No More Learning

166. 117] EVO/1l AOVVTWV: H, "not mingling" and thus "not a melting pot. "
167. Athens . . . Aristides: In his response, the elder sage uses the example of Aristides "to show the difference between one who is not unjust and one who is really just. " When Aristides went to the islands he fixed their tribute according to their ability to pay, returning no richer than he was before he went. Afterwards the Athenians increased the tribute with dire results: "For when the Athenians exceeded his valuations and im? posed heavier tributes upon the islands, their naval supremacy at once went to pieces" [ibid. , 97].
168. Coke . . . : Sir Edward Coke [107:3], English jurist who fought for justice against James I and Charles I, even to imprisonment in the Tower. His work in defense of the
Magna Charta is the anti-king gravamen of Cantos 107-109.
169. Ra-Set: [91:19] .
170. To build light: The light descending that leads to the paradiso terrestre will be the result of justice for all put into practice, which will require new ways of doing things.
171. Ideogram: [53:42,43]. Final words of legend on T'ang's bathtub, "Every day make it new. "
172. Ocellus: [87:43]. Often in Pound's list of light-philosophers [Miyake, Pai, 7-1 & 2, 97-100].
153. two years later
denly and unexpectedly on Nov. 29, 1290, while Edward was on his way to Scotland. He rushed back to her sickbed but arrived too late. "In the deepest grief, he followed her corpse in person, during thirteen days . . . to Westminster. . . . The king en- dowed the abbey. . . with many rich gifts. . . . Wax-lights perpetually burnt around her tomb, till the reformation extin- guished them three hundred years after- wards" [Queens, 120-121]. Strickland says much about the continued sadness of her husband but nothing about his luck. The phrase is a musical figure used elsewhere
[2/9; 11/51].
154. Edwardus: Edward I, 1239-1307, the king of England (1272-1307) who extended the power of the throne to include, for the first time, Wales and Scotland. His accomp~ lishments in advancing learning, manners, ar~ chitecture, education, and civilization were enormous, a program in which he was aided by the example of his queen, Eleanor of Castile, who introduced tapestry for the cold stone walls and forks to eat with. In The Cantos, Edward's name rhymes primarily with "thrones and justice. " The consensus says: "more important, however, are those developments during his reign in law and constitution that have caused him to be
praised as the English Justinian" [CE].
157. PACTUM agreement. "
SERVA:
L"
"slave
: Eleanora
died sud-
158. Traist: Db. , "safe" or "secure. "
. . .
159. As
nius, where Nilus, the youngest of the Naked Sages, a culture on the Nile, gives a long argument to A. defending h:is idea that he should leave his people and go over to A. He ends one speech on the idea that age "must not reject the claim that youth makes" by saying: "And anyone who takes the blessings bestowed upon him by fortune into a corner and there enjoys them by himself, violates their character as blessings, for he prevents
corner: We
return to
Apollo-
--'! "I""""~
? ? ? ? ? 586
95/643
95/643? 644
587
. . .
. . .
CANTO XCV Sources
J. P. Migne. Patrologiae Latina, vol. 90 [Migne, 90, column no. ]; John Adams, Old Family Letters, compiled by Alexander Biddle, Philadelphia, 1892; Dante, Conv. IV, iv; Homer, Od. V, 325? 376.
Background
EP, SR, 90; SP, 49? 52, 71, 189, 378? 383,414, 434-435; LE, 150? 154.
Exegeses
JE, Pai, 4? 1, 181? 182; JW, Pai, 2. 2, 183; Morse, Pai, 10? 3,595. 596; RO, Pai, 11? 2,283; WB, in EH, Approaches, 303? 318; HK, Era, 327; CB? R, ZBC, 40,141. 145; George Kearns, Guide to Ezra Pound's Selected Cantos, Rutgers University Press, 1980; MB,
of Mussolini as a leader working "in favour of the whole people. "
13. Van Buren . . . Talleyrand: In the 20s and 30s Pound had a dim view of Talleyrand [62:151] and his treatment of the U. S. am? bassadors to France as well as his demand for bribes, but later he began to respect his intelligence as well as the difficulties he had with Napoleon. Then he noticed that his hero Van Buren expressed an attitude differ- ent from the one John Adams had during the time of the XYZ affair [70: 16].
