The victory or defeat at Troy was to be
communicated
by a series of lights on the Greek Islands.
A-Companion-to-the-Cantos-of-Ezra-Pound-II
.
hand.
" Clytemnestra [Agamemnon, 1404- 1406] says: "This is Agamemnon, my hus- band, dead by my right hand, and a good job" [cf.
LE, 269-270].
12. hac dextera mortus: [dextra mortuus] : L, "dead by this right hand. " Pound, in comparing the Thomas Stanley Greek and Latin editions of the play, cites these lines.
13. Lytton: It was not Lytton but Lady Gregory's husband, Sir William Gregory, who first saw Blunt in the bullring. In 1862, at a bullfight in Madrid, Sir William was "struck by the extraordinary good looks of the young matador . . . and asking who he was, heard that he was an attache from the English Embassy, Wilfred Blunt" [Lady Gre- gory's preface to Blunt's diaries, cited by Fang, U, 163].
14. Packard: Frank Lucius P. , 1877-1942, Canadian author of such books as Greater
carved . . . by the brilliant Gaudier-Brzeska. . . ," So
reliquary
sculptor,
wrote in Poetry [vol. 3, no. 4. , March 1914, 220-223]. Edith Finch [Wilfred Scawen Blunt1 J reporting on a visit made to Blunt by Pound and Aldington says that Pound said: "I am trying to persuade them both into some kind of sanity, . . . Where there is neither decency nor art . . . verse is a mere outrage" [po 338]. In "Homage to Wilfred Blunt" Pound wrote about Blunt's double sonnet, "With Esther": "Mr Blunt is about the last man who has been able to use the
old-fashioned Elizabethan 'grand style' effec- tively" [Poetry, vol. 3, no. 4, 220-223]. These impressions flooded back over 30 years later. Blunt was a man of action who with a fine old eye helped create "a live tradition. "
10. "On the
at the opening of Agamemnon says: "I ask the gods some respite . . . of this watch time measured by years I lie awake . . . upon the Atreides roof dogwise to mark the grand processionals of all the stars at night" (trans. by Richmond Lattimore). One of Pound's main preoccupations during his Pisa captivi~ ty was to mark the grand processional of all the stars and planets.
young Pound
I. hunting dog: [80: 112]. Prob. Orion and Sirius, the dog~star.
beach, the captain of a fishing boat fished the poet out of the water and let him ashore
at Yport (not Le Portell, a little north of Etretat. As soon as he was picked up, Swin~ burne began preaching to the captain and his men. He told Gosse that they surrounded him "in rapturous approval. " So, being a
o f
. . .
2. "Guten
. . .
": G,
"Good morning,
sir. "
3. Jeffers et aI: Trainees at the DTC.
4. Swinburne: Algernon Charles S. , 1837-
1909. The English poet whose richness of pattern, cadence, and sound impressed Pound early and late. He was still living when Pound arrived in England, but he missed seeing him and always regretted it. Pound's "Salve 0 Pontifex" is dedicated to Swinburne [ALS, 63].
5. Landor: Walter Savage L. , 1775-1864, English poet and essayist. Swinburne visited the 90-year-old Landor twice in the year of his death. Gosse says about the first visit that "the unknown little poet, with his great aureole of fluffed red hair," merely confused the old man. But Landor called him "dear friend" and was charmed into giving him "a Correggio in commemoration of the occa~ sian" [Gosse, Swinburne, 101-104].
6. old Mathews: ElkinM. , 1851-1921, Lon- don publisher who did several of Pound's early works. Pound mentions him quite of~ ten in his early letters [L, 7, 55, 62, 65, etc. ; SP, 227]. Pound prob. heard the anecdote from Mathews himself, perhaps at the time of Swinburne's death in 1909.
7. Watts Dunton: Theodore Walter Watts- Dunton, 1832-1914, English poet, novelist, and critic; the friend and caretaker of Swin~ burne who lived with him from 1879 until his death in 1909.
