine snail whose shell has a distinctive violet-blue coloration; also myrtle, a flower of the dogbane family, which has a similar iris-purple blue. Since Pound is meticulous in distinguishing partic- ular shades of blue, perhaps he changed the vowel to create a word for this color: blues have symbolic and religious significance
happier institution if they had had the sense to nominate Uncle Geo. TINKHAM instead of the tin horn double twister Rip van Wil- kie. Rip van winkle wobble the Wendle" [FR, P/l, 273]. The Line seems to give an ironic twist to a conversation reported or overheard.
195. lojom: P, "the day. "
196. DerTag: G, "the day. "
197. Ideogram: "Dawn" [cf. 158 above].
198. Arnaut: Arnaut Daniel [20: 12]. Dante allowed him to speak his native Proven9al
[Pur. XXVI, 140-147].
199. forsitan: L, "perhaps. " Etymologically
related to fortuna as to do with chance luck, or the wheel of fortune. '
200. Pisani: Archbishop of Rome [93:9].
201. abbreviare: L, I, "to shorten" [cf. 148 above]; here to shorten the time and in- crease the velocity of money.
202. faster . . . : A major premise ofSocial Credit. The present money and banking sys- tem produces goods and services faster than it distributes the money to buy them
[38:49,50].
203. Benton: [88:80].
204. 12 to 6 and one half: [Cf. 101 above].
205. T. C. P. : Thaddeus Coleman Pound, Pound's grandfather, once It. gov. of Wisconsin, and three times eiected to Con- gress. Pound wrote: "T. C. P. had already in 1878 been writing about . . . the same essen- tials of monetary and statal economics that I am writing about today" [SP,325].
206. Adams to Rush: [94: 10].
207. Vasa: [Cf. 93 above].
208. Pieire Cardinal: P. C. [or Cardenal], 1185-1275, a major poet during the waning period of troubadour verse, the time of the Albigensian Crusade [23: 28]. His predomi- nant subjects were war, usury, and cor- ruption.
209. sempre biasmata: I, "always blamed. " Third line of Cavalcanti's canzone to For- tuna, in which he says that this goddess of earthly mutability is "always blamed" for her turnings [JW] .
210. gode: [Cf. 184 above] . 211. Brancusi: [85:215].
212. "mais . . . faire": F, "But
ourselves into the state of mind to do them. " In the context of, "Works of art are not difficult to make. "
213. "je peux . . . fi- - -nir! ": F, "J can start something every day, but finish! "
[86: 13].
214. Griffith: [19: 10].
215. nel Croix: [88:46].
216. Picabia: [87:31].
217. Art is local: W. C. Williams quotes John Dewey in the "Author's Note" to Pa- terson: "The local is the only universal, upon that all art builds. "
178. Ideogram: or "relatives. "
Ch'in [MI 107]:
"people"
220. 1riyyovp-yirY. : H, "villany. "
221. Essad . . . gate-post: Pasha E. , 1863- 1920, Albanian military and political hero. During WWI, with the support of Italy, he created a dictatorship and maintained it un- til Albania was invaded by Austria. After WWI he was proclaimed King of Albania by a so-called national assembly, but he was
assassinated at Paris in 1920.
222. houris: In Moslem belief, beautiful vir- gins allotted to the faithful who attain Par- adise.
. . .
224. beat' . . . : [Cf. 184 above].
179. Ideogram: Pao [M4956], "precious [stones]. "
180. Ideogram: I [M2932], "by means of. " Adapted from the Ta Hio, the six characters translate: "does not go in for wealth [trea- suring porcelain, jewels, and money] but counts his humanity and love of people the true treasure" [CON, 75].
181. degli Uberti: Italian admiral [77:99]. Poss. the high admiral who built something at Zephyrium [106:54].
182. Fortuna: [86:93; 96: 125].
183. splendor' mondan': I, "earthly splen- dors" [Inf. VII, 77]. Virgil says that God ordained a general minister and guide to
: [36: 11].
[4:8]. Or [96/656] .
this entry: "1858-15. 0-The British Crown resumes its prerogative of the government of India. End of the East India Company"
[HMS, 397].
