), who married her brother Ptolemy II and became the mother- in-law of
Berenice
[97: 170J.
A-Companion-to-the-Cantos-of-Ezra-Pound-II
.
[JW, Later, 163].
92. Egbert: [Cf. 67 above]. 93. looping the light . . . :
5. NINE
"Basic Methods of Government," records de- crees adopted by 9 assemblies. "At the first assembly, the following regulation was is- sued: 'Unless ordered by the God of the Sombre Heavens . . . none shall conduct a military campaign, even for only one day. ' At the second assembly, this regulation: 'Take care of the aged who have lost their relatives; feed those who are permanently ill; give shelter to helpless persons'" [Kuan, 58]. The 9 together add up to a precis of the Analects.
94. Harlulf's . . . : Wm. of M. says he took the story of Charles of the Suevi's visions from H. 's Chronicon Centulense [Migne, vol. 174, col. 1211 ff].
95. For a thousand . . . versa: Pound's judg? ment of all the people and events he has been reading about and, in the canto, giving cues to.
96. Alfred: A. the Great (849? 899? ). He "instituted the tenth'parts called tithings" [JW, Later, 164].
97. Erigena: [36:9; 74: 104]. Wm. of M.
6. Venice shawls: [98:14,15].
7. ThisTzu. . . :Theguideinthefinalrites
[Cf. 63
above].
: Essay 8,
entitled
? 690
106/752-753
106/753-755
691
of Eleusis, or a reference to Kuan Tzu above, or perhaps both.
8. Kuan Chung: [Cf. 4 aboveJ.
9. Patera: Patara. Legend has it that a cup of white gold preserved at the temple at Lyndos on the island of Rhodes was mod- elled on the breast of Helen. Pound first marvelled in print at the thought in 1917 [PD, 102J. Pound's spelling appears to come from Paul the Deacon [96: 10J, who said of the goblet Alboin made out of Cunimund's head: "This kind of goblet is called among them 'scala,' but in the Latin language 'pa- tera'" (Deacon, Langobards, 51; EH, Pat, 10-3, 585-586J.
10. beEO"H,"thegod. "
11. Caledon: Prob. a reference to the swift-
footed Atalanta of Calydon, whose speed was like the wind but who was tricked by the golden apples to lose the race to Hippo- menes; or perhaps the destruction of Caly~ don by fire after the death of Maleager at the hands of his mother / sister Althea
[Meta. VIII, 580-683J .
12. Apeliota: [74:304J. The East Wind.
13. deep waters . . . : [91:4J
14. nueva lumbre: P, "new reflections. " From, "~V dar nueva lumbre las armes y hierros," in a canzon of Arnaut Daniel, which Pound translated: "And the arms irons give forth new (or strange) reflections"
[SR, 34J.
15. the flame's barge: [91:28J.
16. Amazon, Orinoco: Great rivers in Brazil.
17. Kuan Chung: [Cf. 4 aboveJ. Pound said: "Fuller [BuckminsterJ wrote me that he'd seen the Kuan~tzu three years ago and that it was the best book on economics he'd ever read . . . When Mencius and a few high- brows were objecting to Kuan Chung be- cause he wasn't a saint, Confucius said, 'You cannot judge a man like that as you would any bum who could die in the gutter and nobody know it. ' If it weren't for Kuan
Chung, we'd still be dressing ourselves like barbarians" [Bridson, ND 17, 175J.
18. Antoninus . . . : [78:56J. Paraphrase: If Antoninus got as far as Kuan Chung did in understanding economics, his knowledge has been hidden from us. Said Pound, "Now as I see it, billions of money are being spent to hide about seventeen historic facts" [ibid. ; see contrary opinion in MB, Trace, 433].
19. Ideogram: Kuan ' [M3571]' "a frontier pass or gate . . . a customhouse; suburbs of a city. " Not to be confused with kuan3 [M3557J above: "to govern. " Pound appar- ently confused the character for gate with that of pi [M5089J. It was an error he made earlier in translating the first line of Ode 1, "Hid! Hid! ' the fish-hawk saith" [EP, Confu- cian Odes, 2; EH, Letter to ME, 9 Mar. , 1977J.