8. Dirce's shade: [cf. 39 beloW].
9. Le Portel: Swinburne told Gosse the sto- ry of the rescue at sea and Gosse wrote it down soon afterwards. It seems that around 10 o'clock on an early October morning in 1869, Swinburne went alone to Porte d'Amont near Etretat, where he was staying with a friend named Powell. He jumped into the sea and was shortly carried away by the tide. While people stood helpless on the
man Violently in favor
preached to them "the doctrines of the Re~ public [of France], and then he recited to them 'by the hour together,' the poems of Victor Hugo" [Gosse, Swinburne, 178-179]. Pound's memory played him false with Aeschylus.
Atreides'
: The
watchman
d"emocracy, he
? ? ? 456
Love Hath No Man (1913), The Beloved
Traitor (1915), Doors of The Night (1922), The Devil's Mantle (1927), and a dozen others.
15. Percy: Percy B. Shelley [MSB].
16. Basinio: [9:7]. On the argument about the merits of Greek poetry vs, Latin poetry, Pound said [ABCR, 48] some snobs pre? ferred any Greek over any Latin. Then, "Ba- sinia of Parma, proclaimed a very different thesis: he held that you couldn't write Latin poetry really well unless you knew Greek. . . . In the margins ofhis Latin narra- tive you can still see the tags of Homer that he was using to keep his melodic sense ac- tive. " "Mould" is used instead of "model" to accent the sense of shape and form in the melodic line.
17. Otis: James O. [71:89, 91J. Said Pound: "Otis wrote a Greek Grammar which he destroyed, or which was lost for the lack ofa competent printer" [SP, 174J.
18. Soncino: [30:16. 19J. The spread of learning, activated by the art of printing, increased dramatically at the end of the 16th century. Demand for paper resulted in im- proved technology for producing paper. An increase in the number of printers increased competition. Competition created demand for ways to decrease costs. Says Rudolph Hirsch [Printing, Selling, and Reading, 1450? 1550, 70J, "the general trend was the reduction of prices for printed books . . . AIda Manuzio [30: 17J proceeded on this plan, when he started his octavo series . . . in
1501. . . . He kept expenses low by intra? ducing an italic type, designed for him by Francesco Griffo da Bologna, which permit- ted him to place more text on one page. " Hieronymous Soncinus "pointed out with some venom" that Franceso and not AIda was the designer. In a dedication to Cesare Borgia, which appeared in Petrarch's Sonetti e Canzoni [Fano, 1503J, Soncinus wrote: "Francesco da Bologna . . . ha escogitato una nova forma de littere dicta cursiva, 0 vera cancelleresca, de la quale non Aido Roma- no . . . rna esso M. Francesco e stato primo
82/524
inventore et designatore" ("Francesco of Bo- logna has devised a new form of handwriting called cursive, or rather chancery writing, whose first inventor and designer was not AIda Romano but this M. Franceso"). The implication in the context suggests that Son- cinus and Francesco are memorialized in thousands of books and, like other great printers and designers, did much to spread knowledge and civilization, while many sup- posedly great men carved in statues in public squares are only "marble men. " The classic books will reappear in ever new editions; the statues will slowly wither away.
19. Mr Clowes: A member of William Clowes and Sons, Ltd. , a firm of English printers, which did Pound's Lustra and Gaudier? Brzeska in 1916. The story involved concerns 25 poems the printer objected to as obscene and the publisher agreed should be left out of the volume. Negotiations cut down the number to 17. Yeats was called in but didn't manage to help, so Pound issued a private "unexpurgated" edition. The story is told in various letters [L, 80? 88J and men? tioned in "Murder by Capital" [SP,227].
82/524-525
457
vol. 71, August 1921; Poems 1918. 1921; Fang, II, 142J.
33. Dickens: . Charles D. , 1812. 1870, English novelist. Pound seems to be saying that Tan- cred was a second Dickens, but on what grounds only random speculation could be contrived.
34. Ford: Ford M. F. , 1873? 1939, English novelist [74: 165].
35. res non verba: L, "objects not words. "
36. William: W. B. Yeats.
37. Ideo: Jen [M3099], "humanitas" or "humaneness. " The left component, 7' l is the character for man, A ,when used as one element among others in an ideogram. The top stroke is "heaven," the bottom one "earth. " Thus, the man who lives out heav- en's process on earth is the perfect man
[CON,22J.
38. Cythera: Aphrodite and/or Venus.
39. Dirce: In a poem called "Dirce," Landor wrote: "Stand close around, ye Stygian set, I With Dirce in one boat conveyed! / Or Cha? ron, seeing may forget / That he is old and she a shade" [50:43].
