) This passage
is critical as it concerns the early stage of the dissolution of the Eastern Empire.
is critical as it concerns the early stage of the dissolution of the Eastern Empire.
A-Companion-to-the-Cantos-of-Ezra-Pound-II
.
: L, "the
praise of
? ? ? ? ? 600
96/656-657
96/657
601
used to describe the result of Mauricius's dictatorial rule which led to his being deposed.
125. Fortuna: [86:93; for "pervanche" cf. 97: 188].
126. CHEN4: [M315], "to tremble. "
127. e che pennutasse: I, "and who has
changed entirely" [In/. VII, 79]. Part of the answer to a question: "Master . . . this for- tune which you touch on here, what is it, that has the goods of the world so in its clutches? " Virgil's answer is about the change of the good things of the world, under Fortune, from one person to another.
128. Dei Matris: L, "of the Mother of God. "
129. HERACLJUS: H. I, ca. 575-641, By- zantine emperor (610-641), the son of an African governor. H. succeeded the tyrant Phocas after he deposed and executed him. He was threatened on all sides by Avars and Bulgars. He lost Syria, Palestine, and Egypt to the Persians in his early years but con~ quered them back in costly wars (622-628)-then lost them to the Moslem Arabs (629-641). Pound's date (602) comes from the "Mixed History," which is wrong. H. assumed power by coming to the city on castellated ships (navibus castellatis) that bore images of the Mother of God [Migne, 1023].
130. imperator , . . sponsus: L, "both com- mander and bridegroom. "
131. reip's business, . . : Pound's rendition of "invenit dissoluta reip negotia" ("found the republic's business gone to pieces").
132. Avars . . . desert: [Cf. 61 above]. Trans. of "Europam Avares reddidere desertam" [Migne, 1024].
133. Persians . . . Asia: Trans. of "Asiam vera totam Persae exterrninaverunt" [ibid. ].
134. Chosroes: King Chosdroes II. This Per- sian king answered a message from Emperor Heraclius with these words: "I won't spare
you until you deny the crucified one, whom you profess to be God, and adore the Sun" [Migne, 1025]. Heraclius could not stand this, so in order to defeat King Chosdroes he melted down candles and sacred vessels to get gold and silver coins. In a footnote the coins are called by their Greek names [Migne, 1026], given in the next line of the
text.
135. VOj. l{U/lCt:. TCt K{h /lLf. . . Lexpiaul: H, "current coins and silver coins. " The last word is not in Liddell-Scott. The closest form is /. uALapwv, which means a copper vessel to boil water in.
136. nummos . . . : L, "gold and silver coins" [Migne, 1026].
137. eiI<. OvD<;: H, "sacred image. " Heraclius swears on an icon shaped like "the virile figure of God" that he will fight Chosdroes to the death [Migne, 1026].
138. Justinian: [Cf. 12 above]. 139. Tiberius: [Cf. 106 above]. 140. Mauricius: [Cf. 114 above].
141. Phocae: Emperor of Byzantium, 595- 610. His tyrannical regime led to his over- throw and execution.
142. Heraclius: So ends this historical re- view and summary. H. is a transitional figure.
143. Deutschland unter: G, "Germany un- der. " The phrase takes off from "Deutsch- land tiber alles. "
144. Dulles: John Foster D. , 1888-1959, U. S. secretary o f state, 1953-1959. While this canto was being written, he was much in the news with foreign policy formulations called "brinkmanship" and with the doctrine of "massive retaliation. " In that post-WWII decade Dulles could almost dictate the for- eign policy of the European nations that confronted the communist nations behind the iron curtain. Gennany was a key to that policy, and a center of effort, after the con- struction of the Berlin Wall. On Jan. 22,
1954 Dulles arrived at the Berlin Conference with hopes of advancing the cause of the reunification of Germany. Over the years he promoted the "Baghdad Pact," a mutual de- fense alliance formed in 1955 between Tur- key, Pakistan, and Iraq as a part of the bipartisan policy of communist con- tainment.
