The volume
referred
to here is prob- ably Finanzia nuova, which Pound trans-
103.
103.
A-Companion-to-the-Cantos-of-Ezra-Pound-II
Amadeus Mozart.
68.
Lake Garda: [76:90].
69. Tailhade: Laurent T. , 1854-1919, French poet.
70. "Willy": Henri Gauthier-Villars, 1859- 1931, a French novelist, essayist, and biographer, nicknamed "Willy. "
71. Mockel: Albert Henri Louis M. , 1866- 1945, Belgian-French poet and critic, the founder (1886) and editor of La Wallonie, a magazine o f the Belgian symbolists. His strange aesthetic came to a climax in The
Immortal Flame (1924).
72. en casque . . . : F, "in pink crystal
helmets the mountebanks," from Ballet, by Stuart Merrill [cf. "Essay on French Poets," MIN, 232], a poem first published in La Wallonie.
73. cakeshops . . . Nevsky: [16:42; 74:183]. 74. Sirdar: [74:175].
75. Armenonville: [74:236].
76. Kashmiri: I, "of Kashmir. " [19:34].
77. Mozart's house: Not the house in which he was born but the Mozart-Haus in the Schwarz-Strasse (Salzburg), "built in 1912- 14 by the international 'Stiftung mozar-
419
Guelph-Ghibelline factions. When he became the head of his house in 1239, he became the leading Ghibelline and in 1248 took part in the expUlsion of the Guelphs. The Guelphs returned and in 1258 expelled the Ghibel- lines. But with the help of the Sienese, Farinata led his men to the battle of Monta- perti (1260) and crushed the Guelphs. At the council at EmpoH afterwards, it was proposed that Florence be completely destroyed and reduced to the status of a village. According to Villani, "When this proposal was made, the valiant and wise knight, Messer Farinata degli Uberti, arose and opposed it . . . saying . . . that such talk was madness . . . . So long as there was life in his body, he said, he would defend the city with sword in hand. " He prevailed. But because he was posthumously condemned as a heretic, Dante places him in the 6th circle of Hell. When F. rises up out of his tomb in Hell to speak with Dante, his arrogance is described by his attitude: "Com' avesse I' inferno a gran dispitto" ("As if he had a great scorn of Hell"). The lines here prob.
refer to a statue of Farinata in the courtyard
("cortile") at San Zeno. "Ubaldo" refers to Pound's friend, a descendant of the Farinata, Ubaldo degli Uberti, an admiral in the Italian Navy [ef. "Ezra Pound and Ubaldo degli Uberti: History of a Friendship," by Riccardo M. degli Uberti (his son), Italian Quarterly, XVI, 64, Spring 1973, 95-107]. Pound refers to him occasionally in his prose [SR,
120,160].
80. cortile: I, "court, patio. "Prob. a statue o f Farinata kneeling which Pound remem- bered in a church at San Zeno, Verona.
81. Ubaldo: [77:99].
82. Can Grande: C. G. della Scala, 1291- 1329, lord of Verona and greatest member of the Ghibelline family that ruled Verona from 1277-1387. He was a friend and protector of Dante. The face on an eques- trian statue surmounting his tomb outside the Church of Santa Maria Antica in Verona is striking because of a broad grin [Ivancich,
Ezra Pound in Italy, has picture] .
o f
which the core
was his own
family"
with two
concert-rooms, an
[OCD, 1116]. Prob. Pound believed M was a 20th-century Vespasian [94:118].
56. Antoninus: A. Pius, 86-161, Roman
emperor; adopted son of Hadrian, whom
he succeeded in 138. He was followed by
Marcus Aurelius, whom Hadrian persuaded
him to adopt. The reign of Antoninus was
marked by reason, restraint, fiscal wisdom,
and vastly improved administrative tech-
niques. "The general tone of harmony and
well-being under Antoninus is well expressed by Aristides . . . [who] pictures the Empire as a congery of happy, peaceful, and pros- perous city-states under the aegis of Rome's beneficent hegemony and protection. . _. Deified by universal accord, he received all the usual honours, including a commemora-
"Here
sings
Wolfgang
1
teum' . . .
academy of music, and archives" [Baedeker's Austria, 1929, 251;Fang, III, 118].