20. Ad . . . donat: L, "He gave the city to posterity. " But the -as ending does not exist as an accusative or anything else. Perhaps by "posteros" Pound meant "gate. "
21. Artemis: Prob. a coin uttered by Anto- ninus with the image of the goddess.
22. 400 . . . copper: The Kuan Tzu "There are 467 mountains producing cop- per. . . . If there is cinnabar on the surface there will be copper and gold beneath"
[Kuan, 145-146J. Cinnabar: the chief ore of mercury.
23. Ko Lu: "From the mountains in Ko Lu there came a flood, which washed down gold" [Kuan, 146J.
24. XREIA: H, "gold. " "So these minerals commanded high and stable prices. . . . 'When the demand for it becomes urgent, gold becomes heavy. . . . ' The ancient kings estimated the degree of urgency, and issued decrees accordingly" [Kuan, 147J .
25. Yao . . . jade: "The ancient kings . . . made use of their concentrated value. Pearls and jade were adopted as the superior mon- ey; gold the middle" [ibid. J.
lines are a reprise of the Eleusinian and grain-rite mysteries celebrated to evoke the earth's return to life in the spring.
27. Luigi: [97:232J.
42. Sulmona: [103/736; 105/746; for the lion and gold light, see 21:43J.
43. king-wings: The "blue-grays" and the "king-wings" are butterflies [Frag/802J. The paradisal image of souls in fiight, the final stage in the process from the earth: from egg to chrysalis to wings, as with the wasp
[83/532-533J.
44. asphodel: The flower of the Elysian
Fields [Aeneid VI; 21 :60; 78/482J.
45. broom-plant: Prob. Musa paradisiaca, or
plantain.
46. Yao and Shun: [Cf. 25 aboveJ.
47. Whuder . . . lidhan: ME, "Where I might go . . . " [91:4IJ.
48. acorn of light: The primal unseen light from which all intelligence in the universe flows [CFT, Pai, 2-3, 453-454; 116/795J.
49. Aquileia: A town in NE Italy, once a chie(city of the Roman Empire.
26. the goddess . . . hypostasis:
These
20
says:
5! . three years
Edward VIII, who according to Pound, de- layed WWII for three years and was forced to abdicate for this, rather than for Wallis Simpson [86:47J.
52. violet . . . them: The eyes motif [81 :54; 83:61; 97:188-190J.
53. Buck stands . . . : The ash, along with the oak, laurel, and cedar, is a sacred tree [Ciriot, 328J. To Pound, deer are hieratic animals, as in various paradiso passages
[17/77; 104:118J.
54. Selena Arsinoe: Queen Arsinoe II, of Egypt (316-270 B. C.
), who married her brother Ptolemy II and became the mother- in-law of Berenice [97: 170J. She died July 9 and was worshipped thereafter (as in life) as Arsinoe Aphrodite. She was also called Ze- phyritis after the temple Admiral Callicrates built in her honor at Zephyrium. An epigram of Posidippus may be Pound's source: "Pro- pitiate . . , this temple of Cyprian Arsinoe
r
28.
Persephone was abducted into the under- world [Meta. V, 485 ff. J.
29. Nyssa: Where the abduction took place according the Hymn to Demeter.
30. Circe: [1: I J . Certain cantos in Thrones as well as Drafts contain an increasing num- ber of thematic recapitulations reaching back to the beginning of the poem. Note the pines at Ise [4:23J.
31. Persephone: [1:11,3:8J.
32. juniper: A holy bush of the Na-khi [101:2J. "In the centre/ is/ Juniper" [110/778J.
33. Alhene Pronoia: H, "Athena [whoJ, knows the future. "
34. hypostasis: [81:55J.
35. Helios, Perse: Circe in her role of sexual- ity is seen as the daughter of the sun, and Perse[phoneJ is seen as earth-goddess.
36. Zeus . . . Leto: Zeus, in conjunction with Leto, sired both Helios (Apollo) and Artemis (Diana).
37. Help me . . . : [91 :41J. "Help me in my need. "
Enna: Accordingto Ovid, the place where
. . .
The place
38. Circeo
Terracina where Pound would have restored the goddess to her pedestal [SP, 53; 39:38J.