41. Terreus! : Tereus. Legendary king of Thrace. In the Philomela legend three people were turned into birds [4:8J.
42. Spring and . . . : [78: 139].
43. Cnidos: The ancient town at Cape Krio, SW Asia Minor.
The victory or defeat at Troy was to be communicated by a series of lights on the Greek Islands. The watchman on the roof at the opening of the Agamem. non is waiting for the signal. Pound deals with the scene in "Early Translators of Ho- mer" [LE, 274? 275J .
44. Mitylene: The island of Lesbos in the Aegean.
45. Reithmuller: Richard Henri Riethmuel?
20. Mr
English essayist.
Augustine B. ,
1850. 1933,
research:
Punning(? )
refer?
Birrell:
21. Tom Moore: Thomas M. , 1779. 1852, Irish poet whose "Little" poel)1s were sup- posedly shocking, but which Saintsbury says "were never very shocking" and I'the poems have been purged . . . [of all improprietiesJ for more than a century" [CHEL, Vol. XII,
103].
22. Rogers: Samuel R. , 1763? 1855, a minor English poet whose verse also was subject to censorship and / or bowdlerization.
23. her Ladyship YX: Unidentified. Perhaps Lady Emerald Cunard, 1872? 1948 (the mother of Nancy [80:311 J), whose restless? ness might well have led to the acts indi- cated. She was a good friend of Lady Churchill [cf. 24 below] and, like her, was born an American and married into an English titled family [DF, Cunards, 31? 32].
24. Ladyship Z: Lady Churchill (Jennie Jerome), the American wife of Lord Ran- dolph Churchill, 1849? 1895, whom she mar? ried in 1874 [RO].
25. Mabel Beardsley: [80:268].
26. Mr Masefield: John M. , 1878? 1967, En? glish poet (laureate from 1930 on). The Everlasting Mercy (1911) and other long poems caused a scandal. ''The combination of profanity and ecstasy, sordid melodrama and spiritual elevation created a sensation; they overwhelmed the critics as well as ordi- nary readers" [1. Untermeyer, Modern Brit? ish Poetry, 1950, 219J. A subject rhyme with Rogers, Moore, and Clowes above.
27. Old Neptune: [80:257J. 28. Flaubert: [80:28J.
29. Miss Tomczyk:
Everard Fielding), a Polish medium who could "produce telekinetic movements to order, in the laboratory" [H. Price, Fifty Years ofPsychical Research, 28J. One of the many occultists from Madam Blavatsky on
whom Yeats became involved with.
. . .
31. 18 Woburn Buildings: The London resi? dence of W. B. Yeats. In 1896 Yeats moved from Fountain Court to 18 Woburn Build? ings (now no. 5, Woburn Walk), where he lived when in London for ? 24 years. Not to be confused with Woburn Place, also in the British Museum area off Russell Square.
32. Mr. Tancred: Francis W. T. , one of the imagist poets published in the first vol. of Poetry. Pound makes a mental connection with Tancred, the Norman king of Sicily, who died in 1194 leaving the kingdom to his four? year-old son Frederick, later to become famous for his book on falcons [25:14; 98/689]. Early drafts of Canto 6 quote let? ters between another Tancred (who became famous in the first . crusade) and King Rich? ard. This Tancred reached Jerusalem [Dial,
(Mrs.
30. society
ence to the Society of Psychical Research founded in 1882.
Stanislawa T.
glad poor beaste . . . : Prob.
40. Be
On rhythm of Burns's lines from "To a Mouse" [Speare, 94? 96].
variation
? ? 458
82/526-527
83/528-529
459
ler, 1881? 1942(? ), instructor in German at the University of Pennsylvania, 1905? 1907; author of Walt Whitman and the Gennans, 1906.
46. Tdaenmarck: Presumably the sound of a German saying "Denmark" and "even the peasants know him," but this instructor ap- pears to have a bad cold.
47. Whitman: [80:51].
48. Camden: [80:275]. In 1906, Whitman lived about 10 miles from Philadelphia at 328 Mickle Street, in Camden.
49. "0 troubled . . . ": Quotes from "Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking" [Speare, 249? 256].