78. San Zeno: [74:483]. A romanesque
church in Verona which Pound visited with
Edgar Williams (W. C. Williams's brother), which had a signed column [45: 14] . In his "Paris Letter" [Dial, vol. 74, 1923, 89], Pound ends his tale of the visit with: "Williams looked at the two simple spirals of red marble cut in one block, and burst out, 'How the hell do you expect us to get any buildings when we have to order OUr columns by the gross? ' "
79. Farinata: F. degli Uberti. The great Ghibelline leader of Florence. He was born in Florence at the beginning of the 13th century and saw the development of the
? 420
78/481
78/481-482
421
83. Tommy Cochran: Said Pound: "just a nice kid I knew in Wyncote" [ibid. ].
84. "E fa . . . tremare": I, "And makes the air tremble with light" [74:425].
85. we sat there: The "we" included Pound, T. S. Eliot, and D. M. G. Adams [RO; DG]. The visit took place in the early 20s [Pai, 5-1,47].
86. Thiy: Bride Scratton. Pound called her Thiy after an early Egyptian queen [NS, Life,243].
87. il decaduto: I, "the decadent one. " T. S. Eliot [EH].
88. Rochefoucauld: La R. Perhaps a mem- ory of the Eliot poem that ends, "I mount the steps and ring the bell, turning / Wearily, as one would turn to nod good-bye to Rochefoucauld / If the street were time and he at the end of the street, / And I say, 'Cousin Harriet, here is the Boston Evening Transcript. ' "
89. Cafe Dante: A cafe in Verona. Pound recalls with fondness the great literary plans they made there by the arena, even though they came to naught.
90. Griffith: [19:10].
91. Aram vult nemus: [74:441].
92. under . . . (confusions): Analects XXI, 1: "Fan Ch'ih walking with him below the rain altars . . . said: Venture to ask how to lift one's conscience in action; to correct the hidden tare, and separate one's errors? " [CON, 247].
93. "Chose . . . off": Analects XXII, 3-6: "He said: Promote the straight, and grind the crooked. . . . Shun had the Empire, picked out Kao-Yao [53:29] from the multitude, promoted him, and wrong 'uns departed. T'ang . . . picked out I Yin [85:5] from all the hordes, promoted him, and the wrong 'uns departed" [CON, 248] .
94. One hell of a fight . . . : The next dozen lines concern U. S. Senate fights over the League of Nations and the 18th amendment.
Pound turned against the League because it voted sanctions against Italy for invading Ethiopia: "America (the U. S. ) has not paid its debt even in thought to the men who kept the U. S. OUT of the league at Geneva. If we have' Susan B. Anthony . . . shoved onto our postage stamps, we shd. think up something better. . . for Lodge Knox Borah, and George Holden Tinkham fa; having kept our fatherland out of at least one stinking imbroglio. The League of Two
Measures" [GK,247].
95. Lodge: Henry Cabot L. , 1850-1924,
American legislator; member of the House of Representatives (1887-93), and of the Senate (1893-1924); as chairman of the foreign affairs committee of the Senate he was opposed to the peace treaty and'the League of Nations (1919).
96. Knox: Philander Chase K. , 1853-1921, American political leader, member of the U. S. Senate (1904-09; 1917-21); against entry of the U. s. into the League of Nations.
97. Bacchus: Dionysus. Here as a god of wine.
98. Number XVIII: The 18th amendment to the Constitution of the United States prohibiting the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors; ratified in 1919, re- pealed in 1933.
99. Mr Tinkham: [74: 180].
100. Odon: O. Por (b. 1883). One of Pound's favorite Italian writers on social and economic problems. "In six weeks Par had two articles out" [GK, 166] ; "Odon Por has kept a level head, being in Rome and keep- ing tab on international knowledge" [GK, 246].
The volume referred to here is prob- ably Finanzia nuova, which Pound trans-
103. return to Midas: As chancellor of the exchequer in 1925, Churchill restored the gold standard. The act created a devastating depression at home and great suffering in other places in the empire [74:32].
104. taxes: A major premise of social credit is that if the government controls the extension of credit and receives interest for extending it, the people of a nation will collect dividends rather than pay taxes.
o f
of money could be avoided and its velocity maintained by fixing stamps that had to be purchased: the cost of the stamps cancelled a proportion of the face value of a bank note
[SP ,274-282].
