The execution occurred before Pound sur- rendered himself and asked the partisans to take him to the nearest
American
head?
A-Companion-to-the-Cantos-of-Ezra-Pound-II
" Said Abdul, "I must dance" [46/232].
Indeed, the Bahai would endorse the intent of all the great religious thinkers celebrated in The Cantos such as Averroes, Avicenna, st.
Anselm, Lord Herbert of Cherbury and Erigena.
They are there not because Pound had an interest in curious and arcane historical figures, but because he believed what they said is true: true enough to live by.
Thus, glosses for some of these people, such as st.
Anselm rl05:16.
18.
31.
37.
etc.
l.
have been longer than most.
Extended glosses have sometimes been written for other reasons. For "DROIT FAIT" [108:7], I might have written, "part of traditional formula by which English monarchs made acts of parliament legal. " That is true enough. But behind this "gist" or "pith" or "luminous detail" lies one of the most dramatic moments in English history. In the days before the mo- ment arrived, a hundred strong men had literally been reduced to tears. Although space did not allow the development of very many such moments, the reader can be assured that behind many a phrase and the brief gloss given for it there lies a dramatic story of great religious, historical, economic, and ethical interest: in The Cantos all four are always at issue, a sort
of rhyme with the Four Tuan, a recurrent theme in the poem.
Most of the time Pound acts only as a recorder, putting down what the hundreds of charac-
ters in the poem actually did and said. He believes that professional historians have mythified and falsified the past. Thus he goes always to the original records and documents. If the fact exists, he will find it. During the St. E. 's years he had a team of people hunting down data at the Library of Congress. Their research was pointed, never random. They went anned with precise directions such as, "I want to know exactly what Benton said about the motion to clear the United States Senate, after passage of the motion to expunge, and exactly the hour of the night he said it" [89:258] !
Pound did his best to obtain the best authority available and never falsifies the records. But sometimes his use of the record is biased. This aspect of the poem is perhaps expressed best with his attitude toward Disraeli and the Rothschilds. The events Pound refers to in the poem are well documented. But one would have to be passionately anti-British not to believe that both Disraeli and the Rothschilds acted brilliantly, with loyalty to the crown, and in good faith
[86:56,61].
The whole poem is colored by Pound's passionately held beliefs: in fact much of its power
and intensity derive from this very passion which becomes the power in the shape of the poetic line and the great harmonic rhythms of the poem as a whole. But otherwise, Pound intruded personally into the text only a few times: e. g. , at 24/112; 62/350; 76/458 with such words as "ego scriptor" [76:129]. His intent in such intrusion is to remind the reader that the poem is being written by a living person, a responsible "I" with a name and address [78:48]; by one who was there and can testify, or can remember; or to suggest that the kind of thing that went on at some critical moment in the past is still going on [103:46]. For similar reasons, I have intruded into the text of the Companion several times to show that the glosses are written by a living person, who expects to be responsible for what is said and done, or to spell out an irony that might otherwise be missed [97:153; 113:30].
"
II
A great deal of the work on the glosses for the later cantos was done between 1972 and 1975. In 1972, I started collecting materials for an alphabetical supplement to the old Index to cover Cantos 85-120. A part of the work was farmed out to various experts. James Wilhelm completed cards for all the Italian and Provenryal materials. Latin source materials were divided between James D. Neault who did the first half of the text and John Espey who did much of the last half. To these people, I am much indebted. But in June of 1975, when the decision to do the Companion, canto by canto from the beginning, was made that work was put aside. Considerations of space (my firm belief that the Companion should not exceed the length of the poem) made it necessary to reduce a lot of their early work, especially quotes from the original languages, to much briefer forms.
The numerous scholars who have done exegetical work on The Cantos in Paideuma and other journals have been given credit in individual glosses and the headnotes for each canto. But three people must be mentioned in particular. Although quite a lot of the work on the Chinese sources of Rock-Drill had been done by 1975, Thomas Grieve's thesis [Pai, 2 & 3, 361-508] became very helpful: his work saved much space in locating exact sources and reduced the need for continuous documentation. Special credit too should be given to Charles Watts whose thesis on the sources of Cantos 88 and 89 saved much time. But most of all I am indebted to David Gordon who has been a helper and an adviser in numerous ways. His work on The Sacred Edict cantos (98-99) has been a sine qua non. Especially for the Companion, he spent time at the Beinecke studying Pound's annotations of the Wen-Ii text and prepared a 185-page manuscript recording his discoveries which will be published as soon as possible. Almost all the glosses of Canto 99 are based on this work. Also the study he did on the Coke Cantos [Pai, 4-2 & 3, 223-229] was a great help. Other people who knew Pound at St. E's have also been helpful. The notes provided by Reno Odlin, William French, or Sheri Martinelli have been recognized by their initials in brackets: RO, WF, or SM. Mary de Rachewiltz, Marcella Spann Booth, and Hugh Kenner read the manuscripts for the Pisan Cantos and Rock-Drill. Mary de R. caught several errors because of her firsthand knowledge of the Italian scene; for example, I had glossed Vecchia [76/452] as "I, old lady. " Mary could say that "the old road under St. Pantaleo at St. Ambrogio is meant. " And so on. With the notes of Marcella Booth I've used two proce"dures. During Pound's last year at St. E's, she asked him numerous questions about the cantos through Rock-Drill which were in print at that time. Some times she copied into the margin of her text exactly what he said in quotes. Sometimes, she summarized what he said in her own words or by writing a brief cue. In the Companion, I've preserved this distinction. At the end of my gloss I've inserted her comments after the initials MSB either in quotes [74:176] or without
[74: 197]. Similarly Hugh Kenner could make a number of corrections or additions to the text based on notes he obtained from Pound directly or on his detailed knowledge of the text. His additions are discriminated as coming from Pound himself or his own knowledge, and accompanied by the initials: H. K. Then there is Colin McDowell of Victoria, Australia, who in 1982 dropped by and was immediately put to work checking manuscripts for Thrones, a section of the poem he had been working on for some years. He made several valuable contri- butions. Several additional abbreviations should be added to the list of authors frequently cited: M de R, for Mary de Rachewiltz; OP, for Om" Pound; WF, for William French; MB, for Massimo Bacigalupo; MSB, for Marcella Spann Booth; HM, for Harry Meacham; and EM, for Eustace Mullins.
