Mark's Square," a famous
location
in Venice.
A-Companion-to-the-Cantos-of-Ezra-Pound-II
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. M. died Dec. 5, 1791 when not quite 36 years old, and Constanze was "not yet 30. "
8. Spielhaus: G, "theater. "
9. Astafieva: Serafima A. , 1876-1934, a Russian dancer and teacher. She was a member of the corps de ballet of the Mary- insky Theatre (1895-1905) and of the Diaghilev Company (1909-1911). She opened a ballet school in London.
10. Wigmore: Wigmore Gallery, Marylebone, London.
11. wd / . . . cart: W. C. W. would have [78: 137].
Constanze
? ? 424
79/484-486
79/486
425
12. G. Scott: A trainee at the DTC.
13. Lili Marlene: Most popular German war song during WWIl.
14. Goede! : [78:26J.
15. in memoriam: L, "in memory. "
16. G. P. : Giorgio Paresce, Italian Fascist whom Pound knew.
17. OU sont? : F, "Where are? " First half of "Where are the snows of yesteryear? " Con- text suggests, Where are all of Mussolini's former followers, and which ones will adapt and survive?
18. Petain: [80:34J: Henri Philippe P. , 1856-1951, marshal of France. He was convicted of "intelligence with the enemy" (1945) and sentenced to life imprisonment [Time, Aug. 6, 1945J. The vote not to execute was close: 14 to 13.
19. Scott & Whiteside: [74:258J. Black prisoners at DTC,
20. 8 birds . . . : Janequin's bird song of Canto 75 receives graphic visual illustration all through 78. Birds sitting on the barbed wires that Pound could see from his tent seemed to form a musical score. As the birds took off and landed, a different tune seemed to be carved in the air.
21. Mr Allingham: A trainee at the DTC. 22. Bechstein: A make of piano.
23. quattrocento: I, "15th century. "
24. a cavallo: I, "on horseback. "
25. Cosimo Tura: [24:87J.
26. Del Cossa: [77:156J. One of the 8chifanoia muralists at the palace in Ferrara.
27. Beethoven: Ludwig von B. , 1770-1827, the German composer whose piano works are considered by many to be his crowning achievement.
28. Piazza S. Marco: I, "St.
Mark's Square," a famous location in Venice.
29. papal major: Ironic question suggested by something Pound sees outside his tent.
30. castrum romanum: L, "Roman fort. " 31. "went _. . quarters": Paraphrase of the
line that ends Book I of Caesar's Gallic Wars.
32. Janequin: [75 :8J .
33. per esempio: I, "for example. "
34. Orazio Vechii: O. Vecchi, ? 1550-1605, Italian composer known mainly for his L 'Amfiparnasso: Commedia Annonica.
35. Bronzino: Il Bronzino (Agnolo di Cosima), 1502-1572, Florentine painter at the court of Cosima I.
43. what's his name: Attempt to recall the name of Guido d' Arezzo, fl. 1000-1050, who devised the system of Hexachords which lasted about 500 years: "he improved the notation, developing the two-line staff into the present one of five lines" [OCM, 866J. Pound recalls "the name of that bastard" a page later [ef. 62 belowJ.
44. aulentissima . . . : I, "most odorous, fresh rose. " Inverted order of the beginning words of a poem by the Sicilian poet Ciullo
. d' Alcamo, fl. 1230-1250 [cf. JW, Medieval Song, 197-203; SR, 62, 101J. A recurrent musical phrase [98:107; 100/719; 107:1J.
45. Assisi: [74:490J.
46. Goncourt: [77:143J.
47. "paak . . . ": [74/442J. The voice of the Japanese sentry telling arriving dignitaries where to park is heard several more times as background in Canto 79.
48. bacon-rind banner: A military flag seen flying with the Ugolino palace as back- ground.
49_ Ugolino: [74:240J.
50. San. . . Cavalieri: A church in Pisa richly hung with Turkish and Arabian ban- ners, trophies of the victories of the Knights of San Stephana.
51. AttIee: Clement Richard A. , 1883-1967, British statesman and leader of the Labour party who took over from Churchill July 26, 1945 [Time, Aug. 6, I945J. Since Attlee's program included the nationalization of the Bank of England, Pound doubtless had some hope for him [80:406J, that is, if he didn't do "a Ramsey. "
52. Ramsey: James Ramsey MacDonald, 1866-1937, the British statesman and leader of the Labour party who several times became prime minister briefly. Perhaps because he gave support to the abortive labor strike of 1926, or, later, joined with Conservatives in the economic crises of 1931, Pound sees him (as did many others) betraying his cause to the money barons.