14. Adams to Rush: [94:9, 10; Pai, 9. 3,429].
IS. guilds in Byzantium: A note foreshad? owing The Eparch's Book [96:271].
16. "compagnevole animale": J, "friendly animal. " Dante derived the phrase from Ari- stotle: "Thus, the philosopher says that man is a friendly animal" [Conv. IV. iv; cf. JW,
Pai, 2. 2, 183].
17. 1T6AL~ 1TOi\LTtK~: H, "city, community. "
Pound does not want these key words of Aristotle made into the idea of politics in the modern sense of trading in smoke-filled rooms [JW,Pai, 2. 2,184].
18. reproducteur: F, "stud animal. " Taken from Remy de Gourmont's classification of the bourgeoisie into reproducing, taxpaying, and voting animals,
19. Paradis peint: F, "painted paradise. "
20. 1TOA? VW: H, "to plough. "
21. 1Toi\v,},Awaao<;: H, "many-tongued, har- monious," The social-animal temper of pas- toral politics may be suggested.
22. Benton: Thomas Hart B. [88:80]. Metal to coin money.
23. Van Buren: [Cf. 13 above].
24. J. A. : A recurrent theme of both John Adams and Pound is that devaluation of the currency hurts all the people [94:9, 10].
25. Alexander: A much? repeated motif [85:88; 85/549; 86/564].
26. Vicenza: I, the home town of Admiral Ubaldo degli Uberti [77: 99].
27. stemma: I, "coat of arms,"
28. "Iapo . . . ": On returning to his home after the Mussolini government fell, Admiral Uberti wrote a letter to his son Riccardo, who said: "[I] received a letter from my father telling me that, arriving in Vincenza, he had seen, . . an arch with the old crest of the Uberti . . . [and] learned that it was the tomb of Lapo degli Uberti, who had died a Ghibelline exile in Vincenza six hundred years before. My father added in his letter, 'who knows if I too will not die a Ghibelline exile in Vencenza' for some vento di siepeJ The latter is an Italian idiom, literally 'wind coming from the hedge,' which means, of course, a shot from an ambush. I wrote to Pound about it after the war, when he was writing Section: Rock? Drill" [Italian Quar? terly, Spring 1973, 104].
29. KM,! wv eVYCx7f/P: H, "Daughter of Cadmus" [91:88].
30. per diafana: I, "through diaphanous? ness" [36:4].
31. AevKoc;: H, "white,"
32, AevKofJoe: H, Pound's transcription of
Leucothea, the white goddess Ino, daughter of Cadmus, who was metamorphosed into a sea? bird [91 :89].
33. Nicoletti: Giachino N. , the prefect at Gardone [74:52].
34. Ramperti: Marco R. , an Italian jour? nalist.
35. Desmond Fitzgerald: [92:7].
36. the crystal wave, , . solid: A recurrent paradisal motif [25/119; 40/201; 76/457; 76/459; 94: 18].
37. Ideograms: [93:125? 127].
38. YAO's worry: [53:14]. Legend says that he passed over his own son and named Shun as his sllccessor, knowing that to carry on the middle kingdom would need the one man. Ideograms: "One man" [94:126].
Trace, 327? 329.
1. LOVE
ing in the world [90: I]. Perhaps the "5000 years" goes back to Antef [93 :4]. Pound's conviction that the best document about the Creation is the microcosm and the macro- cosm, and that science is the best instrument to give us knowledge about the intelligence of divinity at work, is echoed here.
The importance of the macrocosm in this spec- trum is indicated by the comets and great stars, a rhyme with later references to the constellation Berenice [97: 170; 102:42] and with many earlier references to the SUD and stars [5:5; 37:72; 37/237; 74/425, etc. ; ABCR, 17? 27; "Hudson: Poet Strayed into Science," SP, 429-432].
place: The
divine
spirit
flow?