106. Ideogram: Tao [M6136], "the pro- cess," or "the Taoist Way. "
107. ala Worgl: F, "in the manner of W" [41 :44; 74:345].
great big tits / Just like Jack Dempsey's mitts" [77:91].
114. Mr Wilson: [74:65].
115. Harriet: Harriette Wilson, 1789-1846,
her Memoirs (1825; ed. J. Laver, 1929) have a discussion between Wellington and her concerning the propriety of a man having sex with his boots on. The story Pound's text seems to refer to is usually associated with the duke and duchess of Marlborough.
116. Wellington: [33:24].
117. mannirs: "Manners. " Early variant spelling as in Gawin Douglas, whose transla- tion of the Aeneid Pound liked [LE,245].
118. videt et urbes: L, "he saw and cities. " [cf. trans. Odyssey I, 2: qui mores hominum
multorum vidit et urbes, LE, 265].
119. 7rOAV! l'r/7l~:Polumetis [9:38].
120. ce ruse personnage: F, "this shrewd character. " Said Pound: "Dr. Rouse has at last translated 'polumetis. ' Salel in 1543 found a living phrase when he called Ulysses 'ce ruse personnage'" [PE, 126].
121. Otis: James 0. , 1725-1783, American lawyer and patriot who resigned as advocate general of Boston in protest against the issuing of writs of assistance. He was head of the State Committee of Correspondence, opposed the Stamp Act, and did scholarly work on Latin and Greek prosody [71:89].
122. Nausikaa: Nausicaa, daughter of the Phaecian king Alcinous [ad. VI]; Odysseus approached her as she was playing ball on the beach, just after she had finished wash- ing the household linen.
123. Bagni Romagna: Bagno di Romagna is a commune in Forli Province, N Italy.
124. Cassandra: [77:192]. At 23/109 we have the waves of the sea "a glitter of crystal. . . . No light reaching through them"
[cf. 4 above].
125. the asphodel: Homer said: "But they passed beyond the flowing waters of ocean,
Policy o f
translated from the original Arabic by Lady Anne Blunt, done into verse by Wilfred Scawen Blunt, 1892. A medieval romance popular in Egypt and N Africa for over 800 years. It tells how Emir Abu Zeyd stole a treasured mare from the stable of the Agheyli Jaber with the help of Jaber's daughter, Princess Alia, whose life he once saved. The act was a cause of war but none took place.
112. casus bellorum: L, "cause of wars. "
113. "mits": A popular song popular with Mr. Wilson had these lines: "My girl's got
lated: Italy's
1939-1940,
Grafiche, 1941, in the Library of Congress.
101. METATHEMENON: [74:343; 77:67; 97:77].
102. Churchill: [41:33].
Bergamo,
Instituto d'Arte
Social Economics,
105. cancelled:
[74:368], who recommended that hoarding
111. The
Romance
Stealing . . . :
The Celebrated
A premise
Gesell
108. Sd/ . . . efficiently:
persuade Mussolini to adopt the Gesellite economy as Worgl had. M said he'd have to think about it.
109. "For a pig . . . ": Ref. to M's death [74:4].
110. Jepson: Edgar J. , 1863-1938, English novelist.
o f the Stealing o f
the Mare,
Pound
tried to
? ? ? 422
78/482-483
79/484 423 CANTO LXXIX
Sources
Time, Aug. 27, 1945, Aug. 6, 1945; Homer, Od IX, X, XIl; EP,
CON, 269,207; Dante,Inf XIV.
Background
EP, Odes, 143; SP, 119-120,407; GK, 182, 82; SR, 62, 101; Ivaneieh, Ezra Pound in Italy, New York, Rizzoli, 1978; The Oxford Companion to Music, 2d ed. , 1938 [OCM]; Raymond Post, That Devil Wilkes, New Y ork, 1929,204.
Exegeses
Achilles Fang, "Materials for the Study of Pound's Cantos," Ph. D. dissertation, Harvard University, 1958, Vols. III, IV; HK, Era, 8-10, 13; JW, Medieval Song, 197-203; Hughes,Pai, 2-1, 39; CFT,Pai, 3-1, 93-94; CE,Ideas, 145-147; DP, Barb, 268-274; WB, Rose, 136-138.