New abbreviations should also be added to the list of languages: A, Arabic; Af, African dialect; D, Danish; NF, Norman French; OG, Old German; Per, Persian; Pg, Portuguese and Skt, Sanskrit. In translating names from Arabic, western authorities disagree on forms. Except for
? x Preface
74/425
361
quotes from sources, I use Mohammed as standard for the Prophet. But for Abd-el-Melik, there is no clear preference established by custom. Thus, where Pound's major source uses Abd-l-melik as in Canto 96, I use that form, but when the source uses Abd-el-melik as in Cimto 97, I do, too. Finally, three abbreviations should be added to the table of Standard Reference Works: CE, Colombia Encyclopedia; OCM, Oxford Companion to Music; HMS, History ofMonetary Systems; and L&S, Liddell and Scott's, Greek-English Lexicon.
III
The Companion is conceived to be a logical and necessary step on the way to a variorum edition of The Cantos. But much work remains to be done before that task can be started. First the text of both volumes of the Companion must be tested, corrected, and authenticated by the scholars who use it. Then revisions must be made, making use of new scholarly work that can be expected to appear continuously. In time, a deficiency of the present texts can, I hope, be resolved. Some of the infonnation in the glosses I had gathered for my own use over the years. Those notes do not always tell who first made important discoveries. It would be most helpful if any scholars whose work has not been recognized would send me documentary information so that future editions can give them appropriate acknowledgment.
Other acknowledgments I can now make with great pleasure. I am much indebted to the National Endowment for the Humanities for a grant that gave me two-thirds released time from teaching for three semesters and provided other support during that time. Without that assist- ance, the preparation of Volume Two would certainly have taken several additional years. And along with all Pound scholars, lowe many thanks to Donald Gallup of the Beinecke Library at Yale and to those who preside over the Pound archives there.
Administrative officers of the University of Maine at Orono have given me continued sup- port over a number of years, Presidents Howard Neville and Paul Silverman, Vice Presidents Frederick Hutchinson and Kenneth Allen, Deans Gordon Haaland and Karl Webb in particular, as have Professors Joseph Brogunier, and Burton Hatlen of the English Department. The whole staff of the Folger Library at Orono have been most helpful, but I want to thank in particular Charlotte Huntley, Thomas Patterson, and Margaret Menchen of the Reference Department and Carol Curtis and Dorothy Hutchins of Interlibrary Loan_ The work could never have reached its present state of completeness without them.
To my own office staff and assistants I am most indebted. To Nancy Nolde, my main research and administrative assistant, who since 1975 has kept all the dozens of parts of the project in order; to Marilyn Emerick who has done a yoeman's amount of typing; and to Dirk Stratton, a graduate assistant, who has spent hours alone and in team work with Nancy in making my handwriting intelligible to typists, in checking quotes against sources, and in check- ing the numbers in cross-references, dates, and documentation. Barbara Ramsay-Strout deserves much credit for detailed work on the Index, and Steve Boardway for organizing the Chinese part of the Index. In addition lowe much to the faculty at large which, as with any univer- sity faculty, is likely to have someone who can be consulted with profit about almost anything in human history. And finally, we are all indebted to the remarkable editorial team in the Los Angeles office of the University of California Press which made our task less difficult.
In its final form Volume I has 4,772 numbered glosses and Volume II, 5,649 for a total of 10,421. Although I accept the responsibility for writing and testing the accuracy of all of them, the acknowledgments here and throughout the text of the Companion should indicate that the work is the product of dozens of Pound scholars, worldwide, done over a period of fifty years.
. )
CANTO LXXIV
Sources
Leo Frobenius and Douglas Fox, African Genesis, 1937, reissued by Benjamin Blom, New York, 1966; James Legge, The Four Books, Shanghai, 1923 [Legge]; the Bible; :'. 1_ E. Speare, The Pocket Book of Verse, 1940; Time, European edition; Stars and Stripes, editions of Paris and Mediterranean Theatre, May- October; Homer, Od. IX, II, XII, XI; Dante, Pur. X, Inf. XXVII, XXXII, XXXIII; Virgil, Aeneid I; Aristotle, Nicomachean
[Ethics] ;Lyra Graeca I; Oxford Book ofGreek Verse [OBGV]. Background
EP, SP, 320, 338-339, 314, 284; LE, 166; SR, 91, 101; GK, 58-59,34,81-83,229; CNTJ, 98-104; PE, 125-126; T, 427; PD, 42-50, 3-10; ABCR, 43-44; F. C. Burkitt, The Religion of the Manichees, Cambridge, 1925; Frances Frenaye, The Fall of Mussolini, His Own Story by Benito Mussolini, New York, 1945, a trans. of Una "Cicogna" sui gran Sasso by Ed. Mondadori, Milan, 1945; Sir Montagu Webb, India's Plight, Daily Gazette Press, Karachi, 1914; Douglas C. Fox, "Warkalemada Kolingi Yaoburrda," Townsman, vol. 2, no. 7, August, 1939; Michael King, "Ezra Pound at Pisa: An Interview with John L. Steele," Texas Quarterly, vol. XXI, no. 4, Winter; 1978; Achilles Fang, Ph. D. dissertation, Harvard Univ. , II, III, IV; Erich Maria Re- marque, All Quiet on the Western Front, 1929; E. Gilson, La Philosophie du Moyen Age, Paris, 1925; George Anthiel, Bad Boy of Music, New York, 1945; Villon, Testament; CFT, Basil Bunting: Man and Poet [Bunting]; Ford Madox Ford, Mightier than the Sword, London, 1938.
Exegeses
HK, Era, 458; DP, Pai, 9-2, 313-317; DG, Pai, 6-1,42; CFT, Pai, 3-1,98-100,93-94; HK, Pai, 1-1,83; Tay, Pai, 4-1, 53; Michaels, Pai, 1-1,37-54; CFT, Pai, 2-3, 458, 451; Hunting, Pai, 6-2,179; Surrette, Pai, 3-2, 204; Shuldiner, Pai, 4? 1, 73, 81; Moody, Pai, 4-1,6-57; Knox, Pai, 3-1, 71-83; EH, Pai, 2-2, 336; Hankins,Pai, 2-2, 337; Martin, Pai, 6-2, 167-173; Nasser, Pai, 1-2,207-211; GD, Pai, 8-2, 335-336; D'Epiro, Pai, 10-2, 297-301; Elliot, Pai, 8-1,59; BK,Pai, 10-2,307; DD, Ezra Pound, 78.