"[God is]
2. "Consonantium demonstratrix": L, "demonstration of harmonies. " Miscopied from Musica Theorica, a section of the Pa- Irologiae Latina [Migne, 90, 91IC].
3. e? ciT': H, "said. "
4. Beda: L, "Bede. " The Venerable Bede.
5. Deus . . . mundi: L, "God is the spirit of the world" [ibid. , 987C].
in the marriage bed"
[ibid. ,1I90c].
Glossary
6.
best and everlasting being" [ibid. , 987D].
7. Tempus est ubique: L, "time is every- where" [ibid. , 1050C].
8. non motus: L, "[time is] not motion" [ibid. , 1050B].
9. in vesperibus orbis: L, for in vepribus orbis, "sphere among thornbushes" [ibid. , 1186B]. Pound prob. thought his note can? cerned Hesperus, Vesper, or Venus as the evening star, which would climax the passage by a return to the opening theme of love
[JE,Pai,4. 1,182].
10. Expergesci thalmis: L, " t o be awakened
animal
sempiternum: L,
11. gravat serpella nimbus: L, "mist weighs down the wild thyme" [ibid. , 1192A].
12. Delcroix: [88:46]. Because Carlo D. was a lyric poet and wrote a peceptive study of Mussolini entitled A Man and the People (1924), Pound thought he had a perception
r
? ? 588
95/645
95/645-647
589
39. Windsor: King Edward VIII. According to one account, he was instrumental in keep~ ing WWII from starting [86:47; 89/601; 109:40; HK, Pai, 2-1, 41J. An example of what one man can do at a critical moment.
40. Saint Bertrand: [48:45J. A village that evokes for Pound the destruction of the light of Provence during the Albigensian Crusade
[SR, 90J.
41. Montrejeau: Town in S France, in the department of Haute~GaronneJ 011 the Ga- ronne River some 27 miles SE of Tarbes. 1t marked the northern boundary of the Albi? gensian slaughter.
42. Elder Lightfoot: An elderly black gen- tleman at S1. Elizabeths Pound was fond of. He entertained all with his cogent wit and pithy remarks, some of which concerned Darwin's ideas of natural selection. Light- foot's observation was that evolution ap- peared to be going backwards [DGJ.
43. design: Intelligent design apparent in the universe is one of the central compo- nents in Pound's convictions that "the gods exist" [SP, 49-52J. Here used ironically about Elder's perceptions.
44. Miss Ida: Ida Mapel and her sister Adah, whom Pound met first in Spain in 1906; in 1919 he and Dorothy stayed at their Paris apartments. rhe two sisters visited him in jail in 1946 and at S1. Elizabeths quite often
[91:801?
45. "de Nantes . . . prisonnier": F, "There is a prisoner from Nantes. " Line from a 17th- century song Pound found in a collection made by Yvette Guilbert and translated in 1912 [Kearns, Guide, 219J.
50. the jap girl: Prob. someone Pound heard going ecstatic over Rembrandt.
51. the russe: F, "in the Russian manner"; used here to describe a particular person, possibly the wife of Colonel Goleyevsky [74: 172J, who might have talked enthusias? tically about Turgenev's novel Smoke, a fa? vorite with the French and with Pound: "Turgenev in 'Fumee' and in the 'Nichee de Gentilshommes' digging out the stupidity of the Russian" [SP, 189J.
52. Turgenev: [80:29J. Ivan T. , 1818-1883, a Russian novelist who was one of the most famous and effective of "the Westernizers," as opposed to "the Slavophiles. " In his rna? ture years, he spent over half of his time in western Europe, most of it in Paris where he was a close friend of Flauber1. In his early London years Pound thought highly of him: "Galdos, Flaubert, Turgenev, see them all in a death struggle with provincial stupidity"
[L, 25; cf. also. SP, 414J. The Slavophiles would represent provincial stupidity.
53. Uncle William . . . Memory": W. B. Yeats [41:37; 77:163J. The ladies Pound recalls here from those pre-WWI years were doubtless so-called by Yeats (perhaps during his visits to Rapallo in the late 20s), who quoted a line from Blake: "The Muses are daughters of Memory" [74:439J.