Glossary
and the rock Leucas, and the gates of the sun, and the people of dreams; and they im- mediately carne into meadows of asphodel, where souls the images of the dead reside" [Od. XXIV, 10-14] . Pound may have made Neoplatonic connections from Thomas Taylor's translation of Porphyry's De Antra Nympharum [Concerning the Cave of the Nymphs]: "Now these meadows o fAsphodel form the supreme part of Pluto's dominions: for, according to Pythagoras . . . the empire of Pluto commences downward from the Milky Way; so that these meadows are most probably situated in the Lion, the constella- tion into which souls first fall, after they leave the tropic of Cancer" [Thomas Taylor the Platonist: Selected Writings, Bollingen Series LXXXVIII, Princeton University Press, 1969, p. 316n].
126. Lope de Vega: Felix L. de V. , 1562- 1635. Most prolific of the Spanish play- wrights. Pound's teacher Hugo Rennert was an authority on L. de V. , a faot which resulted in Pound's intention at one time to do a doctoral dissertation on his work. He received a fellowship to visit Spain to do the research, but when the fellowship was not renewed he gave it up.
127. No hay . . . celos: S, "There is no love without jealousy. "
128. Sin. . . amor: S, "Without secrecy there is no love. " The title of a play by Lope de Vega which was edited by Hugo Rennert and published by the MLA, 1894.
129. Dona Juana: 1479-1555, daughter of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile and mother of Emperor Charles V. She was driven mad by the death of her husband Philip. But during his later years her passion- ate jealousy, for which she had "just cause, led to deplorable scenes. "
130. la loca: S, "the mad woman. " Accord- ing to Rennert, "La loea was an actress by the name of Lucia de Salcedo who was at one time a sweetheart of Lope de Vega"
[Fang, III, 141].
131. Cunizza: [6:34; 29:14].
132. al triedro: I, "in the corner" [76:24].
133. Tre . . . mente: I, "three ladies around in my mind. " Paraphrase of Dante's "Tre donne intorno al cor son venute" [Three ladies have come around my heart], an allegorical poem presenting a vision of Justice, Generosity, and Temperance re- duced to beggars by the evil society around them. Most critics believe that Pound has three particular ladies in mind but disagree about who they are. Dorothy Pound and Olga Rudge are in most lists; there are several candidates for third place [Flory, Pai, 5-1, 45-52; Fang, III, 114]. The "Tre donne" may be anticipated by "and the three ladies all waited" [74:439].
134. that roman: Unidentified.
135. Olivia's stairs: Prob. Olivia Rossetti Agresti [76:3].
136. Dr Williams: William Carlos Williams, 1883-1963, American poet and friend of Pound from their student days together at the University of Pennsylvania.
137. put in the cart: A major tenet of Williams's poetk theory was "no ideas except in things," which became a tenet also of The Objectivists. The cart is suggested by the much-anthologized red wheelbarrow.
138. Lucca: [76:130].
139. "The Spring and Autumn": Spring and
Autumn Annals, the Ch 'un Ch'iu. This, the last of the Five Classics, is a chronological record of the chief events in the state of Lou (Lu) between 722 and 484; it is generally regarded as the work of Confucius, whose native state was Lou. Pound mentions it in "Mang Tsze" [SP, 87]. In Mencius VIl, ii, 2, 1-11, we read: "Mencius said, 'In the Spring and Autumn there are no righteous wars. Instances indeed there are of one war better than another' " [Legge, 977].
I. battistero: I, "baptistery. " A two-page spread in Ivancich shows a church at Pisa with baptistery and leaning tower, all in whiteness, in the background.
2. Del Cossa: [77:156].
3. you wd / gain: The "you" is prob. Dorothy Pound or Olga Rudge.
bella" was published at Florence in 1602 [Hughes,Pai, 2-1, 39].
I j
4. I had n o t . . . womankind:
from "To Althea From Prison," by Love? lace, in which the last line of the quatrain is "Loved I not honor more. "
6. Amari-Ii: A famous solo song composed by GiuBo Caccini, who with Jacopo Peri invented opera around 1600. "Amarili mia
[78:65]. Time
5. Salzburg:
1945] said: "Last week the Salzburg Festi- val was on again . . . . Inside the Festspielhaus some 50 hand-picked Austrians. . . were carefully segregated from U. S. soldiers who filled two-thirds of the auditorium. "
Paraphrase
[Aug. 27,
7. her h a i r . . . thirty: Poss.