39. The temple . . . blossom: These 12 lines are a visionary glimpse of paradise, with its strange, unearthly lights and colors and the hieratic animals [17/77J .
seaward:
near
40. Carrara: [74: 80J.
noted for the purity of its white marble.
41. Xoroi: H, Hdancers. " "Religion? With no dancing girls at the altar? " [87/575J.
City in
Tuscany
50. caffaris
. . .
cloud-wall:
Paradisal
fiora.
peace . . . him: [109:40J.
? ? ? 692
106/755
moon? god is being renewed with the jeweled axe" [ibid. , 102] .
60. HREZEIN: H, "knowing. " From a phrase in Epigram 14 [cf. 54 above], esthla hrezein ("knowing virtue"), about Selenaia, a young girl born in Aeolian Smyrna who presented a nautilus to Arsinoe.
61. Selena: [Salenaia]: The "pearly nauti? Ius," a spiral shell lined with mother of pearl, is a memora to the birth of Aphrodite out of the sea foam.
62. Paros: A Greek island of the central Cyclades.
63. Xoroi: [Cf. 41 above].
64. Carrara's. . . Italian city famous for marble [74/428].
65. God's eye . . . : [Cf. 113:43]. The divine essence operates as intelligence in man: it is through man's eyes that God sees.
. . .
107/756 693 Exegeses
DD, Sculptor, 239? 240; DG, Pai, 4? 2 & 3, 223? 299; DD, Pai 6? 1, 101-107; HK, Era, 336; CFT, Pai, 5? 1, 69? 76; Materer, Pai, 4-2 & 3, 323; Moody, Pai, 4? 1, 55-69; MB, Trace, 444-447; William Cookson, A Guide to The Cantos, inedit [WC, Guide] .
[Documentation for the Institutes is difficult, as the numbering and subsectioning of the text is inconsistent. The chap. is given here, with section no. in parentheses if clear; if not, the p. no. of the 1797 edition is given. ]
Glossary
Philadelphus. . . . The admiral first placed there the goddess, lady of this beach of Zephyrium" [MB, Trace, 441]. The epithet "Selena" is a conflation with another young girl [cf. 60 below] .
55. Aedificavit: L, "built. "
56. EUPLOIA: H, "good voyage. " The epi- gram continues: "She [Aphrodite] will grant a good voyage and in the midst of the storm becalm the sea in behalf of those who invoke her" [ibid. ].
57. an Aeolian: Berenice. It was at this tem- ple that B. offered a lock of her hair Cas an earnest [ex voto]), which became the latest constellation [97: 170; 102:42].
58. Arsinoe Kupris: H, "the Cyprian Arsinoe. "
59. Miwo: The chorus in the Hagaromo says to Tennin Cthe aerial spirit): "0, you in the form of a maid, grant us the favour of your delaying. The pine? waste of Miwo puts on the color of spring" [CNT! , 103]. Before this, the Tennin said: "The jeweled axe takes up the eternal renewing, the palace of the
66. columns
disal scene which Pound, as he nears the end of the poem, still sees as visionary [74:292].
1. Selinunt: Sicily. "The Sicilian rose of Ciulio D'Alcamo has grown into the English azalia" [DG, Pai 4? 2 & 3, 249]. Frederick II, 1194? 1250, king of Sicily, was a great legisla? tor whose fame and work were known in the England of Henry III. Some of the precepts of the Magna Carta were maturing in Sicily under his direction [DD, Pai, 6? 1, 104] .
2. Akragas: Agrlgento, capital of Agrigento Province, S Sicily. Founded in 580 B. C. as Acragas or Akragas by the Greek colonists of Gela, it became one of the most splendid cities of the Grecian world.
3. Coke: Sir Edward C. , 1552? 1634, one of the most famous of English jurists. He was member of Parliament, solicitor general, speaker of the House of Commons, and attorney-general under Elizabeth; under King James he was chief justice of common pleas and lord chief justice of England. In his long years of battle in defense of the rule of law and the primacy of Magna Carta against the prerogative of kings, he eventually spent much time imprisoned in the Tower during the last years of James and the first years of Charles I. His Institutes o f the Laws o f En- gland became the backbone of English com? man law. Certain of his precepts, such as the primacy of Magna Carta and the tradition of common law, became vital to the American Revolution. Wrote Coke: "In many cases the common law will control acts o f Parliament and sometimes adjudge them to be utterly void; for when an act of Parliament is against common right and reason, or repugnant, or
impossible to be performed, the common law will control it and adjudge such acts to be void. " This precept, issued in a trivial case, echoed down the centuries. Concerning the Stamp Act of 1765, passed by Parlia- ment, James Otis shouted: "An act against natural equity is void. " The Mass. Assembly declared the Stamp Act invalid, "against Magna Carta and the natural rights of En? glishmen, and therefore, according to the Lord Coke, null and void" [Bowen, Lion, 315].