[It is known that Pound had very few books at Pisa: the Bible, The Four Books he had with him when arrested, The Pocket Book of Verse he found in the camp, a few copies of Time magazine that were passed around, perhaps a random newspaper at times, and a small number of unidentified books available in a
? 362
74/425
74/425-426
geography; not as you would find it if you had a geography book and a map, but as it would be in 'periplum,' that is, as a coasting sailor would find it" [ABCR, 43-44]. Here, the great periplum is the voyage of Helios.
13. Herakles: The pillars of Herakles [Her- cules] denote the cliffs on either side of the Strait of Gibraltar.
14. Lucifer: The planet Venus when it is the morning star. In its periplum it might appear from Pisa to be descending in the west over North Carolina. But, more important, Lucifer has serious occult significance to the group close to G. R. S. Mead that Pound knew in his early London years. Mead coedited, with Helene Blavatsky, a journal called Lucifer, which had an article on Plotinus [vol. 16, April 15, 1895] which may well have introduced Pound to the works of Thomas Taylor and reinforced his interest in all the Neoplatonic light philoso- phers [documents provided by WF] . Identi- fication has been controversial, however [cf. Pai, 9-2, 313; Pai, 8? 2, 335-336; Pai, 10? 2, 297-301].
15. N. Carolina: Line probably refers to a shower of meteorites that, according to a dramatic article in the Saturday Evening Post [Sept. 9, 1944, p. 12], fell on a band of states includingNC [Pearlman, Pai, 9? 2, 313? 317]. Pauthier in L 'Universe had written [as translated by David Gordon]: "All the meteors and phenomena which occur in the sky, like rain, wind, thunder; all the ele? ments which are attached to the earth like water, and fire, all these things concur with the volition of the sage or of the prince who has proposed to govern men in order to render all happy" [DG, Pai, 6-1,42].
16. scirocco: I, a hot, southeast, Mediter- ranean wind.
17. 01' TI1;: H, "No Man. " The name for himself that Odysseus uses to trick the Cyclops [Od. IX, 366].
18. wind: The Taoist way [cf. 9 above; also, CFT, Pai, 3-1, 98? 100].
363 19. sorella la luna: I, "sister moon": remi-
niscence of S1. Francis of Assisi's Canticle of the Creatures, line 11 [JW]. The moon is also part of the ideogram e}l [M 4534] , which Pound renders as: "The sun and moon, the total life process, the radiation, reception and reflection of light; hence the intelligence" [CON,20].
20. precise definition: Major element of the Confucian ethic. In "Terminology" Pound
collection in the quarters of the DTC cadre. Where Pound has used materials from memory (Homer. Dante, Virgil, etc. ), these works have been listed as sources even though he did not have them physically at hand. The books listed under "Background" might be increased to dozens. Since credit has been given in individual glosses, the list under "Exegeses" has been similarly restrained. ]
Glossary
1. tragedy . . . dream: Significant, as it re~ veals one social good Pound thought Fascism would accomplish. The dream may refer to Mussolini's promise in 1934 that every Italian peasant would have a house of his own in 80 years. Pound wrote, "I don't the least think he expects to take 80 years at it, but he is not given to overstatement" [JIM, ix].
2. Manes: ? 216? 276; Persian sage; founder of the Manicheans [23 :28] ; for his teaching he was condemned and crucified. "Mani's corpse, or his flayed skin stuffed with hay, was set up over one of the gates of the royal city" [Burkitt, 5; Fang, III, 90].
3. Ben: Benito Mussolini [41 :2].
4. la Clara a Milano: I, "and Clara at Milan. " Mussolini and his mistress, Claretta Petacci, after being summarily tried and shot with 16 others in a nearby village, were brought to Milan and at 3 A. M. April 27, 1945 were dumped in the Piazzale Loreto. A few hours later, the bodies of Mussolini and Claretta were hung by the feet from a scaffold.
The execution occurred before Pound sur- rendered himself and asked the partisans to take him to the nearest American head?
quarters.
5. maggots: Contemptuous label for "the Partisans," an anti-Mussolini political group. On April 30, the Committee of Liberation in N Italy took responsibility for the execu? tion. Mussolini is seen as the dead bullock sacrificed.
6. Digonos: H, "twice? born" [48:20]. In mythology, Dionysus was born twice. But there is no record of one who was Htwice-_
crucified," which Pound implies happened to M, who was first shot and then hanged.
7. Possum: T. S. Eliot. "The Hollow Men" begins, "We are the hollow men / We are the stuffed men" [cf. 2 above] and ends, "This is the way the world ends / Not with a bang but a whimper. "
8. Dioce: [Deioces]. The first great ruler of the Medes, who built the city of Ecbatana [4:32]. By being a fair judge, he won the hearts of the people who made him king, after which he built his visionary city. Pound likens Deloces' aspiration to create a paradisal city with what he perceived to be Mussolini's intentions.
9. process: The Taoist way, in which all life should blend and flow with the flow of nature [HK, Era, 458]. Pound associates a number of names and concepts here in a duster similar to one in Canto 4 [4:30, 31, 32,33].
10. Kiang: C, "river," the Yangtze [53 :98].
11. Han: The Han River, which flows through Shensi and Hupeh provinces and into the Yangtze River at Hankow. After Confucius's death some of his disciples wanted to render to Yu Jo (who resembled the Master) the same observances they had rendered to Confucius. But one of the disciples, Tseng, said: "This may not be done, What has been washed in the waters of Keang and Han, and bleached in the autumn sun:-how glistening is it! Nothing can be added to it" [Legge, 635].
12. "the great periplum": Pound said that the geography of the Odyssey "is correct
describes ~l
"the precise definition of the word" [CON, 20].
[M 381] as "Sincerity" or
Malatesta, 1417? 1468, soldier and patron of the arts
[8:5].
22. Duccio: Agostino di D. , 1418? c. 1481, Florentine sculptor who executed most of the marble ornaments of the chapels in the Tempio [20: 16]. To be distinguished from the painter Duccio Di Buoninsegna [45:8].
23. Zuan Bellin: Giovanni Bellini [25:59], Italian painter who, like Duccio, transmitted a tradition by precise definition in his art.
24. trastevere: I, "Trans-Tiber," a district in Rome across the river from the main city.