151. Sylla . . . Byzantium: A table entitled "The Roman Ratio" has these entries: "78 B. c. -9-Sylla. Social Wars. " And, "A. D. 1204-Alexis IV, sovereign? pontiff. Fall of the [Byzantine] Empire" [ibid. ].
152. "The signal . . . Marble": "In 1868, one of the two great national parties . . . [in favor of retaining] the greenback . . . was suddenly deserted by its leaders on the eve of the Presidential election and . . . defeated
coins . . .
fact] to buy the gold . . . and sell it . . . at
cent per cent profit" [HMS, 387? 388].
137. 18, CHARLES . . . 5: An act of Charles II which to Pound was the climax of a long process that finally put the right of coinage into the hands of banks. "The Brit- ish East India Company . . . struck idola? trous coins, under native permission, in 1620; and, with the door thus ajar to private coinage, it was easily pushed wide open. An intrigue with this object was introduced . . , during the reign of Charles I, which bIos? somed during that of his SOD, in the Act 18 Charles II. , c. 5, an Act that bargained away the Measure of Value" [HMS, 388].
138. 1816: "In 1816 the Crown was per? suaded to suspend the exercise of its power over the ratio. In this manner was silver demonetized. By the . . . Mint Act of 1870 [of Queen Victoria] . . . the last remnant of a prerogative whose exercise is essential to the autonomy of the State was innocently surrendered to private hands" [HMS, 389].
139. "Victoria . . . ": [35:48]. The caption under a Max Beerbopm cartoon.
140. Ideogram: I [M3002], "right conduct" or "public spirit. "
141. Goldsmiths: Concerning the power of goldsmiths Del Mar says: "These tremendous powers have been wielded . . . in so narrow
at Washington, 1876" [HMS, 39In. ].
said] a local
dearth of
[but in
polls. . . .
The signal of
Pistis Sophia [Peck, Pai, 1? 1, 28]. 144. Gansl . . . death: "Consult the
writer's [Del Mar's] examination of Mr Albert Gansl, banker and agent of the Rothschilds before the U. S. Monetary Commission, printed . . .
. . .
146. "Portcullis . . . devices": In a table entitled "Ratio of Silver to Gold in India," we read: "1677-East India Company autho? rized by the British Crown [then Charles II] to coin gold, silver, copper, or lead, with its own devices" [HMS, 396].
": "The
145. "Duped
1873 were duped into doubling their indebt? edness [have dispensed] . . . with that mis? chief of Private Coinage. . . . Most of them now exercise. . . a more or less complete control over their own monetary systems"
[HMS, 392].
147. Assyria . . . somewhere:
epoch of Mahomet, . . every state in the West . . . [seemed] to value its gold coins at twice the quantity of silver for which they exchanged in the Orient. Such was the case with Assyria, Babylonia, Persia, Macedon . . . and Imperial Rome" [HMS, 393].
148. (abbreviare): L, I, "to abridge, short? en. " Various tables in the source show that over the years [1650 B. C. to A. D. 1893] the differences between the Orient-to-West ra- tios became smaller [HMS, 394-400].
149. Steed: Henry Wickham S. (1871? 1956), foreign ed. of the London Times, author of numerous books, lecturer on Central Euro- pean history at King's College. Also owner and ed. of the Review o f Reviews, founded by W. T. Stead in 1890 [100: 107].
States which in
"Down to
the
table [cf. 146
above] has
154. Geryon: [51:16].
155. novelle piante: I, "new plants" [Pur. XXXII1, 143? 144]. The passage reads: "I turned myself remade like new plants with new leaves [novella fronda] ". Dante, atop Mount Purgatory, faces a new life by cutting away the old [JW].
156. Ideogram: Hsin [M2737]. Part of "Make new, day by day make new" on T'ang's washbasin [53:40-43]. Pound said of this ideogram: "[It] shows the fascist ax for the clearing away of rubbish . . . the tree, organic vegetable renewal" [J/M, 113].
157. Ideogram: Ch'in! [MlI07] , "rela? tives" or "people. " Pound translates the character, "the way people grow," in the Ta
Hio [CON,27].