53. "Leave the Duke . . . ": [50:28J_
54. "in less . . . epoch": H. L. Mencken wrote a letter to Pound in 1937 which he quotes with approval. Saying first that because a politician messes something up doesn't prove it's wrong, H. L. M adds: "Nevertheless, I believe that all schemes of monetary reform collide inevitably with the nature of man in the mass. He can't be convinced in anything less than a geological epoch. " Pound comments: "Above state- ment does not invalidate geological process"
[GK, 182J.
55. Fleet _. . Salamis: [74:109J.
56. Wilkes: John W. , 1727-1797, onetime lord mayor of London. A book by Raymond Postgate entitled That Devil Wilkes [New York, 1929J said: "His chief power to tip the balance in favor of the poor lay in hi' authority to fix the price of bread-or rather since the loaf was fixed at a penny, to fix the size of the loaf" [po 204J. In 1775, Wilkes did it [Fang, III, 22J .
57. hOa. :;: H, "moral bent" or "cultural force," or prob. both.
58. Athene: [17:16J In speaking of the Greek panetheon of women [patria MiaJ, Pound talks of "Ceres, the mother" type; then, "Juno, the British matron" type, "propriety and social position to be main- tained, no one's comfort considered. Women of this type have been always, and, thank God, always will be, deceived by their hus- bands. Aphrodite-enough said. Pallas Athene, the much pitied intellectual" [SP, 119-120J.
S9. caesia oculi: L, "gray eyes. "
60. 'Y/I. ",v~: H, "the owl . . . so called from its glaring 'eyes" [L & SJ. Pound quotes from Allen Upward thus: "How hard the old cloistered scholarship. . . has toiled to understand the word glaukopis given to the goddess Athene_ Did it mean blue-eyed or grey. eyed, or-by the aid of Sanskrit-merely glare-eyed? And all the time they had not only the word glaux staring them in the
36. Hagoromo: [74:124J.
Japanese
Noh play
37. Kumasaka: A Noh play [74:363J.
38. Troas: The Troad, the territory sur- rounding the ancient city of Troy.
39. Ismarus . . . : Odysseus attacked
soon after he left Troy, but after an initial defeat, the Ciconians rallied and drove the Greeks back to their ships rOd. IX, 39ff. J . An example of the "Greek rascality" just mentioned, which justified the gods' 10-year delay of his nostus [80:364J.
40. e poi basta: I, "and then nothing else. " In Analects XV, 40, Pound says: "He said: Problem of style? Get the meaning across then STOP" [CON, 269J.
41.
speech, message. "
Ideogram
"words,
1: Tz'u
[M6984 J,
42. Ideogram 2: Ta [M5956J, "intelli? gent. . . to apprehend. " As drawn, one component in the right of the character is missing. Pound said to Kenner: "What Confucius has to say about style is contained in two characters. The first says 'Get the meaning across,' and the second says 'Stop. ' " When Kenner asked what he saw in the first character, he said, with protestations and a Jamesian pause: "lead the sheep out to pasture" [HK, Era, 13J .
Ismarus
? ? 426
79/486-488
79/488-492
427
face, but they had the owl itself cut at the foot of every statue of Athene and stamped on every coin of Athens, to tell them that she was the owl-eyed goddess, the lightning that blinks like an owl. For what is charac- teristic of the owl's eyes is not that they glare, but that they suddenly leave off glaring like lighthouses whose light is shut off" [SP, 407; 74:302].
61. mah? : I, "but then? "
62. D'Arezzo: [cf. 43 above].
63. chiacchierona: I, chiachierona, "cackler. "
64. Ideogram 1: Huang [M2297], "yellow. "
65. Ideogram 2: Niao [M4688], "bird. "
66. Ideogram 3: Chih [M939], "rests. " Pound translates the refrain of Ode 230 in the Book of Poetry thus: "the silky warble runs in the yellow throat, bird comes to fest on angle of the hill" [EP, Odes, 143] . The three characters are taken from this ode.
67. auctor: L, "author. " 68. Tellus: [77:75].
69. si come . . . dispitto:
Hell in great disdain" [77:152; 78:79].
70. Capanaeus: Capaneus. One of the seven against Thebes who defied the divine com- mand of Zeus by attempting to scale the wall. Zeus zapped him with a thunderbolt and Dante placed him among the blasphe- mers in Hell [In! XIV, 43ff. ] .
71. 'YEet feconda: H, "earth"; I, "fruitful. " For Helen's breast see 106/752 [106:9].
72. "each one . . . ": Recurrent phrase from the Bible [74:353].
73. mint, thyme and basilicum: Plants associated with paradise [CFT, Pai, 3-1, 93-94].
74. "half dead . . . ": From "Blood and the Moon," by W. B. Yeats: "In mockery I have set / A powerful emblem up / . . . In mockery of a time / Half dead at the top. "
75. goyim: Yiddish epithet for non-Jews.