25. La Sposa: I, "the Bride" [the church].
26. Sponsa Cristi: L, "the Bride of Christ. "
27. in mosaic: In A Visiting Card [Rome, 1942, in Italian] Pound wrote: "And the mosaics in Santa Maria in Trastevere recall a wisdom lost by scholasticism, an understand-
ing denied to Aquinas" [SP,320].
28. snotty barbarian: Pound used this
pungent phrase to refer to F. D. Roosevelt.
29. T'ang: The 13th Dynasty, 618? 907. Pound wrote: "From the day when the Tang Emperors began to issue their state notes . . . the use of gold in the manufacture of money was no longer necessary . . . " [SP, 316].
30. Charlie Sung: Tzu-wen Sung or T. V. Soong became premier of China in 1945. Member of the prominent Soong family. His
21. Sigismundo:
S. Pandolfo
? ? 364
father, Charles Jones Soong, was a Methodist
missionary in Shanghai and made his fortune as a Bible manufacturer and salesman. Chiang Kai-shek resigned his post as premier and appointed Soong, his brother-in-law, in his place. Time [June 11,1945, p. 34] said: "The appointment of U. S. educated T. V. Soong, who more than any other Chinese has in the past showed a grasp of Western methods, men and purposes, could scarcely
fail to please the U. S. and simplify the task
of Chiang's U. S. advisers . . ' ," Pound's reference may be either to the father or the son, one of whom he must have heard, perhaps during his 1939 visit to the U. S. , was trying to negotiate a loan.
31. anonimo: I, "anonymous. "
74/426 33. Oh my England . . . : Restatement of
recurrent theme: "Free speech without freedom of radio is a mere goldfish in a bowl" [Townsman, vol. J1I, no. II, June 1940].
34. Stalin: Joseph Vissarionovich Dzhu- gashvili, 1879-1953, Russian statesman and
o f
35. R. C. : Roman Catholic. A sixteen-page,
cheaply printed summary of major elements
of the Catholic missal used during mass. It was prepared by the Paulist fathers and distributed to all Catholic soldiers who showed up for religious services. Pound kept his copy and drew in the margin next to some of the Latin phrases Chinese characters taken from Legge which were evoked by the missal. The "field book" line reflects the traditional injunction against work on Sunday. The line derives from the "prepara- tion before confession. " A copy of the chaplain's handbook, one of the few books Pound found at the DTC, was examined at Brunnenburg by Hugh Kenner, the source of these details.
36. im Westen nichts neues: G, "Nothing
new in the west": title of novel by Erich
Maria Remarque translated into English as
All Quiet on the Western Front, 1929.
37. "of sapphire . . . sleep": Dante's idea of
this gem is given in a Pound translation: "The sweet color o f oriental sapphire which was gathering on the serene aspect of the pure air even to the first circle, / to mine eyes restored delight" [SR, 137; Nassar, Pai, 1-2, 207-211]. In later lines Dante evokes the idea of a paradisal blue in the sky into which he will rise to come as near as possible to the vision of Beatrice. In "The Flame" he saw in "Sapphire Benacus" (Lake Garda) "Nature herself's turned metaphysical, / Who can look on that blue and not believe? "
[P, 64]. In "Phanopoeia" he connected
74/426-427
"bedposts" and sexual imagery to this gem:
"The swirling sphere has opened / and you are caught up to the skies, / You are en- globed in my sapphire" [P, 179]. The
365
would not have been able to devote himself properly to the important things of life: conversation, dancing, hunting and warfare"
[Townsman, vol. 2, no. 7, August, 1939]. 43. Ouan Jin: C, Wen-Jen [M 7129,3097],
"Man o f Letters; Writer. "
44. Frobenius: Leo F. [38:45]. F. died at Biganzolo, Lago Maggiore, 9 August 1938, but his students carried on his work [Fang, IV, 32].
45. in principio . . . sinceritas: L, "In the
beginning was the Word / the Holy Ghost or the perfect Word: sincerity" [John 1. 1].
46. Mt. Taishan: [Tai or T'ai Shan]. A
sacred mountain of China in W Shantung Province, 32 miles S of Tsinan; there are many shrines on the road to the top, on which stand the temples. A mountain Pound could see from the DTC reminded him of Taishan.
47. Pisa: Tuscan city in Italy noted for its towers. Location of the DTC.
48. Fujiyama: Sacred mountain in Honshu,
Japan.
49. Gardone: Gardone Riviera, a town on Lake Garda in Brescia Province, N Italy, where Mussolini set up the Sal6 Republic after the fall of his government in Rome.
SO. Villa Catullo: The villa on Lake Garda, Italy, where Catullus lived for a time; it was here that he wrote his salutation to the promontory of Sirmio.
51. poluphloisboios: H, "loud-roarings. " Pound said that this often used Homeric kenning has "the magnificent onomatopeia, as of the rush of the waves on the sea-beach and their recession . . . " [LE, 250]. A subject rhyme of Iliad priest walking by sea and Pound walking by Lake Garda [HK].
52. Nicoletti: Giachino N. , prefect at Gar- done. Nicoletti was the go-between ofM and the socialists when he was trying to give Fascism a socialist coloring during the time of the Sal6 Republic.
. . . gold standard: As
32. India
of the exchequer, Churchill returned to the gold standard in 1925 and created a severe depression not only at home but throughout the empire, particularly in India. The phrase "18 per hundred" concerns the relation of the Indian rupee to the English shilling. The government had set the rate at Is. 6d. (18 d. ) which depressed the currency in India. A number o f economists protested. Sir Montague Webb [India's Plight, passim] proposed "that the rupee be derated to some figure less than 18d. (ls. 6d. ) and India revert to silver" [Fang, III, 38]. Webb also wrote [po 8]: "The gross distortion of the purchasing price of the rupee . . . compels
the agriculturalist to give to the Tax Collec-
tor, the local money lender, and other
creditors twice as much of the produce of his fields as he gave five years ago to meet exactly the same amount of Land Revenue, Interest, and other demands! " In Gold and Work Pound wrote: "For every debt in- curred when a bushel of grain is worth a certain sum of money, repayment is de- manded when it requires five bushels or more to raise the same sum . . . . By return-
ing to gold, Mr. Churchill forced the Indian
peasant to pay two bushels of grain in taxes and interest which a short time before he had been able to pay with only one . . . . C. H. Douglas, Arthur Kitson, Sir Montague Webb give the details" [SP,338-339].
chancellor
Communist
Leninism is that "the workers should own the means of production. " Pound thought that if he could talk to Stalin for 20 min- utes, he could explain that all he had to do was control the money and he would solve the problems.
leader. Primary tenet
Marx-
stone sleep [76:145].
theme derives from Prester John
. .