4. Inst. 2: The Second Part o f the Institutes of the Laws of England, by Edward Coke. The "Proeme" says that, after King Ed- ward I, Parliament ordained that the charters "should be sent under the great seale, as well to the justices of the forest, as to others, and to all sheriffes . . . and that the same charters should be sent to all the cathedrall churches, and that they should be read and published in every county four times in the yeare"
[A6: p. 6 of the "Proeme"].
5. 20. H. 3: The 20th year of the reign of Henry III. This was the year in which Henry removed "evil councill" and did "under his great seale confirme both Magna Charta and Charta de Foresta" [A9].
6. mother . . . of repose: Coke ends the "Proeme" to the Institutes by making a dis- tinction between other glosses written by doctors and his expositions upon the Char- ter. Others contained private interpretations; but "our expositions or commentaries upon
CANTO CVIl Sources
Sir Edward Coke, Second Institutes o f the Laws o f England, 1797 [Institutes]; Catherine Drinker Bowen, The Lion and the Throne, Little, Brown, Boston 1956 [Bowen, Lion] ; Dante, Par. X, 42,
136.
Background
EP, SR, 62, 101; EH Approaches, 173, 192; Bryce Lyon, A Constitutional and Legal History of Medieval England, Harpers, N. Y. , 1960; William Stubbs, The Constitutional History of En- gland, Vol. II, Oxford, 1887; William Sharp McKechnie, Magna Carta, rev. , Burt Franklin, N. Y. , 1958.
boughs: Items in a
para-
? ? 694
107/756
107/757
695
Magna Charta. . . are the resolutions of judges in courts of justice in judiciall courses of proceeding . . .
[JW, Later, 163].
92. Egbert: [Cf. 67 above]. 93. looping the light . . . :
5. NINE
"Basic Methods of Government," records de- crees adopted by 9 assemblies. "At the first assembly, the following regulation was is- sued: 'Unless ordered by the God of the Sombre Heavens . . . none shall conduct a military campaign, even for only one day. ' At the second assembly, this regulation: 'Take care of the aged who have lost their relatives; feed those who are permanently ill; give shelter to helpless persons'" [Kuan, 58]. The 9 together add up to a precis of the Analects.
94. Harlulf's . . . : Wm. of M. says he took the story of Charles of the Suevi's visions from H. 's Chronicon Centulense [Migne, vol. 174, col. 1211 ff].
95. For a thousand . . . versa: Pound's judg? ment of all the people and events he has been reading about and, in the canto, giving cues to.
96. Alfred: A. the Great (849? 899? ). He "instituted the tenth'parts called tithings" [JW, Later, 164].
97. Erigena: [36:9; 74: 104]. Wm. of M.
6. Venice shawls: [98:14,15].
7. ThisTzu. . . :Theguideinthefinalrites
[Cf. 63
above].
: Essay 8,
entitled
? 690
106/752-753
106/753-755
691
of Eleusis, or a reference to Kuan Tzu above, or perhaps both.
8. Kuan Chung: [Cf. 4 aboveJ.
9. Patera: Patara. Legend has it that a cup of white gold preserved at the temple at Lyndos on the island of Rhodes was mod- elled on the breast of Helen. Pound first marvelled in print at the thought in 1917 [PD, 102J. Pound's spelling appears to come from Paul the Deacon [96: 10J, who said of the goblet Alboin made out of Cunimund's head: "This kind of goblet is called among them 'scala,' but in the Latin language 'pa- tera'" (Deacon, Langobards, 51; EH, Pat, 10-3, 585-586J.