Weber, Mozart's wife (a younger sister of his real love), whom he married Aug. 16,1782 when he was 26 years old.
69. Tailhade: Laurent T. , 1854-1919, French poet.
70. "Willy": Henri Gauthier-Villars, 1859- 1931, a French novelist, essayist, and biographer, nicknamed "Willy. "
71. Mockel: Albert Henri Louis M. , 1866- 1945, Belgian-French poet and critic, the founder (1886) and editor of La Wallonie, a magazine o f the Belgian symbolists. His strange aesthetic came to a climax in The
Immortal Flame (1924).
72. en casque . . . : F, "in pink crystal
helmets the mountebanks," from Ballet, by Stuart Merrill [cf. "Essay on French Poets," MIN, 232], a poem first published in La Wallonie.
73. cakeshops . . . Nevsky: [16:42; 74:183]. 74. Sirdar: [74:175].
75. Armenonville: [74:236].
76. Kashmiri: I, "of Kashmir. " [19:34].
77. Mozart's house: Not the house in which he was born but the Mozart-Haus in the Schwarz-Strasse (Salzburg), "built in 1912- 14 by the international 'Stiftung mozar-
419
Guelph-Ghibelline factions. When he became the head of his house in 1239, he became the leading Ghibelline and in 1248 took part in the expUlsion of the Guelphs. The Guelphs returned and in 1258 expelled the Ghibel- lines. But with the help of the Sienese, Farinata led his men to the battle of Monta- perti (1260) and crushed the Guelphs. At the council at EmpoH afterwards, it was proposed that Florence be completely destroyed and reduced to the status of a village. According to Villani, "When this proposal was made, the valiant and wise knight, Messer Farinata degli Uberti, arose and opposed it . . . saying . . . that such talk was madness . . . . So long as there was life in his body, he said, he would defend the city with sword in hand. " He prevailed. But because he was posthumously condemned as a heretic, Dante places him in the 6th circle of Hell. When F. rises up out of his tomb in Hell to speak with Dante, his arrogance is described by his attitude: "Com' avesse I' inferno a gran dispitto" ("As if he had a great scorn of Hell"). The lines here prob.
refer to a statue of Farinata in the courtyard
("cortile") at San Zeno. "Ubaldo" refers to Pound's friend, a descendant of the Farinata, Ubaldo degli Uberti, an admiral in the Italian Navy [ef. "Ezra Pound and Ubaldo degli Uberti: History of a Friendship," by Riccardo M. degli Uberti (his son), Italian Quarterly, XVI, 64, Spring 1973, 95-107]. Pound refers to him occasionally in his prose [SR,
120,160].
80. cortile: I, "court, patio. "Prob. a statue o f Farinata kneeling which Pound remem- bered in a church at San Zeno, Verona.
81. Ubaldo: [77:99].
82. Can Grande: C. G. della Scala, 1291- 1329, lord of Verona and greatest member of the Ghibelline family that ruled Verona from 1277-1387. He was a friend and protector of Dante. The face on an eques- trian statue surmounting his tomb outside the Church of Santa Maria Antica in Verona is striking because of a broad grin [Ivancich,
Ezra Pound in Italy, has picture] .
o f
which the core
was his own
family"
with two
concert-rooms, an
[OCD, 1116]. Prob. Pound believed M was a 20th-century Vespasian [94:118].
56. Antoninus: A. Pius, 86-161, Roman
emperor; adopted son of Hadrian, whom
he succeeded in 138. He was followed by
Marcus Aurelius, whom Hadrian persuaded
him to adopt. The reign of Antoninus was
marked by reason, restraint, fiscal wisdom,
and vastly improved administrative tech-
niques. "The general tone of harmony and
well-being under Antoninus is well expressed by Aristides . . . [who] pictures the Empire as a congery of happy, peaceful, and pros- perous city-states under the aegis of Rome's beneficent hegemony and protection. . _. Deified by universal accord, he received all the usual honours, including a commemora-
"Here
sings
Wolfgang
1
teum' . . .
academy of music, and archives" [Baedeker's Austria, 1929, 251;Fang, III, 118].