Extended glosses have sometimes been written for other reasons. For "DROIT FAIT" [108:7], I might have written, "part of traditional formula by which English monarchs made acts of parliament legal. " That is true enough. But behind this "gist" or "pith" or "luminous detail" lies one of the most dramatic moments in English history. In the days before the mo- ment arrived, a hundred strong men had literally been reduced to tears. Although space did not allow the development of very many such moments, the reader can be assured that behind many a phrase and the brief gloss given for it there lies a dramatic story of great religious, historical, economic, and ethical interest: in The Cantos all four are always at issue, a sort
of rhyme with the Four Tuan, a recurrent theme in the poem.
Most of the time Pound acts only as a recorder, putting down what the hundreds of charac-
ters in the poem actually did and said. He believes that professional historians have mythified and falsified the past. Thus he goes always to the original records and documents. If the fact exists, he will find it. During the St. E. 's years he had a team of people hunting down data at the Library of Congress. Their research was pointed, never random. They went anned with precise directions such as, "I want to know exactly what Benton said about the motion to clear the United States Senate, after passage of the motion to expunge, and exactly the hour of the night he said it" [89:258] !
Pound did his best to obtain the best authority available and never falsifies the records. But sometimes his use of the record is biased. This aspect of the poem is perhaps expressed best with his attitude toward Disraeli and the Rothschilds. The events Pound refers to in the poem are well documented. But one would have to be passionately anti-British not to believe that both Disraeli and the Rothschilds acted brilliantly, with loyalty to the crown, and in good faith
[86:56,61].
The whole poem is colored by Pound's passionately held beliefs: in fact much of its power
and intensity derive from this very passion which becomes the power in the shape of the poetic line and the great harmonic rhythms of the poem as a whole. But otherwise, Pound intruded personally into the text only a few times: e. g. , at 24/112; 62/350; 76/458 with such words as "ego scriptor" [76:129]. His intent in such intrusion is to remind the reader that the poem is being written by a living person, a responsible "I" with a name and address [78:48]; by one who was there and can testify, or can remember; or to suggest that the kind of thing that went on at some critical moment in the past is still going on [103:46]. For similar reasons, I have intruded into the text of the Companion several times to show that the glosses are written by a living person, who expects to be responsible for what is said and done, or to spell out an irony that might otherwise be missed [97:153; 113:30].
"
II
A great deal of the work on the glosses for the later cantos was done between 1972 and 1975. In 1972, I started collecting materials for an alphabetical supplement to the old Index to cover Cantos 85-120. A part of the work was farmed out to various experts. James Wilhelm completed cards for all the Italian and Provenryal materials. Latin source materials were divided between James D. Neault who did the first half of the text and John Espey who did much of the last half. To these people, I am much indebted. But in June of 1975, when the decision to do the Companion, canto by canto from the beginning, was made that work was put aside. Considerations of space (my firm belief that the Companion should not exceed the length of the poem) made it necessary to reduce a lot of their early work, especially quotes from the original languages, to much briefer forms.
The numerous scholars who have done exegetical work on The Cantos in Paideuma and other journals have been given credit in individual glosses and the headnotes for each canto. But three people must be mentioned in particular. Although quite a lot of the work on the Chinese sources of Rock-Drill had been done by 1975, Thomas Grieve's thesis [Pai, 2 & 3, 361-508] became very helpful: his work saved much space in locating exact sources and reduced the need for continuous documentation. Special credit too should be given to Charles Watts whose thesis on the sources of Cantos 88 and 89 saved much time. But most of all I am indebted to David Gordon who has been a helper and an adviser in numerous ways. His work on The Sacred Edict cantos (98-99) has been a sine qua non. Especially for the Companion, he spent time at the Beinecke studying Pound's annotations of the Wen-Ii text and prepared a 185-page manuscript recording his discoveries which will be published as soon as possible. Almost all the glosses of Canto 99 are based on this work. Also the study he did on the Coke Cantos [Pai, 4-2 & 3, 223-229] was a great help. Other people who knew Pound at St. E's have also been helpful. The notes provided by Reno Odlin, William French, or Sheri Martinelli have been recognized by their initials in brackets: RO, WF, or SM. Mary de Rachewiltz, Marcella Spann Booth, and Hugh Kenner read the manuscripts for the Pisan Cantos and Rock-Drill. Mary de R. caught several errors because of her firsthand knowledge of the Italian scene; for example, I had glossed Vecchia [76/452] as "I, old lady. " Mary could say that "the old road under St. Pantaleo at St. Ambrogio is meant. " And so on. With the notes of Marcella Booth I've used two proce"dures. During Pound's last year at St. E's, she asked him numerous questions about the cantos through Rock-Drill which were in print at that time. Some times she copied into the margin of her text exactly what he said in quotes. Sometimes, she summarized what he said in her own words or by writing a brief cue. In the Companion, I've preserved this distinction. At the end of my gloss I've inserted her comments after the initials MSB either in quotes [74:176] or without
[74: 197]. Similarly Hugh Kenner could make a number of corrections or additions to the text based on notes he obtained from Pound directly or on his detailed knowledge of the text. His additions are discriminated as coming from Pound himself or his own knowledge, and accompanied by the initials: H. K. Then there is Colin McDowell of Victoria, Australia, who in 1982 dropped by and was immediately put to work checking manuscripts for Thrones, a section of the poem he had been working on for some years. He made several valuable contri- butions. Several additional abbreviations should be added to the list of authors frequently cited: M de R, for Mary de Rachewiltz; OP, for Om" Pound; WF, for William French; MB, for Massimo Bacigalupo; MSB, for Marcella Spann Booth; HM, for Harry Meacham; and EM, for Eustace Mullins.