50. 0 GEA TERRA: H, "Earth"; L, "Earth. " These 10 lines are an intense lyrical evocation of the Dionysian-Ceres I Isis-Osiris metamorphosis theme of death and regenera- tion, with paradisal overtones indicated by the herbs and reinforced by the chthonic choral a few lines later [Knox, Pai, 3. 1, 77-78].
51. Ferrara: [8:30].
52. fu Nicolo . . . Po: I, "was Niccolo [d'Este] / and here beyond the Po" [24:22, 70].
53. 'Ellav T(W i:ivopC/: [81:33].
54. Kipling: Rudyard K. , 1865. 1936, En? glish poet and novelist. What he suspected is not known.
55. two halves . . . tally: [77:56].
56. connubium . . . mysterium: L, "the mar- riage of the earth . . . mystery. "
57. e'rpc/Ta . . . fIlO,: H, "she said my hus? band" [Agamemnon, 1404;LE, 269. 270; cf. II above].
58. XeONIO~: H, "earth? born" (adjective, masc. nom. sing. ).
59. XeONO~: H, "of the earth" (noun, gen. sing. ).
60. 'IX[1P: H, "Ichor," the fluid that flows in the veins of the gods.
61. 8r. x. l<. pvwv: H, "weeping" or "of tears. " 62. EVTEV8EV: H, "thereupon. "
Exegeses
Achilles Fang, "Materials for the Study of Pound's Cantos,"
Ph. D. dissertation, Harvard University, 1958, Vol. II; NS, Life, 3; G. Ivaneich, Ezra Pound in Italy, Rizzoli, 1978 [Ivancich]; Li? bera, Pai, 2? 3, 374; Schuldiner, Pai, 4. 1, 78? 79; CFT, Pai, 2. 3, 451-454; Flory, Pai, 5? 1,52.
Glossary
CANTO LXXXIII Sources
16. they dug up his bones: Because Eri? gena's Neoplatonic ideas bordered on pan- theism and his theories were exploited by the Albigensian heretics, he was condemned as a heretic by Pope Honorius III in 1225. It was not Erigena but Amalric who was dug up [74: 104].
17. De Montfort: Simon IV de Montfort l'Amaury [23:26].
18. Le Paradis . . . : [74:292].
19. Uncle William: W. B. Yeats
20. Notre Dame: The cathedral in Paris.
21.
12. hac dextera mortus: [dextra mortuus] : L, "dead by this right hand. " Pound, in comparing the Thomas Stanley Greek and Latin editions of the play, cites these lines.
13. Lytton: It was not Lytton but Lady Gregory's husband, Sir William Gregory, who first saw Blunt in the bullring. In 1862, at a bullfight in Madrid, Sir William was "struck by the extraordinary good looks of the young matador . . . and asking who he was, heard that he was an attache from the English Embassy, Wilfred Blunt" [Lady Gre- gory's preface to Blunt's diaries, cited by Fang, U, 163].
14. Packard: Frank Lucius P. , 1877-1942, Canadian author of such books as Greater
carved . . . by the brilliant Gaudier-Brzeska. . . ," So
reliquary
sculptor,
wrote in Poetry [vol. 3, no. 4. , March 1914, 220-223]. Edith Finch [Wilfred Scawen Blunt1 J reporting on a visit made to Blunt by Pound and Aldington says that Pound said: "I am trying to persuade them both into some kind of sanity, . . . Where there is neither decency nor art . . . verse is a mere outrage" [po 338]. In "Homage to Wilfred Blunt" Pound wrote about Blunt's double sonnet, "With Esther": "Mr Blunt is about the last man who has been able to use the
old-fashioned Elizabethan 'grand style' effec- tively" [Poetry, vol. 3, no. 4, 220-223]. These impressions flooded back over 30 years later. Blunt was a man of action who with a fine old eye helped create "a live tradition. "
10. "On the
at the opening of Agamemnon says: "I ask the gods some respite . . . of this watch time measured by years I lie awake . . . upon the Atreides roof dogwise to mark the grand processionals of all the stars at night" (trans. by Richmond Lattimore). One of Pound's main preoccupations during his Pisa captivi~ ty was to mark the grand processional of all the stars and planets.
young Pound
I. hunting dog: [80: 112]. Prob. Orion and Sirius, the dog~star.
beach, the captain of a fishing boat fished the poet out of the water and let him ashore
at Yport (not Le Portell, a little north of Etretat. As soon as he was picked up, Swin~ burne began preaching to the captain and his men. He told Gosse that they surrounded him "in rapturous approval. " So, being a
o f
. . .