78. San Zeno: [74:483]. A romanesque
church in Verona which Pound visited with
Edgar Williams (W. C. Williams's brother), which had a signed column [45: 14] . In his "Paris Letter" [Dial, vol. 74, 1923, 89], Pound ends his tale of the visit with: "Williams looked at the two simple spirals of red marble cut in one block, and burst out, 'How the hell do you expect us to get any buildings when we have to order OUr columns by the gross? ' "
79. Farinata: F. degli Uberti. The great Ghibelline leader of Florence. He was born in Florence at the beginning of the 13th century and saw the development of the
? 420
78/481
78/481-482
421
83. Tommy Cochran: Said Pound: "just a nice kid I knew in Wyncote" [ibid. ].
84. "E fa . . . tremare": I, "And makes the air tremble with light" [74:425].
85. we sat there: The "we" included Pound, T. S. Eliot, and D. M. G. Adams [RO; DG]. The visit took place in the early 20s [Pai, 5-1,47].
86. Thiy: Bride Scratton. Pound called her Thiy after an early Egyptian queen [NS, Life,243].
87. il decaduto: I, "the decadent one. " T. S. Eliot [EH].
88. Rochefoucauld: La R. Perhaps a mem- ory of the Eliot poem that ends, "I mount the steps and ring the bell, turning / Wearily, as one would turn to nod good-bye to Rochefoucauld / If the street were time and he at the end of the street, / And I say, 'Cousin Harriet, here is the Boston Evening Transcript. ' "
89. Cafe Dante: A cafe in Verona. Pound recalls with fondness the great literary plans they made there by the arena, even though they came to naught.
90. Griffith: [19:10].
91. Aram vult nemus: [74:441].
92. under . . . (confusions): Analects XXI, 1: "Fan Ch'ih walking with him below the rain altars . . . said: Venture to ask how to lift one's conscience in action; to correct the hidden tare, and separate one's errors? " [CON, 247].
93. "Chose . . . off": Analects XXII, 3-6: "He said: Promote the straight, and grind the crooked. . . . Shun had the Empire, picked out Kao-Yao [53:29] from the multitude, promoted him, and wrong 'uns departed. T'ang . . . picked out I Yin [85:5] from all the hordes, promoted him, and the wrong 'uns departed" [CON, 248] .
94. One hell of a fight . . . : The next dozen lines concern U. S. Senate fights over the League of Nations and the 18th amendment.
Pound turned against the League because it voted sanctions against Italy for invading Ethiopia: "America (the U. S. ) has not paid its debt even in thought to the men who kept the U. S. OUT of the league at Geneva. If we have' Susan B. Anthony . . . shoved onto our postage stamps, we shd. think up something better. . . for Lodge Knox Borah, and George Holden Tinkham fa; having kept our fatherland out of at least one stinking imbroglio. The League of Two
Measures" [GK,247].
95. Lodge: Henry Cabot L. , 1850-1924,
American legislator; member of the House of Representatives (1887-93), and of the Senate (1893-1924); as chairman of the foreign affairs committee of the Senate he was opposed to the peace treaty and'the League of Nations (1919).
96. Knox: Philander Chase K. , 1853-1921, American political leader, member of the U. S. Senate (1904-09; 1917-21); against entry of the U. s. into the League of Nations.
97. Bacchus: Dionysus. Here as a god of wine.
98. Number XVIII: The 18th amendment to the Constitution of the United States prohibiting the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors; ratified in 1919, re- pealed in 1933.
99. Mr Tinkham: [74: 180].
100. Odon: O. Por (b. 1883). One of Pound's favorite Italian writers on social and economic problems. "In six weeks Par had two articles out" [GK, 166] ; "Odon Por has kept a level head, being in Rome and keep- ing tab on international knowledge" [GK, 246].
The volume referred to here is prob- ably Finanzia nuova, which Pound trans-
103. return to Midas: As chancellor of the exchequer in 1925, Churchill restored the gold standard. The act created a devastating depression at home and great suffering in other places in the empire [74:32].
104. taxes: A major premise of social credit is that if the government controls the extension of credit and receives interest for extending it, the people of a nation will collect dividends rather than pay taxes.
o f
of money could be avoided and its velocity maintained by fixing stamps that had to be purchased: the cost of the stamps cancelled a proportion of the face value of a bank note
[SP ,274-282].
106. Ideogram: Tao [M6136], "the pro- cess," or "the Taoist Way. "
107. ala Worgl: F, "in the manner of W" [41 :44; 74:345].
great big tits / Just like Jack Dempsey's mitts" [77:91].