New abbreviations should also be added to the list of languages: A, Arabic; Af, African dialect; D, Danish; NF, Norman French; OG, Old German; Per, Persian; Pg, Portuguese and Skt, Sanskrit. In translating names from Arabic, western authorities disagree on forms. Except for
? x Preface
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361
quotes from sources, I use Mohammed as standard for the Prophet. But for Abd-el-Melik, there is no clear preference established by custom. Thus, where Pound's major source uses Abd-l-melik as in Canto 96, I use that form, but when the source uses Abd-el-melik as in Cimto 97, I do, too. Finally, three abbreviations should be added to the table of Standard Reference Works: CE, Colombia Encyclopedia; OCM, Oxford Companion to Music; HMS, History ofMonetary Systems; and L&S, Liddell and Scott's, Greek-English Lexicon.
III
The Companion is conceived to be a logical and necessary step on the way to a variorum edition of The Cantos. But much work remains to be done before that task can be started. First the text of both volumes of the Companion must be tested, corrected, and authenticated by the scholars who use it. Then revisions must be made, making use of new scholarly work that can be expected to appear continuously. In time, a deficiency of the present texts can, I hope, be resolved. Some of the infonnation in the glosses I had gathered for my own use over the years. Those notes do not always tell who first made important discoveries. It would be most helpful if any scholars whose work has not been recognized would send me documentary information so that future editions can give them appropriate acknowledgment.
Other acknowledgments I can now make with great pleasure. I am much indebted to the National Endowment for the Humanities for a grant that gave me two-thirds released time from teaching for three semesters and provided other support during that time. Without that assist- ance, the preparation of Volume Two would certainly have taken several additional years. And along with all Pound scholars, lowe many thanks to Donald Gallup of the Beinecke Library at Yale and to those who preside over the Pound archives there.
Administrative officers of the University of Maine at Orono have given me continued sup- port over a number of years, Presidents Howard Neville and Paul Silverman, Vice Presidents Frederick Hutchinson and Kenneth Allen, Deans Gordon Haaland and Karl Webb in particular, as have Professors Joseph Brogunier, and Burton Hatlen of the English Department. The whole staff of the Folger Library at Orono have been most helpful, but I want to thank in particular Charlotte Huntley, Thomas Patterson, and Margaret Menchen of the Reference Department and Carol Curtis and Dorothy Hutchins of Interlibrary Loan_ The work could never have reached its present state of completeness without them.
To my own office staff and assistants I am most indebted. To Nancy Nolde, my main research and administrative assistant, who since 1975 has kept all the dozens of parts of the project in order; to Marilyn Emerick who has done a yoeman's amount of typing; and to Dirk Stratton, a graduate assistant, who has spent hours alone and in team work with Nancy in making my handwriting intelligible to typists, in checking quotes against sources, and in check- ing the numbers in cross-references, dates, and documentation. Barbara Ramsay-Strout deserves much credit for detailed work on the Index, and Steve Boardway for organizing the Chinese part of the Index. In addition lowe much to the faculty at large which, as with any univer- sity faculty, is likely to have someone who can be consulted with profit about almost anything in human history. And finally, we are all indebted to the remarkable editorial team in the Los Angeles office of the University of California Press which made our task less difficult.
In its final form Volume I has 4,772 numbered glosses and Volume II, 5,649 for a total of 10,421. Although I accept the responsibility for writing and testing the accuracy of all of them, the acknowledgments here and throughout the text of the Companion should indicate that the work is the product of dozens of Pound scholars, worldwide, done over a period of fifty years.
. )
CANTO LXXIV
Sources
Leo Frobenius and Douglas Fox, African Genesis, 1937, reissued by Benjamin Blom, New York, 1966; James Legge, The Four Books, Shanghai, 1923 [Legge]; the Bible; :'. 1_ E. Speare, The Pocket Book of Verse, 1940; Time, European edition; Stars and Stripes, editions of Paris and Mediterranean Theatre, May- October; Homer, Od. IX, II, XII, XI; Dante, Pur. X, Inf. XXVII, XXXII, XXXIII; Virgil, Aeneid I; Aristotle, Nicomachean
[Ethics] ;Lyra Graeca I; Oxford Book ofGreek Verse [OBGV]. Background
EP, SP, 320, 338-339, 314, 284; LE, 166; SR, 91, 101; GK, 58-59,34,81-83,229; CNTJ, 98-104; PE, 125-126; T, 427; PD, 42-50, 3-10; ABCR, 43-44; F. C. Burkitt, The Religion of the Manichees, Cambridge, 1925; Frances Frenaye, The Fall of Mussolini, His Own Story by Benito Mussolini, New York, 1945, a trans. of Una "Cicogna" sui gran Sasso by Ed. Mondadori, Milan, 1945; Sir Montagu Webb, India's Plight, Daily Gazette Press, Karachi, 1914; Douglas C. Fox, "Warkalemada Kolingi Yaoburrda," Townsman, vol. 2, no. 7, August, 1939; Michael King, "Ezra Pound at Pisa: An Interview with John L. Steele," Texas Quarterly, vol. XXI, no. 4, Winter; 1978; Achilles Fang, Ph. D. dissertation, Harvard Univ. , II, III, IV; Erich Maria Re- marque, All Quiet on the Western Front, 1929; E. Gilson, La Philosophie du Moyen Age, Paris, 1925; George Anthiel, Bad Boy of Music, New York, 1945; Villon, Testament; CFT, Basil Bunting: Man and Poet [Bunting]; Ford Madox Ford, Mightier than the Sword, London, 1938.
Exegeses
HK, Era, 458; DP, Pai, 9-2, 313-317; DG, Pai, 6-1,42; CFT, Pai, 3-1,98-100,93-94; HK, Pai, 1-1,83; Tay, Pai, 4-1, 53; Michaels, Pai, 1-1,37-54; CFT, Pai, 2-3, 458, 451; Hunting, Pai, 6-2,179; Surrette, Pai, 3-2, 204; Shuldiner, Pai, 4? 1, 73, 81; Moody, Pai, 4-1,6-57; Knox, Pai, 3-1, 71-83; EH, Pai, 2-2, 336; Hankins,Pai, 2-2, 337; Martin, Pai, 6-2, 167-173; Nasser, Pai, 1-2,207-211; GD, Pai, 8-2, 335-336; D'Epiro, Pai, 10-2, 297-301; Elliot, Pai, 8-1,59; BK,Pai, 10-2,307; DD, Ezra Pound, 78.
[It is known that Pound had very few books at Pisa: the Bible, The Four Books he had with him when arrested, The Pocket Book of Verse he found in the camp, a few copies of Time magazine that were passed around, perhaps a random newspaper at times, and a small number of unidentified books available in a
? 362
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geography; not as you would find it if you had a geography book and a map, but as it would be in 'periplum,' that is, as a coasting sailor would find it" [ABCR, 43-44]. Here, the great periplum is the voyage of Helios.