2. "Guten
. . .
": G,
"Good morning,
sir. "
3. Jeffers et aI: Trainees at the DTC.
4. Swinburne: Algernon Charles S. , 1837-
1909. The English poet whose richness of pattern, cadence, and sound impressed Pound early and late. He was still living when Pound arrived in England, but he missed seeing him and always regretted it. Pound's "Salve 0 Pontifex" is dedicated to Swinburne [ALS, 63].
5. Landor: Walter Savage L. , 1775-1864, English poet and essayist. Swinburne visited the 90-year-old Landor twice in the year of his death. Gosse says about the first visit that "the unknown little poet, with his great aureole of fluffed red hair," merely confused the old man. But Landor called him "dear friend" and was charmed into giving him "a Correggio in commemoration of the occa~ sian" [Gosse, Swinburne, 101-104].
6. old Mathews: ElkinM. , 1851-1921, Lon- don publisher who did several of Pound's early works. Pound mentions him quite of~ ten in his early letters [L, 7, 55, 62, 65, etc. ; SP, 227]. Pound prob. heard the anecdote from Mathews himself, perhaps at the time of Swinburne's death in 1909.
7. Watts Dunton: Theodore Walter Watts- Dunton, 1832-1914, English poet, novelist, and critic; the friend and caretaker of Swin~ burne who lived with him from 1879 until his death in 1909.
8. Dirce's shade: [cf. 39 beloW].
9. Le Portel: Swinburne told Gosse the sto- ry of the rescue at sea and Gosse wrote it down soon afterwards. It seems that around 10 o'clock on an early October morning in 1869, Swinburne went alone to Porte d'Amont near Etretat, where he was staying with a friend named Powell. He jumped into the sea and was shortly carried away by the tide. While people stood helpless on the
man Violently in favor
preached to them "the doctrines of the Re~ public [of France], and then he recited to them 'by the hour together,' the poems of Victor Hugo" [Gosse, Swinburne, 178-179]. Pound's memory played him false with Aeschylus.
Atreides'
: The
watchman
d"emocracy, he
? ? ? 456
Love Hath No Man (1913), The Beloved
Traitor (1915), Doors of The Night (1922), The Devil's Mantle (1927), and a dozen others.
15. Percy: Percy B. Shelley [MSB].
16. Basinio: [9:7]. On the argument about the merits of Greek poetry vs, Latin poetry, Pound said [ABCR, 48] some snobs pre? ferred any Greek over any Latin. Then, "Ba- sinia of Parma, proclaimed a very different thesis: he held that you couldn't write Latin poetry really well unless you knew Greek. . . . In the margins ofhis Latin narra- tive you can still see the tags of Homer that he was using to keep his melodic sense ac- tive. " "Mould" is used instead of "model" to accent the sense of shape and form in the melodic line.
17. Otis: James O. [71:89, 91J. Said Pound: "Otis wrote a Greek Grammar which he destroyed, or which was lost for the lack ofa competent printer" [SP, 174J.
18. Soncino: [30:16. 19J. The spread of learning, activated by the art of printing, increased dramatically at the end of the 16th century. Demand for paper resulted in im- proved technology for producing paper. An increase in the number of printers increased competition. Competition created demand for ways to decrease costs. Says Rudolph Hirsch [Printing, Selling, and Reading, 1450? 1550, 70J, "the general trend was the reduction of prices for printed books . . . AIda Manuzio [30: 17J proceeded on this plan, when he started his octavo series . . . in
1501. . . . He kept expenses low by intra? ducing an italic type, designed for him by Francesco Griffo da Bologna, which permit- ted him to place more text on one page. " Hieronymous Soncinus "pointed out with some venom" that Franceso and not AIda was the designer. In a dedication to Cesare Borgia, which appeared in Petrarch's Sonetti e Canzoni [Fano, 1503J, Soncinus wrote: "Francesco da Bologna . . . ha escogitato una nova forma de littere dicta cursiva, 0 vera cancelleresca, de la quale non Aido Roma- no . . . rna esso M. Francesco e stato primo
82/524
inventore et designatore" ("Francesco of Bo- logna has devised a new form of handwriting called cursive, or rather chancery writing, whose first inventor and designer was not AIda Romano but this M. Franceso"). The implication in the context suggests that Son- cinus and Francesco are memorialized in thousands of books and, like other great printers and designers, did much to spread knowledge and civilization, while many sup- posedly great men carved in statues in public squares are only "marble men. " The classic books will reappear in ever new editions; the statues will slowly wither away.