145. over Euphrates: After the enemy burned a hemp bridge over the Euphrates River, Heraclius created a bridge by lashing a number of boats together [Migne, 1032].
146. Sebastia: An ancient name of Sivas, a city in central Turkey. While Heraclius passed the winter there, Chosdroes ruthlessly ransacked churches and robbed private citi- zens to build an elite army called the Golden Spears [JW, Later, 116]. He also tried to enlist the aid of a number of other enemies of the empire in the north, the Bulgars, Gespids, and "Hunnos," as well as the Turks, to move against the city called "Fu Lin"
[Migne, 1033] .
147. XpvaoAOXcic;: H, "Golden Spears. "
148. quatenus Hunnos: L, "as far as the Hunnos. "
149. Fu Lin: Chinese phrase for prefect's city: Constantinople.
150. Turcos . . . vocant: L, "Turks who are called Cazars. "
151. superlaudabilis: L, with the "ultra praiseworthy" help of "God's Mother," a great hailstorm fell upon Chosdroes's army killing many of them, so that Heraclius's army won [Migne, 1036].
152. populus . . . glorificantes: L, "the peo- ple feasted sumptuously, glorifying God"
[ibid. ] .
153. zinziber: L, "ginger. "
154. tigrides . . . : L, "tigers of amazing hugeness. " After their victory the Byzan- tines pushed on to Damastager and found Chosdroes's great palace there deserted. They found spices such as those mentioned
and saw huge tigers, antelopes, and other beasts [Migne, 1037].
155. in sky . . . power: At the moment of final victory a warning came: a giant sword- like image, stretched in the sky from Mesem- bra to the star of Arcturus, predicted the Arabs were in the ascendant and would soon occupy all the Middle East [Migne, 1045].
156. Constans: Emperor, 642-668, the son and successor of Constantine III and grand- son of Heraclius. Early in his reign the Mos- lems invaded Armenia and Asia Minor, took Cyprus, and threatened Constantinople and Sicily. The Latin source, "cinis e coelo de- scendit," "ashes descended from heaven," is a portent of other disasters to come [Migne, 1049].
157. Muhavis: A Moslem general who de- stroyed the famous Colossus of Rhodes, one of the seven wonders of the world, and sold 900 camel loads of its materials to a dealer named Emesenus [Migne, 1049].
158. mille . . . sexaginta: L, "one thousand, three hundred and sixty years" the Colossus had stood.
159. aere oneravit: L, "bronze-loaded. "
160. seven years less: Pound follows the dating in the various books of Migne.
161. Habdimelich: Abd-I-Malik, 646-705, fifth Omayyad caliph (685-705), the son of Marwan [cf. 165 below]. When he became caliph, Islam was torn by internal troubles and hard pressed by the Byzantine Empire. His troubles could have been multiplied when Justinian II became emperor, so he made peace.
162. 2nd Justinian: Justinian II, 669-711, Byzantine emperor (685-711), the son and successor of Constantine IV. He fought against the Persians without success while his extravagance and the extortions of his minis- ters caused a revolution. J. II's nose was cut off (hence his name "Rhinotmetus"), and he was exiled to the Crimea. In 705 he was restored to the throne with the help of the
? ? 602
96/657-658
96/658-659
603
Bulgars, but he was finally deposed in 71l. His enemies prevented a second return by cutting off his head.
163. contra Zubir: L, "against Zubir. " Abd-l-Malik, by consolidating his own power, finally won against his chief rival, Zubir, and burned him alive along with his house and his idols [Migne, 1059] .
164. sed susciperent: L, "but they should accept. " That is, the emperor should accept coins paid in tribute to Rome with Abd-l- Malik's image on them.