13. Herakles: The pillars of Herakles [Her- cules] denote the cliffs on either side of the Strait of Gibraltar.
14. Lucifer: The planet Venus when it is the morning star. In its periplum it might appear from Pisa to be descending in the west over North Carolina. But, more important, Lucifer has serious occult significance to the group close to G. R. S. Mead that Pound knew in his early London years. Mead coedited, with Helene Blavatsky, a journal called Lucifer, which had an article on Plotinus [vol. 16, April 15, 1895] which may well have introduced Pound to the works of Thomas Taylor and reinforced his interest in all the Neoplatonic light philoso- phers [documents provided by WF] . Identi- fication has been controversial, however [cf. Pai, 9-2, 313; Pai, 8? 2, 335-336; Pai, 10? 2, 297-301].
15. N. Carolina: Line probably refers to a shower of meteorites that, according to a dramatic article in the Saturday Evening Post [Sept. 9, 1944, p. 12], fell on a band of states includingNC [Pearlman, Pai, 9? 2, 313? 317]. Pauthier in L 'Universe had written [as translated by David Gordon]: "All the meteors and phenomena which occur in the sky, like rain, wind, thunder; all the ele? ments which are attached to the earth like water, and fire, all these things concur with the volition of the sage or of the prince who has proposed to govern men in order to render all happy" [DG, Pai, 6-1,42].
16. scirocco: I, a hot, southeast, Mediter- ranean wind.
17. 01' TI1;: H, "No Man. " The name for himself that Odysseus uses to trick the Cyclops [Od. IX, 366].
18. wind: The Taoist way [cf. 9 above; also, CFT, Pai, 3-1, 98? 100].
363 19. sorella la luna: I, "sister moon": remi-
niscence of S1. Francis of Assisi's Canticle of the Creatures, line 11 [JW]. The moon is also part of the ideogram e}l [M 4534] , which Pound renders as: "The sun and moon, the total life process, the radiation, reception and reflection of light; hence the intelligence" [CON,20].
20. precise definition: Major element of the Confucian ethic. In "Terminology" Pound
collection in the quarters of the DTC cadre. Where Pound has used materials from memory (Homer. Dante, Virgil, etc. ), these works have been listed as sources even though he did not have them physically at hand. The books listed under "Background" might be increased to dozens. Since credit has been given in individual glosses, the list under "Exegeses" has been similarly restrained. ]
Glossary
1. tragedy . . . dream: Significant, as it re~ veals one social good Pound thought Fascism would accomplish. The dream may refer to Mussolini's promise in 1934 that every Italian peasant would have a house of his own in 80 years. Pound wrote, "I don't the least think he expects to take 80 years at it, but he is not given to overstatement" [JIM, ix].
2. Manes: ? 216? 276; Persian sage; founder of the Manicheans [23 :28] ; for his teaching he was condemned and crucified. "Mani's corpse, or his flayed skin stuffed with hay, was set up over one of the gates of the royal city" [Burkitt, 5; Fang, III, 90].
3. Ben: Benito Mussolini [41 :2].
4. la Clara a Milano: I, "and Clara at Milan. " Mussolini and his mistress, Claretta Petacci, after being summarily tried and shot with 16 others in a nearby village, were brought to Milan and at 3 A. M. April 27, 1945 were dumped in the Piazzale Loreto. A few hours later, the bodies of Mussolini and Claretta were hung by the feet from a scaffold.
The execution occurred before Pound sur- rendered himself and asked the partisans to take him to the nearest American head?
quarters.
5. maggots: Contemptuous label for "the Partisans," an anti-Mussolini political group. On April 30, the Committee of Liberation in N Italy took responsibility for the execu? tion. Mussolini is seen as the dead bullock sacrificed.
6. Digonos: H, "twice? born" [48:20]. In mythology, Dionysus was born twice. But there is no record of one who was Htwice-_
crucified," which Pound implies happened to M, who was first shot and then hanged.
7. Possum: T. S. Eliot. "The Hollow Men" begins, "We are the hollow men / We are the stuffed men" [cf. 2 above] and ends, "This is the way the world ends / Not with a bang but a whimper. "
8. Dioce: [Deioces]. The first great ruler of the Medes, who built the city of Ecbatana [4:32]. By being a fair judge, he won the hearts of the people who made him king, after which he built his visionary city. Pound likens Deloces' aspiration to create a paradisal city with what he perceived to be Mussolini's intentions.
9. process: The Taoist way, in which all life should blend and flow with the flow of nature [HK, Era, 458]. Pound associates a number of names and concepts here in a duster similar to one in Canto 4 [4:30, 31, 32,33].
10. Kiang: C, "river," the Yangtze [53 :98].
11. Han: The Han River, which flows through Shensi and Hupeh provinces and into the Yangtze River at Hankow. After Confucius's death some of his disciples wanted to render to Yu Jo (who resembled the Master) the same observances they had rendered to Confucius. But one of the disciples, Tseng, said: "This may not be done, What has been washed in the waters of Keang and Han, and bleached in the autumn sun:-how glistening is it! Nothing can be added to it" [Legge, 635].
12. "the great periplum": Pound said that the geography of the Odyssey "is correct
describes ~l
"the precise definition of the word" [CON, 20].
[M 381] as "Sincerity" or
Malatesta, 1417? 1468, soldier and patron of the arts
[8:5].
22. Duccio: Agostino di D. , 1418? c. 1481, Florentine sculptor who executed most of the marble ornaments of the chapels in the Tempio [20: 16]. To be distinguished from the painter Duccio Di Buoninsegna [45:8].
23. Zuan Bellin: Giovanni Bellini [25:59], Italian painter who, like Duccio, transmitted a tradition by precise definition in his art.
24. trastevere: I, "Trans-Tiber," a district in Rome across the river from the main city.
25. La Sposa: I, "the Bride" [the church].
26. Sponsa Cristi: L, "the Bride of Christ. "
27. in mosaic: In A Visiting Card [Rome, 1942, in Italian] Pound wrote: "And the mosaics in Santa Maria in Trastevere recall a wisdom lost by scholasticism, an understand-
ing denied to Aquinas" [SP,320].