158. Ideogram: Tan4 [M6037], "dawn. "
159. o[voc: cxi8[olj;: H, "wine-dark. " Homeric epithet. "Gloss" is the reflected shining [Peck, Pai, 1? 1,21? 23].
160. Sibilla . . . : OE, "Sibyl put it in a book" [91:54;CB? R,ZBC, 198].
161. C,Al7fOPrpVpo" H, "of sea purple. "
162. orixalxo: Form of orichalchi, "of cop?
per"[1:29].
163. xaladines: The last line of the Merrill sonnet quoted earlier, "En casque de cristal rose les baladines" [80:205], ends with this rhyme [78:72]. Merrill and Pound use the word to suggest a certain rare color in the eyes of the goddess. [MB, Trace, 355. 356, has good discussion. ]
164. nature the sign: [90:2].
165. San Marco: Cathedral in St.
Mark's Square with emblematic lions set on pillars at the front. In Canto 102, the "smalltions are there in benevolence" [102/730].
166. Ideogram: Ling [M407l] , "sensiblity" [85: I].
167. Kuanon: [90/606]. The compassion? ate bodhisattva, who has her own salvation boat. Here she replaces Ra? Set [91: 19, 36] .
at the
known as 'The Betrayal,' was given by Man? ton Marble, editor of The New York World, the trusted organ of the party" [HMS, 420].
153. Mr Carlyle: John Griffin Carlisle, 1835? 1910, longtime congressman from Kentucky in both the House and the Senate. He was speaker of the House for 6 years and served in the Senate until Feb. 4, 1893, when he resigned to become secretary of the treasury during Grover Cleveland's second term. He is one of the unsung heroes in the long fight against the money barons. As ear? ly as 1878 he said: "The struggle now going on cannot cease, and ought not to cease, until all the industrial interests of the coun- try are fully and finally emancipated from the heartless domination of the syndicates, stock exchanges, and other great combina- tions of money-grabbers in this country and
in Europe" [Barnes, Carlisle, 36]. [As I write this, Dec. 23, 1982, a tragic irony is clear: the entire industrial world and the developing countries upon which we depend for materials and markets have been brought to the brink of monetary and fiscal disaster, not because the people cannot produce and distribute goods and services, but because of the operations of bankers and the vested interests that support them. Worst of all, no voice such as Carlisle's is heard in the media. The public debates concern "apples and oranges," while the solution to the problem is "preventive medicine"] .
desertion,
621
? ? ? i
622
97/675-677
97/677-678
623
168. 8a7TE7(30C:;: H, "flowering from heav- en," or the "celestial" Nile.
169. Maaovatv: H, "flitting about" rOd. X, 495, 102:41].
170. Bernice: Berenice, the wife of Ptole? my III, placed a lock of her hair in the shrine of her mother-in-law, Arsinoe, at Zephyrium as an earnest of her husband's return from war in Syria. The lock disappeared, but the court astronomer found it as a new constel- lation and called it Coma ["hair"] Berenices
[106:57].
171. folc-loristica: I, "folkloristic. "
172. reserpine: A tranquilizing drug once prepared from rauwolfia alkaloids.
173. Uncle William: W. B. Yeats. See such poems as "Dialogue of Self and Soul," and "Ego Dominus TUliS. "
174. per esempio: I, "for example. "
175. ooArX'IPETl1ot(J(: H, "long-oared. " Ho-
meric epithet [Od. , passim].
176. Ideogram: Jen [M3099], "perfect vir-
tue" or Hunselfishness. " Read left to right.
177. Ideogram: Wei [M7059], "to do or cause. "
preside over all earthly splendors, and she is Fortuna.