165. Anno . . . Columnas: L. The passages in brackets restore the material in the source left out of the canto text, as indicated by ellipses. "In the sixth year of his rule lusti? nian foolishly broke the peace that he had made with Abd-l-Malik, and decided out of all reason to move both the whole island of Cyprus and its people, and refused to accept the formula sent to him from Abd-l-Malik since it was seen for the first time and had
never before been used. [A great number of Cypriots while they were trying to get across
were phmged into the water and perished from wJ-akness. The survivors were in fact sent back to Cyprus. ] And hearing all this, Abd-l-Malik, urged on by the devil, asked that the peace not be broken but that they (the Arabs) should issue their own currency since the Arabs would not use the mark of the Romans in their coinage. Because the weight of the gold was the same he said: the Romans would suffer no loss from the fact
that the Arabs struck new coins. [But he (Justinian) thinking that the request had been made out of fear, did not consider it seriously, because it was their own wish, or that they were the leaders in suppressing the incursion of the Mardi, and in this way he dissolved the peace under the cover of a suppositious reason. ] And so it was done,
and Abd-l-Malik both sent Muchan to build a temple and determined to carry off the col- umns of st. Gethseman" [Migne, 1059, 1060]. (In line 5 of the quotation, Pound has eum for cum, and in lines 10-11, he has dropped the e out of efficietur.
) This passage
is critical as it concerns the early stage of the dissolution of the Eastern Empire. For Pound, the separate coinage is crucial. Justi- nian had refused the tribute because the form of address included an acknowledge- ment of the supremacy of Allah. [John Es- pey provided this translation and the sub- stance of these notes. 1
166. this item . . . : This item does locate what Pound called, before the long quote, "the crux of the matter"-a matter devel- oped at length at the beginning of Canto 97. It concerns the sacred or "sacerdotal" nature of coinage. Prob. Pound first found the idea in History of Monetary Systems by Del Mar
[ef. 119 above], who said that Gibbon in his 17th chapter "declares that by law the im- perial taxes during the dark ages were pay- able in gold coins alone. . . . The custom of the period was that when gold coins were not paid, silver coins were accepted instead at the sacred weight ration of 12. " Caesar had set that ratio centuries earlier, "and this alteration he sanctified and rendered penna- nent by stamping upon the coins the most sacred devices and solemn legends. " Again, "It is not to be wondered that Justinian I rebuked Theodore the Frank for striking heretical gold coins, nor that Justinian II proclaimed war against Abd-l-Malik for pre- suming to pay his tribute in other heretical gold. " The myth is important because it shows: "The sovereign-pontiff alone enjoyed the prerogative of coining gold throughout the Empire, and that the princes of the Em- pire respected this prerogative" '[HMS, 91-93]. The idea that "gold was under the Pontifex" [89/602]' is a recurrent motif
[89/594; 92/620; 104/744]. It rhymes with all of Pound's monetary theories, including the theory that governmental units only should issue credit or money and should provide legal controls to prevent the people from exploitation, a subject central to the quotes from The Eparch's Book in the re- mainder of the canto.
167. Kemal: Mustafa K. , 1880-1938, known as Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey.
168. PANTA'REI: L, "Everything flows. " A Latin transcription of a phrase from Hera- clitus. The phrase is transitional between the first part of Canto 96 and the next part: the interchange of ideas about law and justice flows from one group of emperors and kings to the next. All things change with the di- vine fire, and even Byzantium rises and falls.
169. Du Bellay: Joachim Du B. , 1522-1560, French poet of the Ple;ade and friend of Ronsard. He dedicated himself to reforming French poetry, wrote Latin poems, and be- came a student and translator of the classics.
170. base . . . slide: Losing the imperial right to coinage was the base of Byzantium's loss of power over Asia Minor and eventually everywhere.
171. twenty thousand scl. vons: T o help him in his return to power Justinian II [cf. 162 above] persuaded a leader of the Slavs to support him with "viginti millibus Sc1avo- rum" ("20,000 Slav troops"). J. 1l was over- thrown by Leontius, who lasted as emperor only 3 years (695-698). He was overthrown by the navy, who put forward a naval officer named Aspimar, who as emperor called him- self Tiberius, that being more Roman. J. 1l in time gathered enough support amongst the enemies of the empire to try a return to power. This he finally managed with the help of the Bulgars.