10. beEO"H,"thegod. "
11. Caledon: Prob. a reference to the swift-
footed Atalanta of Calydon, whose speed was like the wind but who was tricked by the golden apples to lose the race to Hippo- menes; or perhaps the destruction of Caly~ don by fire after the death of Maleager at the hands of his mother / sister Althea
[Meta. VIII, 580-683J .
12. Apeliota: [74:304J. The East Wind.
13. deep waters . . . : [91:4J
14. nueva lumbre: P, "new reflections. " From, "~V dar nueva lumbre las armes y hierros," in a canzon of Arnaut Daniel, which Pound translated: "And the arms irons give forth new (or strange) reflections"
[SR, 34J.
15. the flame's barge: [91:28J.
16. Amazon, Orinoco: Great rivers in Brazil.
17. Kuan Chung: [Cf. 4 aboveJ. Pound said: "Fuller [BuckminsterJ wrote me that he'd seen the Kuan~tzu three years ago and that it was the best book on economics he'd ever read . . . When Mencius and a few high- brows were objecting to Kuan Chung be- cause he wasn't a saint, Confucius said, 'You cannot judge a man like that as you would any bum who could die in the gutter and nobody know it. ' If it weren't for Kuan
Chung, we'd still be dressing ourselves like barbarians" [Bridson, ND 17, 175J.
18. Antoninus . . . : [78:56J. Paraphrase: If Antoninus got as far as Kuan Chung did in understanding economics, his knowledge has been hidden from us. Said Pound, "Now as I see it, billions of money are being spent to hide about seventeen historic facts" [ibid. ; see contrary opinion in MB, Trace, 433].
19. Ideogram: Kuan ' [M3571]' "a frontier pass or gate . . . a customhouse; suburbs of a city. " Not to be confused with kuan3 [M3557J above: "to govern. " Pound appar- ently confused the character for gate with that of pi [M5089J. It was an error he made earlier in translating the first line of Ode 1, "Hid! Hid! ' the fish-hawk saith" [EP, Confu- cian Odes, 2; EH, Letter to ME, 9 Mar. , 1977J.
20. Ad . . . donat: L, "He gave the city to posterity. " But the -as ending does not exist as an accusative or anything else. Perhaps by "posteros" Pound meant "gate. "
21. Artemis: Prob. a coin uttered by Anto- ninus with the image of the goddess.
22. 400 . . . copper: The Kuan Tzu "There are 467 mountains producing cop- per. . . . If there is cinnabar on the surface there will be copper and gold beneath"
[Kuan, 145-146J. Cinnabar: the chief ore of mercury.
23. Ko Lu: "From the mountains in Ko Lu there came a flood, which washed down gold" [Kuan, 146J.
24. XREIA: H, "gold. " "So these minerals commanded high and stable prices. . . . 'When the demand for it becomes urgent, gold becomes heavy. . . . ' The ancient kings estimated the degree of urgency, and issued decrees accordingly" [Kuan, 147J .
25. Yao . . . jade: "The ancient kings . . . made use of their concentrated value. Pearls and jade were adopted as the superior mon- ey; gold the middle" [ibid. J.
lines are a reprise of the Eleusinian and grain-rite mysteries celebrated to evoke the earth's return to life in the spring.
27. Luigi: [97:232J.
42. Sulmona: [103/736; 105/746; for the lion and gold light, see 21:43J.
43. king-wings: The "blue-grays" and the "king-wings" are butterflies [Frag/802J. The paradisal image of souls in fiight, the final stage in the process from the earth: from egg to chrysalis to wings, as with the wasp
[83/532-533J.
44. asphodel: The flower of the Elysian
Fields [Aeneid VI; 21 :60; 78/482J.
45. broom-plant: Prob. Musa paradisiaca, or
plantain.
46. Yao and Shun: [Cf. 25 aboveJ.
47. Whuder . . . lidhan: ME, "Where I might go . . . " [91:4IJ.
48. acorn of light: The primal unseen light from which all intelligence in the universe flows [CFT, Pai, 2-3, 453-454; 116/795J.
49. Aquileia: A town in NE Italy, once a chie(city of the Roman Empire.
26. the goddess . . . hypostasis:
These
20
says:
5! . three years
Edward VIII, who according to Pound, de- layed WWII for three years and was forced to abdicate for this, rather than for Wallis Simpson [86:47J.