19. Mr Clowes: A member of William Clowes and Sons, Ltd. , a firm of English printers, which did Pound's Lustra and Gaudier? Brzeska in 1916. The story involved concerns 25 poems the printer objected to as obscene and the publisher agreed should be left out of the volume. Negotiations cut down the number to 17. Yeats was called in but didn't manage to help, so Pound issued a private "unexpurgated" edition. The story is told in various letters [L, 80? 88J and men? tioned in "Murder by Capital" [SP,227].
82/524-525
457
vol. 71, August 1921; Poems 1918. 1921; Fang, II, 142J.
33. Dickens: . Charles D. , 1812. 1870, English novelist. Pound seems to be saying that Tan- cred was a second Dickens, but on what grounds only random speculation could be contrived.
34. Ford: Ford M. F. , 1873? 1939, English novelist [74: 165].
35. res non verba: L, "objects not words. "
36. William: W. B. Yeats.
37. Ideo: Jen [M3099], "humanitas" or "humaneness. " The left component, 7' l is the character for man, A ,when used as one element among others in an ideogram. The top stroke is "heaven," the bottom one "earth. " Thus, the man who lives out heav- en's process on earth is the perfect man
[CON,22J.
38. Cythera: Aphrodite and/or Venus.
39. Dirce: In a poem called "Dirce," Landor wrote: "Stand close around, ye Stygian set, I With Dirce in one boat conveyed! / Or Cha? ron, seeing may forget / That he is old and she a shade" [50:43].
41. Terreus! : Tereus. Legendary king of Thrace. In the Philomela legend three people were turned into birds [4:8J.
42. Spring and . . . : [78: 139].
43. Cnidos: The ancient town at Cape Krio, SW Asia Minor.
The victory or defeat at Troy was to be communicated by a series of lights on the Greek Islands. The watchman on the roof at the opening of the Agamem. non is waiting for the signal. Pound deals with the scene in "Early Translators of Ho- mer" [LE, 274? 275J .
44. Mitylene: The island of Lesbos in the Aegean.
45. Reithmuller: Richard Henri Riethmuel?
20. Mr
English essayist.
Augustine B. ,
1850. 1933,
research:
Punning(? )
refer?
Birrell:
21. Tom Moore: Thomas M. , 1779. 1852, Irish poet whose "Little" poel)1s were sup- posedly shocking, but which Saintsbury says "were never very shocking" and I'the poems have been purged . . . [of all improprietiesJ for more than a century" [CHEL, Vol. XII,
103].
22. Rogers: Samuel R. , 1763? 1855, a minor English poet whose verse also was subject to censorship and / or bowdlerization.
23. her Ladyship YX: Unidentified. Perhaps Lady Emerald Cunard, 1872? 1948 (the mother of Nancy [80:311 J), whose restless? ness might well have led to the acts indi- cated. She was a good friend of Lady Churchill [cf. 24 below] and, like her, was born an American and married into an English titled family [DF, Cunards, 31? 32].
24. Ladyship Z: Lady Churchill (Jennie Jerome), the American wife of Lord Ran- dolph Churchill, 1849? 1895, whom she mar? ried in 1874 [RO].
25. Mabel Beardsley: [80:268].
26. Mr Masefield: John M. , 1878? 1967, En? glish poet (laureate from 1930 on). The Everlasting Mercy (1911) and other long poems caused a scandal. ''The combination of profanity and ecstasy, sordid melodrama and spiritual elevation created a sensation; they overwhelmed the critics as well as ordi- nary readers" [1. Untermeyer, Modern Brit? ish Poetry, 1950, 219J. A subject rhyme with Rogers, Moore, and Clowes above.