76. Yu-en-mi: The Youanmi Gold Mines. Ltd. , promoted by Herbert Hoover in 1912.
77. Mr Keith: Pass. William Keith, 1838- 1911, an American painter.
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. M. died Dec. 5, 1791 when not quite 36 years old, and Constanze was "not yet 30. "
8. Spielhaus: G, "theater. "
9. Astafieva: Serafima A. , 1876-1934, a Russian dancer and teacher. She was a member of the corps de ballet of the Mary- insky Theatre (1895-1905) and of the Diaghilev Company (1909-1911). She opened a ballet school in London.
10. Wigmore: Wigmore Gallery, Marylebone, London.
11. wd / . . . cart: W. C. W. would have [78: 137].
Constanze
? ? 424
79/484-486
79/486
425
12. G. Scott: A trainee at the DTC.
13. Lili Marlene: Most popular German war song during WWIl.
14. Goede! : [78:26J.
15. in memoriam: L, "in memory. "
16. G. P. : Giorgio Paresce, Italian Fascist whom Pound knew.
17. OU sont? : F, "Where are? " First half of "Where are the snows of yesteryear? " Con- text suggests, Where are all of Mussolini's former followers, and which ones will adapt and survive?
18. Petain: [80:34J: Henri Philippe P. , 1856-1951, marshal of France. He was convicted of "intelligence with the enemy" (1945) and sentenced to life imprisonment [Time, Aug. 6, 1945J. The vote not to execute was close: 14 to 13.
19. Scott & Whiteside: [74:258J. Black prisoners at DTC,
20. 8 birds . . . : Janequin's bird song of Canto 75 receives graphic visual illustration all through 78. Birds sitting on the barbed wires that Pound could see from his tent seemed to form a musical score. As the birds took off and landed, a different tune seemed to be carved in the air.
21. Mr Allingham: A trainee at the DTC. 22. Bechstein: A make of piano.
23. quattrocento: I, "15th century. "
24. a cavallo: I, "on horseback. "
25. Cosimo Tura: [24:87J.
26. Del Cossa: [77:156J. One of the 8chifanoia muralists at the palace in Ferrara.
27. Beethoven: Ludwig von B. , 1770-1827, the German composer whose piano works are considered by many to be his crowning achievement.
28. Piazza S. Marco: I, "St.
Mark's Square," a famous location in Venice.
29. papal major: Ironic question suggested by something Pound sees outside his tent.
30. castrum romanum: L, "Roman fort. " 31. "went _. . quarters": Paraphrase of the
line that ends Book I of Caesar's Gallic Wars.
32. Janequin: [75 :8J .
33. per esempio: I, "for example. "
34. Orazio Vechii: O. Vecchi, ? 1550-1605, Italian composer known mainly for his L 'Amfiparnasso: Commedia Annonica.
35. Bronzino: Il Bronzino (Agnolo di Cosima), 1502-1572, Florentine painter at the court of Cosima I.
43. what's his name: Attempt to recall the name of Guido d' Arezzo, fl. 1000-1050, who devised the system of Hexachords which lasted about 500 years: "he improved the notation, developing the two-line staff into the present one of five lines" [OCM, 866J. Pound recalls "the name of that bastard" a page later [ef. 62 belowJ.
44. aulentissima . . . : I, "most odorous, fresh rose. " Inverted order of the beginning words of a poem by the Sicilian poet Ciullo
. d' Alcamo, fl. 1230-1250 [cf. JW, Medieval Song, 197-203; SR, 62, 101J. A recurrent musical phrase [98:107; 100/719; 107:1J.
45. Assisi: [74:490J.
46. Goncourt: [77:143J.
47. "paak . . . ": [74/442J. The voice of the Japanese sentry telling arriving dignitaries where to park is heard several more times as background in Canto 79.
48. bacon-rind banner: A military flag seen flying with the Ugolino palace as back- ground.
49_ Ugolino: [74:240J.
50. San. . . Cavalieri: A church in Pisa richly hung with Turkish and Arabian ban- ners, trophies of the victories of the Knights of San Stephana.
51. AttIee: Clement Richard A. , 1883-1967, British statesman and leader of the Labour party who took over from Churchill July 26, 1945 [Time, Aug. 6, I945J. Since Attlee's program included the nationalization of the Bank of England, Pound doubtless had some hope for him [80:406J, that is, if he didn't do "a Ramsey. "
52. Ramsey: James Ramsey MacDonald, 1866-1937, the British statesman and leader of the Labour party who several times became prime minister briefly. Perhaps because he gave support to the abortive labor strike of 1926, or, later, joined with Conservatives in the economic crises of 1931, Pound sees him (as did many others) betraying his cause to the money barons.
53. "Leave the Duke . . . ": [50:28J_
54. "in less . . . epoch": H. L. Mencken wrote a letter to Pound in 1937 which he quotes with approval. Saying first that because a politician messes something up doesn't prove it's wrong, H. L. M adds: "Nevertheless, I believe that all schemes of monetary reform collide inevitably with the nature of man in the mass. He can't be convinced in anything less than a geological epoch. " Pound comments: "Above state- ment does not invalidate geological process"
[GK, 182J.