114. Mr Wilson: [74:65].
115. Harriet: Harriette Wilson, 1789-1846,
her Memoirs (1825; ed. J. Laver, 1929) have a discussion between Wellington and her concerning the propriety of a man having sex with his boots on. The story Pound's text seems to refer to is usually associated with the duke and duchess of Marlborough.
116. Wellington: [33:24].
117. mannirs: "Manners. " Early variant spelling as in Gawin Douglas, whose transla- tion of the Aeneid Pound liked [LE,245].
118. videt et urbes: L, "he saw and cities. " [cf. trans. Odyssey I, 2: qui mores hominum
multorum vidit et urbes, LE, 265].
119. 7rOAV! l'r/7l~:Polumetis [9:38].
120. ce ruse personnage: F, "this shrewd character. " Said Pound: "Dr. Rouse has at last translated 'polumetis. ' Salel in 1543 found a living phrase when he called Ulysses 'ce ruse personnage'" [PE, 126].
121. Otis: James 0. , 1725-1783, American lawyer and patriot who resigned as advocate general of Boston in protest against the issuing of writs of assistance. He was head of the State Committee of Correspondence, opposed the Stamp Act, and did scholarly work on Latin and Greek prosody [71:89].
122. Nausikaa: Nausicaa, daughter of the Phaecian king Alcinous [ad. VI]; Odysseus approached her as she was playing ball on the beach, just after she had finished wash- ing the household linen.
123. Bagni Romagna: Bagno di Romagna is a commune in Forli Province, N Italy.
124. Cassandra: [77:192]. At 23/109 we have the waves of the sea "a glitter of crystal. . . . No light reaching through them"
[cf. 4 above].
125. the asphodel: Homer said: "But they passed beyond the flowing waters of ocean,
Policy o f
translated from the original Arabic by Lady Anne Blunt, done into verse by Wilfred Scawen Blunt, 1892. A medieval romance popular in Egypt and N Africa for over 800 years. It tells how Emir Abu Zeyd stole a treasured mare from the stable of the Agheyli Jaber with the help of Jaber's daughter, Princess Alia, whose life he once saved. The act was a cause of war but none took place.
112. casus bellorum: L, "cause of wars. "
113. "mits": A popular song popular with Mr. Wilson had these lines: "My girl's got
lated: Italy's
1939-1940,
Grafiche, 1941, in the Library of Congress.
101. METATHEMENON: [74:343; 77:67; 97:77].
102. Churchill: [41:33].
Bergamo,
Instituto d'Arte
Social Economics,
105. cancelled:
[74:368], who recommended that hoarding
111. The
Romance
Stealing . . . :
The Celebrated
A premise
Gesell
108. Sd/ . . . efficiently:
persuade Mussolini to adopt the Gesellite economy as Worgl had. M said he'd have to think about it.
109. "For a pig . . . ": Ref. to M's death [74:4].
110. Jepson: Edgar J. , 1863-1938, English novelist.
o f the Stealing o f
the Mare,
Pound
tried to
? ? ? 422
78/482-483
79/484 423 CANTO LXXIX
Sources
Time, Aug. 27, 1945, Aug. 6, 1945; Homer, Od IX, X, XIl; EP,
CON, 269,207; Dante,Inf XIV.
Background
EP, Odes, 143; SP, 119-120,407; GK, 182, 82; SR, 62, 101; Ivaneieh, Ezra Pound in Italy, New York, Rizzoli, 1978; The Oxford Companion to Music, 2d ed. , 1938 [OCM]; Raymond Post, That Devil Wilkes, New Y ork, 1929,204.
Exegeses
Achilles Fang, "Materials for the Study of Pound's Cantos," Ph. D. dissertation, Harvard University, 1958, Vols. III, IV; HK, Era, 8-10, 13; JW, Medieval Song, 197-203; Hughes,Pai, 2-1, 39; CFT,Pai, 3-1, 93-94; CE,Ideas, 145-147; DP, Barb, 268-274; WB, Rose, 136-138.