184. beata gode: I, "blessed, she enjoys" [Int. VII, 96]. Virgil says of Fortuna that, though cursed by mankind, she "turns her sphere and enjoys her bliss [beata si gode]. "
185. eel in sedge: Dante [Int. VII, 84] de- scribes the secret decisions of Fortuna as inscrutable to men: "hidden like a snake in the grass [oeeulto come in erba l'angue] . "
186. hoc signo: L, "this sign. "
187. Ideogram: Chen! [M346] (tone I, not 4), "fortune" or "luck" [85: 120].
188. pervanche: pervenche, I, F, "periwin- kle"; a small marine snail whose shell has a distinctive violet-blue coloration; also myrtle, a flower of the dogbane family, which has a similar iris-purple blue. Since Pound is meticulous in distinguishing partic- ular shades of blue, perhaps he changed the vowel to create a word for this color: blues have symbolic and religious significance
happier institution if they had had the sense to nominate Uncle Geo. TINKHAM instead of the tin horn double twister Rip van Wil- kie. Rip van winkle wobble the Wendle" [FR, P/l, 273]. The Line seems to give an ironic twist to a conversation reported or overheard.
195. lojom: P, "the day. "
196. DerTag: G, "the day. "
197. Ideogram: "Dawn" [cf. 158 above].
198. Arnaut: Arnaut Daniel [20: 12]. Dante allowed him to speak his native Proven9al
[Pur. XXVI, 140-147].
199. forsitan: L, "perhaps. " Etymologically
related to fortuna as to do with chance luck, or the wheel of fortune. '
200. Pisani: Archbishop of Rome [93:9].
201. abbreviare: L, I, "to shorten" [cf. 148 above]; here to shorten the time and in- crease the velocity of money.
202. faster . . . : A major premise ofSocial Credit. The present money and banking sys- tem produces goods and services faster than it distributes the money to buy them
[38:49,50].
203. Benton: [88:80].
204. 12 to 6 and one half: [Cf. 101 above].
205. T. C. P. : Thaddeus Coleman Pound, Pound's grandfather, once It. gov. of Wisconsin, and three times eiected to Con- gress. Pound wrote: "T. C. P. had already in 1878 been writing about . . . the same essen- tials of monetary and statal economics that I am writing about today" [SP,325].
206. Adams to Rush: [94: 10].
207. Vasa: [Cf. 93 above].
208. Pieire Cardinal: P. C. [or Cardenal], 1185-1275, a major poet during the waning period of troubadour verse, the time of the Albigensian Crusade [23: 28]. His predomi- nant subjects were war, usury, and cor- ruption.
209. sempre biasmata: I, "always blamed. " Third line of Cavalcanti's canzone to For- tuna, in which he says that this goddess of earthly mutability is "always blamed" for her turnings [JW] .
210. gode: [Cf. 184 above] . 211. Brancusi: [85:215].
212. "mais . . . faire": F, "But
ourselves into the state of mind to do them. " In the context of, "Works of art are not difficult to make. "
213. "je peux . . . fi- - -nir! ": F, "J can start something every day, but finish! "
[86: 13].
214. Griffith: [19: 10].
215. nel Croix: [88:46].
216. Picabia: [87:31].
217. Art is local: W. C. Williams quotes John Dewey in the "Author's Note" to Pa- terson: "The local is the only universal, upon that all art builds. "
178. Ideogram: or "relatives. "
Ch'in [MI 107]:
"people"
220. 1riyyovp-yirY. : H, "villany. "
221. Essad . . . gate-post: Pasha E. , 1863- 1920, Albanian military and political hero. During WWI, with the support of Italy, he created a dictatorship and maintained it un- til Albania was invaded by Austria. After WWI he was proclaimed King of Albania by a so-called national assembly, but he was
assassinated at Paris in 1920.
222. houris: In Moslem belief, beautiful vir- gins allotted to the faithful who attain Par- adise.
. . .
224. beat' . . . : [Cf. 184 above].
179. Ideogram: Pao [M4956], "precious [stones]. "
180. Ideogram: I [M2932], "by means of. " Adapted from the Ta Hio, the six characters translate: "does not go in for wealth [trea- suring porcelain, jewels, and money] but counts his humanity and love of people the true treasure" [CON, 75].
181. degli Uberti: Italian admiral [77:99]. Poss. the high admiral who built something at Zephyrium [106:54].
182. Fortuna: [86:93; 96: 125].
183. splendor' mondan': I, "earthly splen- dors" [Inf. VII, 77]. Virgil says that God ordained a general minister and guide to
: [36: 11].
[4:8]. Or [96/656] .