27. Old Neptune: [80:257J. 28. Flaubert: [80:28J.
29. Miss Tomczyk:
Everard Fielding), a Polish medium who could "produce telekinetic movements to order, in the laboratory" [H. Price, Fifty Years ofPsychical Research, 28J. One of the many occultists from Madam Blavatsky on
whom Yeats became involved with.
. . .
31. 18 Woburn Buildings: The London resi? dence of W. B. Yeats. In 1896 Yeats moved from Fountain Court to 18 Woburn Build? ings (now no. 5, Woburn Walk), where he lived when in London for ? 24 years. Not to be confused with Woburn Place, also in the British Museum area off Russell Square.
32. Mr. Tancred: Francis W. T. , one of the imagist poets published in the first vol. of Poetry. Pound makes a mental connection with Tancred, the Norman king of Sicily, who died in 1194 leaving the kingdom to his four? year-old son Frederick, later to become famous for his book on falcons [25:14; 98/689]. Early drafts of Canto 6 quote let? ters between another Tancred (who became famous in the first . crusade) and King Rich? ard. This Tancred reached Jerusalem [Dial,
(Mrs.
30. society
ence to the Society of Psychical Research founded in 1882.
Stanislawa T.
glad poor beaste . . . : Prob.
40. Be
On rhythm of Burns's lines from "To a Mouse" [Speare, 94? 96].
variation
? ? 458
82/526-527
83/528-529
459
ler, 1881? 1942(? ), instructor in German at the University of Pennsylvania, 1905? 1907; author of Walt Whitman and the Gennans, 1906.
46. Tdaenmarck: Presumably the sound of a German saying "Denmark" and "even the peasants know him," but this instructor ap- pears to have a bad cold.
47. Whitman: [80:51].
48. Camden: [80:275]. In 1906, Whitman lived about 10 miles from Philadelphia at 328 Mickle Street, in Camden.
49. "0 troubled . . . ": Quotes from "Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking" [Speare, 249? 256].
50. 0 GEA TERRA: H, "Earth"; L, "Earth. " These 10 lines are an intense lyrical evocation of the Dionysian-Ceres I Isis-Osiris metamorphosis theme of death and regenera- tion, with paradisal overtones indicated by the herbs and reinforced by the chthonic choral a few lines later [Knox, Pai, 3. 1, 77-78].
51. Ferrara: [8:30].
52. fu Nicolo . . . Po: I, "was Niccolo [d'Este] / and here beyond the Po" [24:22, 70].
53. 'Ellav T(W i:ivopC/: [81:33].
54. Kipling: Rudyard K. , 1865. 1936, En? glish poet and novelist. What he suspected is not known.
55. two halves . . . tally: [77:56].
56. connubium . . . mysterium: L, "the mar- riage of the earth . . . mystery. "
57. e'rpc/Ta . . . fIlO,: H, "she said my hus? band" [Agamemnon, 1404;LE, 269. 270; cf. II above].
58. XeONIO~: H, "earth? born" (adjective, masc. nom. sing. ).
59. XeONO~: H, "of the earth" (noun, gen. sing. ).
60. 'IX[1P: H, "Ichor," the fluid that flows in the veins of the gods.
61. 8r. x. l<. pvwv: H, "weeping" or "of tears. " 62. EVTEV8EV: H, "thereupon. "
Exegeses
Achilles Fang, "Materials for the Study of Pound's Cantos,"
Ph. D. dissertation, Harvard University, 1958, Vol. II; NS, Life, 3; G. Ivaneich, Ezra Pound in Italy, Rizzoli, 1978 [Ivancich]; Li? bera, Pai, 2? 3, 374; Schuldiner, Pai, 4. 1, 78? 79; CFT, Pai, 2. 3, 451-454; Flory, Pai, 5? 1,52.
Glossary
CANTO LXXXIII Sources
16. they dug up his bones: Because Eri? gena's Neoplatonic ideas bordered on pan- theism and his theories were exploited by the Albigensian heretics, he was condemned as a heretic by Pope Honorius III in 1225. It was not Erigena but Amalric who was dug up [74: 104].
17. De Montfort: Simon IV de Montfort l'Amaury [23:26].
18. Le Paradis . . . : [74:292].
19. Uncle William: W. B. Yeats
20. Notre Dame: The cathedral in Paris.
21.