52. violet . . . them: The eyes motif [81 :54; 83:61; 97:188-190J.
53. Buck stands . . . : The ash, along with the oak, laurel, and cedar, is a sacred tree [Ciriot, 328J. To Pound, deer are hieratic animals, as in various paradiso passages
[17/77; 104:118J.
54. Selena Arsinoe: Queen Arsinoe II, of Egypt (316-270 B. C.
), who married her brother Ptolemy II and became the mother- in-law of Berenice [97: 170J. She died July 9 and was worshipped thereafter (as in life) as Arsinoe Aphrodite. She was also called Ze- phyritis after the temple Admiral Callicrates built in her honor at Zephyrium. An epigram of Posidippus may be Pound's source: "Pro- pitiate . . , this temple of Cyprian Arsinoe
r
28.
Persephone was abducted into the under- world [Meta. V, 485 ff. J.
29. Nyssa: Where the abduction took place according the Hymn to Demeter.
30. Circe: [1: I J . Certain cantos in Thrones as well as Drafts contain an increasing num- ber of thematic recapitulations reaching back to the beginning of the poem. Note the pines at Ise [4:23J.
31. Persephone: [1:11,3:8J.
32. juniper: A holy bush of the Na-khi [101:2J. "In the centre/ is/ Juniper" [110/778J.
33. Alhene Pronoia: H, "Athena [whoJ, knows the future. "
34. hypostasis: [81:55J.
35. Helios, Perse: Circe in her role of sexual- ity is seen as the daughter of the sun, and Perse[phoneJ is seen as earth-goddess.
36. Zeus . . . Leto: Zeus, in conjunction with Leto, sired both Helios (Apollo) and Artemis (Diana).
37. Help me . . . : [91 :41J. "Help me in my need. "
Enna: Accordingto Ovid, the place where
. . .
The place
38. Circeo
Terracina where Pound would have restored the goddess to her pedestal [SP, 53; 39:38J.
39. The temple . . . blossom: These 12 lines are a visionary glimpse of paradise, with its strange, unearthly lights and colors and the hieratic animals [17/77J .
seaward:
near
40. Carrara: [74: 80J.
noted for the purity of its white marble.
41. Xoroi: H, Hdancers. " "Religion? With no dancing girls at the altar? " [87/575J.
City in
Tuscany
50. caffaris
. . .
cloud-wall:
Paradisal
fiora.
peace . . . him: [109:40J.
? ? ? 692
106/755
moon? god is being renewed with the jeweled axe" [ibid. , 102] .
60. HREZEIN: H, "knowing. " From a phrase in Epigram 14 [cf. 54 above], esthla hrezein ("knowing virtue"), about Selenaia, a young girl born in Aeolian Smyrna who presented a nautilus to Arsinoe.
61. Selena: [Salenaia]: The "pearly nauti? Ius," a spiral shell lined with mother of pearl, is a memora to the birth of Aphrodite out of the sea foam.
62. Paros: A Greek island of the central Cyclades.
63. Xoroi: [Cf. 41 above].
64. Carrara's. . . Italian city famous for marble [74/428].
65. God's eye . . . : [Cf. 113:43]. The divine essence operates as intelligence in man: it is through man's eyes that God sees.
. . .
107/756 693 Exegeses
DD, Sculptor, 239? 240; DG, Pai, 4? 2 & 3, 223? 299; DD, Pai 6? 1, 101-107; HK, Era, 336; CFT, Pai, 5? 1, 69? 76; Materer, Pai, 4-2 & 3, 323; Moody, Pai, 4? 1, 55-69; MB, Trace, 444-447; William Cookson, A Guide to The Cantos, inedit [WC, Guide] .
[Documentation for the Institutes is difficult, as the numbering and subsectioning of the text is inconsistent. The chap. is given here, with section no. in parentheses if clear; if not, the p. no. of the 1797 edition is given. ]
Glossary
Philadelphus. . . . The admiral first placed there the goddess, lady of this beach of Zephyrium" [MB, Trace, 441]. The epithet "Selena" is a conflation with another young girl [cf. 60 below] .
55. Aedificavit: L, "built. "
56. EUPLOIA: H, "good voyage. " The epi- gram continues: "She [Aphrodite] will grant a good voyage and in the midst of the storm becalm the sea in behalf of those who invoke her" [ibid. ].