54. Pirandello: Luigi P. , 1867-1936, one of the greatest of all Italian dramatists and nov- elists. One of his main literary concerns was the nature of reality and the impossiblity of catching it or fixing it. It must remain in memory, as in Six Characters in Search ofan
Author (1921) [SP, 434? 435J.
55. Pulitzer: Pound's outrage grew more in- tense because literary prizes such as the Pu- litzer went to hacks and seldom to the real creative people who were "making it new. "
56. historic blackout: A cue to Pound's in- creasing paranoia: he came to believe that, as in the past [cf. 74 below], a group of inter- national conspirators were deliberately'keep- ing the right information from the people and part of their object now was to destroy the Constitution as conceived by Adams and
Jefferson. Pound wrote, thinking of Upward [74:275J and Bunting [74:153], "All the resisters blacked out" [Knox,Pai, 3-1, 82J.
57. Leucothae: [Cf. 32 aboveJ.
58. "My bikini. . . ": [91: 102J.
59. And if! see . . . thought: [92:30J.
64. Gardasee: With the beautiful blues of Lago di Garda [76:91J, who would want vacuity?
65. Mr Beddoes: Thomas Lovell B. , 1803- 1849, English poet often praised by Pound [see "Beddoes and Chronology," SP, 378- 383J, esp. for his "Death's Jest Book, or the Fool's Tragedy" (1825), where we read: "0 world, world! the gods and fairies left thee, for thou were too wise, and now, thou So- cratic star, thy demon, the Great Pan, Folly, is parting from thee" [ibid. , 381 J.
67. Responsus: L, "answer. " The "some- thing there" would not be a dead halt of the process as in stasis.
68. a hand . . . : The secret organized mon- eymen [cf. 55 aboveJ hold all the face cards: they make the organized cowards.
69. something decent: The divine spirit or the "intimate essence" is that unnamable something [94: 142J, as reflected in Richard of S1. Victor [SP, 71 J.
70. dicto millesimo: L, "at said date or time. "
71. St Hilary: Prob. S1. H. of Poiliers (8 saints named Hilary are listed in the Diet. of Catholic Biography), ca. 315-ca. 367, bishop and church father who became the major voice in the 4th century against Arianism [96:28J, the most persistent heresy the church had to deal with for hundreds of years. His writings in defense of the dogma of the Trinity were informed, impassioned, and lyrical. Because of his beliefs he was exiled in 353 to Phrygia by Emperor Con- stantius II (who supported the Arians), not to be released until 361. His enemies called him "the sower of discord and the trouble? maker of the Orient" [New Catholic Ency- clopediaJ. The Church of St. Hilaire at Poi-
46. periplum: L [59: 10J.
. . .
40 years: In
47. Madrid
first met the Mapel sisters.
1906,
when he
48. Carriere show: [80:241 J. Prob. a refer? ence to a retrospective show of his works held either at the time of his death in 1906 or in 1946,40 years later.
49. "Bret": Prob. the Hemingway "lost gen? eration" heroine of The Sun Also Rises.
T
60. Elsa
Loringhoven, a post-WWI wild woman, who wrote for the Little Review. Dedicated to free love and free everything else, she once shocked W. C. Williams by telling him that what he ought to do to become great "was to contract syphilis from her and so free . . .
[hisJ mind for serious art. " Pound was sym- pathetic to her because she preached cosmo- politanism and antiprovincialism [Morse,
Pai, 10-3, 595-596J.
61. Dinklage: An author Pound remem- bered because of his dedication to the truth. In a letter to Reno Ddlin about journalistic "lies in 1914 war," he says: "Von Dinklage demurred at A. B. C. for first grade frog kids"
[RO,Pai, ]]? 2, 283J.
62. what's his name: Prob. Robert Cowart, a young sailor who got caught in the ropes of the U. S. Navy dirigible Akron and was swept into the air. Two others who were also caught fell to their deaths, but "Cowart wrapped himself securely in the mooring line and held on" [Morse, Pai, 10. 3, 597J.
63.