Glossary
and the rock Leucas, and the gates of the sun, and the people of dreams; and they im- mediately carne into meadows of asphodel, where souls the images of the dead reside" [Od. XXIV, 10-14] . Pound may have made Neoplatonic connections from Thomas Taylor's translation of Porphyry's De Antra Nympharum [Concerning the Cave of the Nymphs]: "Now these meadows o fAsphodel form the supreme part of Pluto's dominions: for, according to Pythagoras . . . the empire of Pluto commences downward from the Milky Way; so that these meadows are most probably situated in the Lion, the constella- tion into which souls first fall, after they leave the tropic of Cancer" [Thomas Taylor the Platonist: Selected Writings, Bollingen Series LXXXVIII, Princeton University Press, 1969, p. 316n].
126. Lope de Vega: Felix L. de V. , 1562- 1635. Most prolific of the Spanish play- wrights. Pound's teacher Hugo Rennert was an authority on L. de V. , a faot which resulted in Pound's intention at one time to do a doctoral dissertation on his work. He received a fellowship to visit Spain to do the research, but when the fellowship was not renewed he gave it up.
127. No hay . . . celos: S, "There is no love without jealousy. "
128. Sin. . . amor: S, "Without secrecy there is no love. " The title of a play by Lope de Vega which was edited by Hugo Rennert and published by the MLA, 1894.
129. Dona Juana: 1479-1555, daughter of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile and mother of Emperor Charles V. She was driven mad by the death of her husband Philip. But during his later years her passion- ate jealousy, for which she had "just cause, led to deplorable scenes. "
130. la loca: S, "the mad woman. " Accord- ing to Rennert, "La loea was an actress by the name of Lucia de Salcedo who was at one time a sweetheart of Lope de Vega"
[Fang, III, 141].
131. Cunizza: [6:34; 29:14].
132. al triedro: I, "in the corner" [76:24].
133. Tre . . . mente: I, "three ladies around in my mind. " Paraphrase of Dante's "Tre donne intorno al cor son venute" [Three ladies have come around my heart], an allegorical poem presenting a vision of Justice, Generosity, and Temperance re- duced to beggars by the evil society around them. Most critics believe that Pound has three particular ladies in mind but disagree about who they are. Dorothy Pound and Olga Rudge are in most lists; there are several candidates for third place [Flory, Pai, 5-1, 45-52; Fang, III, 114]. The "Tre donne" may be anticipated by "and the three ladies all waited" [74:439].
134. that roman: Unidentified.
135. Olivia's stairs: Prob. Olivia Rossetti Agresti [76:3].
136. Dr Williams: William Carlos Williams, 1883-1963, American poet and friend of Pound from their student days together at the University of Pennsylvania.
137. put in the cart: A major tenet of Williams's poetk theory was "no ideas except in things," which became a tenet also of The Objectivists. The cart is suggested by the much-anthologized red wheelbarrow.
138. Lucca: [76:130].
139. "The Spring and Autumn": Spring and
Autumn Annals, the Ch 'un Ch'iu. This, the last of the Five Classics, is a chronological record of the chief events in the state of Lou (Lu) between 722 and 484; it is generally regarded as the work of Confucius, whose native state was Lou. Pound mentions it in "Mang Tsze" [SP, 87]. In Mencius VIl, ii, 2, 1-11, we read: "Mencius said, 'In the Spring and Autumn there are no righteous wars. Instances indeed there are of one war better than another' " [Legge, 977].
I. battistero: I, "baptistery. " A two-page spread in Ivancich shows a church at Pisa with baptistery and leaning tower, all in whiteness, in the background.
2. Del Cossa: [77:156].
3. you wd / gain: The "you" is prob. Dorothy Pound or Olga Rudge.
bella" was published at Florence in 1602 [Hughes,Pai, 2-1, 39].
I j
4. I had n o t . . . womankind:
from "To Althea From Prison," by Love? lace, in which the last line of the quatrain is "Loved I not honor more. "
6. Amari-Ii: A famous solo song composed by GiuBo Caccini, who with Jacopo Peri invented opera around 1600. "Amarili mia
[78:65]. Time
5. Salzburg:
1945] said: "Last week the Salzburg Festi- val was on again . . . . Inside the Festspielhaus some 50 hand-picked Austrians. . . were carefully segregated from U. S. soldiers who filled two-thirds of the auditorium. "
Paraphrase
[Aug. 27,
7. her h a i r . . . thirty: Poss.
Weber, Mozart's wife (a younger sister of his real love), whom he married Aug. 16,1782 when he was 26 years old.