57. an Aeolian: Berenice. It was at this tem- ple that B. offered a lock of her hair Cas an earnest [ex voto]), which became the latest constellation [97: 170; 102:42].
58. Arsinoe Kupris: H, "the Cyprian Arsinoe. "
59. Miwo: The chorus in the Hagaromo says to Tennin Cthe aerial spirit): "0, you in the form of a maid, grant us the favour of your delaying. The pine? waste of Miwo puts on the color of spring" [CNT! , 103]. Before this, the Tennin said: "The jeweled axe takes up the eternal renewing, the palace of the
66. columns
disal scene which Pound, as he nears the end of the poem, still sees as visionary [74:292].
1. Selinunt: Sicily. "The Sicilian rose of Ciulio D'Alcamo has grown into the English azalia" [DG, Pai 4? 2 & 3, 249]. Frederick II, 1194? 1250, king of Sicily, was a great legisla? tor whose fame and work were known in the England of Henry III. Some of the precepts of the Magna Carta were maturing in Sicily under his direction [DD, Pai, 6? 1, 104] .
2. Akragas: Agrlgento, capital of Agrigento Province, S Sicily. Founded in 580 B. C. as Acragas or Akragas by the Greek colonists of Gela, it became one of the most splendid cities of the Grecian world.
3. Coke: Sir Edward C. , 1552? 1634, one of the most famous of English jurists. He was member of Parliament, solicitor general, speaker of the House of Commons, and attorney-general under Elizabeth; under King James he was chief justice of common pleas and lord chief justice of England. In his long years of battle in defense of the rule of law and the primacy of Magna Carta against the prerogative of kings, he eventually spent much time imprisoned in the Tower during the last years of James and the first years of Charles I. His Institutes o f the Laws o f En- gland became the backbone of English com? man law. Certain of his precepts, such as the primacy of Magna Carta and the tradition of common law, became vital to the American Revolution. Wrote Coke: "In many cases the common law will control acts o f Parliament and sometimes adjudge them to be utterly void; for when an act of Parliament is against common right and reason, or repugnant, or
impossible to be performed, the common law will control it and adjudge such acts to be void. " This precept, issued in a trivial case, echoed down the centuries. Concerning the Stamp Act of 1765, passed by Parlia- ment, James Otis shouted: "An act against natural equity is void. " The Mass. Assembly declared the Stamp Act invalid, "against Magna Carta and the natural rights of En? glishmen, and therefore, according to the Lord Coke, null and void" [Bowen, Lion, 315].
4. Inst. 2: The Second Part o f the Institutes of the Laws of England, by Edward Coke. The "Proeme" says that, after King Ed- ward I, Parliament ordained that the charters "should be sent under the great seale, as well to the justices of the forest, as to others, and to all sheriffes . . . and that the same charters should be sent to all the cathedrall churches, and that they should be read and published in every county four times in the yeare"
[A6: p. 6 of the "Proeme"].
5. 20. H. 3: The 20th year of the reign of Henry III. This was the year in which Henry removed "evil councill" and did "under his great seale confirme both Magna Charta and Charta de Foresta" [A9].
6. mother . . . of repose: Coke ends the "Proeme" to the Institutes by making a dis- tinction between other glosses written by doctors and his expositions upon the Char- ter. Others contained private interpretations; but "our expositions or commentaries upon
CANTO CVIl Sources
Sir Edward Coke, Second Institutes o f the Laws o f England, 1797 [Institutes]; Catherine Drinker Bowen, The Lion and the Throne, Little, Brown, Boston 1956 [Bowen, Lion] ; Dante, Par. X, 42,
136.
Background
EP, SR, 62, 101; EH Approaches, 173, 192; Bryce Lyon, A Constitutional and Legal History of Medieval England, Harpers, N. Y. , 1960; William Stubbs, The Constitutional History of En- gland, Vol. II, Oxford, 1887; William Sharp McKechnie, Magna Carta, rev. , Burt Franklin, N. Y. , 1958.
boughs: Items in a
para-
? ? 694
107/756
107/757
695
Magna Charta. . . are the resolutions of judges in courts of justice in judiciall courses of proceeding . . .