55. Fleet _. . Salamis: [74:109J.
56. Wilkes: John W. , 1727-1797, onetime lord mayor of London. A book by Raymond Postgate entitled That Devil Wilkes [New York, 1929J said: "His chief power to tip the balance in favor of the poor lay in hi' authority to fix the price of bread-or rather since the loaf was fixed at a penny, to fix the size of the loaf" [po 204J. In 1775, Wilkes did it [Fang, III, 22J .
57. hOa. :;: H, "moral bent" or "cultural force," or prob. both.
58. Athene: [17:16J In speaking of the Greek panetheon of women [patria MiaJ, Pound talks of "Ceres, the mother" type; then, "Juno, the British matron" type, "propriety and social position to be main- tained, no one's comfort considered. Women of this type have been always, and, thank God, always will be, deceived by their hus- bands. Aphrodite-enough said. Pallas Athene, the much pitied intellectual" [SP, 119-120J.
S9. caesia oculi: L, "gray eyes. "
60. 'Y/I. ",v~: H, "the owl . . . so called from its glaring 'eyes" [L & SJ. Pound quotes from Allen Upward thus: "How hard the old cloistered scholarship. . . has toiled to understand the word glaukopis given to the goddess Athene_ Did it mean blue-eyed or grey. eyed, or-by the aid of Sanskrit-merely glare-eyed? And all the time they had not only the word glaux staring them in the
36. Hagoromo: [74:124J.
Japanese
Noh play
37. Kumasaka: A Noh play [74:363J.
38. Troas: The Troad, the territory sur- rounding the ancient city of Troy.
39. Ismarus . . . : Odysseus attacked
soon after he left Troy, but after an initial defeat, the Ciconians rallied and drove the Greeks back to their ships rOd. IX, 39ff. J . An example of the "Greek rascality" just mentioned, which justified the gods' 10-year delay of his nostus [80:364J.
40. e poi basta: I, "and then nothing else. " In Analects XV, 40, Pound says: "He said: Problem of style? Get the meaning across then STOP" [CON, 269J.
41.
speech, message. "
Ideogram
"words,
1: Tz'u
[M6984 J,
42. Ideogram 2: Ta [M5956J, "intelli? gent. . . to apprehend. " As drawn, one component in the right of the character is missing. Pound said to Kenner: "What Confucius has to say about style is contained in two characters. The first says 'Get the meaning across,' and the second says 'Stop. ' " When Kenner asked what he saw in the first character, he said, with protestations and a Jamesian pause: "lead the sheep out to pasture" [HK, Era, 13J .
Ismarus
? ? 426
79/486-488
79/488-492
427
face, but they had the owl itself cut at the foot of every statue of Athene and stamped on every coin of Athens, to tell them that she was the owl-eyed goddess, the lightning that blinks like an owl. For what is charac- teristic of the owl's eyes is not that they glare, but that they suddenly leave off glaring like lighthouses whose light is shut off" [SP, 407; 74:302].
61. mah? : I, "but then? "
62. D'Arezzo: [cf. 43 above].
63. chiacchierona: I, chiachierona, "cackler. "
64. Ideogram 1: Huang [M2297], "yellow. "
65. Ideogram 2: Niao [M4688], "bird. "
66. Ideogram 3: Chih [M939], "rests. " Pound translates the refrain of Ode 230 in the Book of Poetry thus: "the silky warble runs in the yellow throat, bird comes to fest on angle of the hill" [EP, Odes, 143] . The three characters are taken from this ode.
67. auctor: L, "author. " 68. Tellus: [77:75].
69. si come . . . dispitto:
Hell in great disdain" [77:152; 78:79].
70. Capanaeus: Capaneus. One of the seven against Thebes who defied the divine com- mand of Zeus by attempting to scale the wall. Zeus zapped him with a thunderbolt and Dante placed him among the blasphe- mers in Hell [In! XIV, 43ff. ] .
71. 'YEet feconda: H, "earth"; I, "fruitful. " For Helen's breast see 106/752 [106:9].
72. "each one . . . ": Recurrent phrase from the Bible [74:353].
73. mint, thyme and basilicum: Plants associated with paradise [CFT, Pai, 3-1, 93-94].
74. "half dead . . . ": From "Blood and the Moon," by W. B. Yeats: "In mockery I have set / A powerful emblem up / . . . In mockery of a time / Half dead at the top. "
75. goyim: Yiddish epithet for non-Jews.
76. Yu-en-mi: The Youanmi Gold Mines. Ltd. , promoted by Herbert Hoover in 1912.
77. Mr Keith: Pass. William Keith, 1838- 1911, an American painter.