28. snotty barbarian: Pound used this
pungent phrase to refer to F. D. Roosevelt.
29. T'ang: The 13th Dynasty, 618? 907. Pound wrote: "From the day when the Tang Emperors began to issue their state notes . . . the use of gold in the manufacture of money was no longer necessary . . . " [SP, 316].
30. Charlie Sung: Tzu-wen Sung or T. V. Soong became premier of China in 1945. Member of the prominent Soong family. His
21. Sigismundo:
S. Pandolfo
? ? 364
father, Charles Jones Soong, was a Methodist
missionary in Shanghai and made his fortune as a Bible manufacturer and salesman. Chiang Kai-shek resigned his post as premier and appointed Soong, his brother-in-law, in his place. Time [June 11,1945, p. 34] said: "The appointment of U. S. educated T. V. Soong, who more than any other Chinese has in the past showed a grasp of Western methods, men and purposes, could scarcely
fail to please the U. S. and simplify the task
of Chiang's U. S. advisers . . ' ," Pound's reference may be either to the father or the son, one of whom he must have heard, perhaps during his 1939 visit to the U. S. , was trying to negotiate a loan.
31. anonimo: I, "anonymous. "
74/426 33. Oh my England . . . : Restatement of
recurrent theme: "Free speech without freedom of radio is a mere goldfish in a bowl" [Townsman, vol. J1I, no. II, June 1940].
34. Stalin: Joseph Vissarionovich Dzhu- gashvili, 1879-1953, Russian statesman and
o f
35. R. C. : Roman Catholic. A sixteen-page,
cheaply printed summary of major elements
of the Catholic missal used during mass. It was prepared by the Paulist fathers and distributed to all Catholic soldiers who showed up for religious services. Pound kept his copy and drew in the margin next to some of the Latin phrases Chinese characters taken from Legge which were evoked by the missal. The "field book" line reflects the traditional injunction against work on Sunday. The line derives from the "prepara- tion before confession. " A copy of the chaplain's handbook, one of the few books Pound found at the DTC, was examined at Brunnenburg by Hugh Kenner, the source of these details.
36. im Westen nichts neues: G, "Nothing
new in the west": title of novel by Erich
Maria Remarque translated into English as
All Quiet on the Western Front, 1929.
37. "of sapphire . . . sleep": Dante's idea of
this gem is given in a Pound translation: "The sweet color o f oriental sapphire which was gathering on the serene aspect of the pure air even to the first circle, / to mine eyes restored delight" [SR, 137; Nassar, Pai, 1-2, 207-211]. In later lines Dante evokes the idea of a paradisal blue in the sky into which he will rise to come as near as possible to the vision of Beatrice. In "The Flame" he saw in "Sapphire Benacus" (Lake Garda) "Nature herself's turned metaphysical, / Who can look on that blue and not believe? "
[P, 64]. In "Phanopoeia" he connected
74/426-427
"bedposts" and sexual imagery to this gem:
"The swirling sphere has opened / and you are caught up to the skies, / You are en- globed in my sapphire" [P, 179]. The
365
would not have been able to devote himself properly to the important things of life: conversation, dancing, hunting and warfare"
[Townsman, vol. 2, no. 7, August, 1939]. 43. Ouan Jin: C, Wen-Jen [M 7129,3097],
"Man o f Letters; Writer. "
44. Frobenius: Leo F. [38:45]. F. died at Biganzolo, Lago Maggiore, 9 August 1938, but his students carried on his work [Fang, IV, 32].
45. in principio . . . sinceritas: L, "In the
beginning was the Word / the Holy Ghost or the perfect Word: sincerity" [John 1. 1].
46. Mt. Taishan: [Tai or T'ai Shan]. A
sacred mountain of China in W Shantung Province, 32 miles S of Tsinan; there are many shrines on the road to the top, on which stand the temples. A mountain Pound could see from the DTC reminded him of Taishan.
47. Pisa: Tuscan city in Italy noted for its towers. Location of the DTC.
48. Fujiyama: Sacred mountain in Honshu,
Japan.
49. Gardone: Gardone Riviera, a town on Lake Garda in Brescia Province, N Italy, where Mussolini set up the Sal6 Republic after the fall of his government in Rome.
SO. Villa Catullo: The villa on Lake Garda, Italy, where Catullus lived for a time; it was here that he wrote his salutation to the promontory of Sirmio.
51. poluphloisboios: H, "loud-roarings. " Pound said that this often used Homeric kenning has "the magnificent onomatopeia, as of the rush of the waves on the sea-beach and their recession . . . " [LE, 250]. A subject rhyme of Iliad priest walking by sea and Pound walking by Lake Garda [HK].
52. Nicoletti: Giachino N. , prefect at Gar- done. Nicoletti was the go-between ofM and the socialists when he was trying to give Fascism a socialist coloring during the time of the Sal6 Republic.
. . . gold standard: As
32. India
of the exchequer, Churchill returned to the gold standard in 1925 and created a severe depression not only at home but throughout the empire, particularly in India. The phrase "18 per hundred" concerns the relation of the Indian rupee to the English shilling. The government had set the rate at Is. 6d. (18 d. ) which depressed the currency in India. A number o f economists protested. Sir Montague Webb [India's Plight, passim] proposed "that the rupee be derated to some figure less than 18d. (ls. 6d. ) and India revert to silver" [Fang, III, 38]. Webb also wrote [po 8]: "The gross distortion of the purchasing price of the rupee . . . compels
the agriculturalist to give to the Tax Collec-
tor, the local money lender, and other
creditors twice as much of the produce of his fields as he gave five years ago to meet exactly the same amount of Land Revenue, Interest, and other demands! " In Gold and Work Pound wrote: "For every debt in- curred when a bushel of grain is worth a certain sum of money, repayment is de- manded when it requires five bushels or more to raise the same sum . . . . By return-
ing to gold, Mr. Churchill forced the Indian
peasant to pay two bushels of grain in taxes and interest which a short time before he had been able to pay with only one . . . . C. H. Douglas, Arthur Kitson, Sir Montague Webb give the details" [SP,338-339].
chancellor
Communist
Leninism is that "the workers should own the means of production. " Pound thought that if he could talk to Stalin for 20 min- utes, he could explain that all he had to do was control the money and he would solve the problems.
leader. Primary tenet
Marx-
stone sleep [76:145].
theme derives from Prester John
. .