In. 7th Absim. rus: Or Tiberius Aspimar, so-called because historians can't agree on whether he should be T. 1l or T. m (the ques- tion is whether the T. of Christ's time should be counted. ) It was in the 7th year of his reign that J. 1l appeared with a large army outside the walls of Constantinople. Says Constance Head: "Then after the third night after their arrival, someone uncovered a se- cret passage under the city's walls. . . . The passageway was an old aqueduct or tunnel, and through this dark, underground channel, Justinian led a few of his trusted comrades. " [Head, J. 11, 111]. Or as Migne has it: "per aquaeductum ingressus" ("entering through the aqueduct"), an event that took place in 705, the year Abd-l-Malik died [1065].
173. Franks out of Thrace: Having recov- ered his throne with the help of the various tribes to the north, one of J. Il's problems afterwards was to relieve the pressure of the Franks, who were challenging the territory of all southern Europe.
174. Watling Street: Ancient Roman mili- tary highway that reached from the English coast of Kent in SE England, through Lon- don, to Chester in the NW.
175. Hyacinthinis: L, "Vermilion" or "Crimson. I I Pound's source has now become The Eparch's Book ofLeo the Wise [cf. 271 below].
176. J1crCl. Aoi;fiAWV: H, " o f great majestic models. " The fake purple is Pound's transla- tion of the Latin in the line above. The idea is a comparison with royal purple because in the early years of cloth-dying only kings could afford it. In the Analects [B. XVII, chap. 18] Kung said: "I hate the way purple spoils Vermilion, I hate the way Chang so- nority confuses the music of the Elegantiae, I hate sharp mouths (the clever yawp, mouths set on profits) that overturn states and families" [CON, 277].
177. Dr. Liddell's: Of the Liddell and Scott Greek dictionary.
178. chastised: Chap. 4 of The Eparch's Book [Ep. B], entitled "Merchants of Silk Stuffs," forbids them to sell to strangers silks colored with dyes reserved for royalty. If they did they should be chastised [CFT, Pai, 2-2, 228-242].
179. coom ben: Slang for L, cum benis, "caught with the goods. "
180. verberator et bonis . . . : L, "flogged and liable to confiscation. "
. . . liable to confiscation. "
182. aurei: Roman coin.
181. 1TmocvEu8w
: H,
"flogged and
183. oeKa vO/. lw/1&rwv: H, "ten aurei. "
184. purpureas vestes: L, "silk merchants. " Professor Nicole's translation into Latin.
? ? ? 604
185. ra ~A. car[<Y. : H, "silk merchants,"
186. avawwc;: H, "shameless,"
187. Dr. Nicole: Professor at the University of Geneva who discovered the manuscript of the book. In 1891 he translated it into both modern Greek and Latin in parallel columns.
188. 11r1 . . ? TL/lf/v: H, "not to raise or lower the price. "
189. "Ao-yiorou~: H, "thoughtless. " 190. J<. C1. 11'r/AEvwv: H, "retail dealers. "
191. arollvA. oc;: H, "hucksters";a'Yopaioc;: H, "forensic. "
192. A&AO~; H, "babbler. "
193. Ideograms: From the top, they are
[M6954], "purple"; [M935], "to go to"; [M6433], "surpass"; and-. [MI346], "vermil- ion. " Freely rendered they mean, "Purple goes far in surpassing red" [cf. 175, 176 above].
194. Tapaxwo17': H, "quarrelsome. "
195. Beaucaire: A town on the west bank of
the Rhone roughly at the center of a triangle formed by Nimes, Avignon, and Aries. On the east bank is a Tarascon, a small commer- cial town prob. filled with hucksters and quarrelsome babblers. Pound mentioned the town in a Lustra poem, "The Gypsy" [P,
96/659-660
201. ii . . . ~eEl: H, "who files the coinage. " The Eparch's Book lists a number of rules governing crimes in the marketplace, fol- lowed by the punishment, which is often a phrase such as "shall be flogged or shaved. "
96/661-662
605
229. that louse G. : Perhaps one of the henchmen of Nero Claudius Caesar, who as a captain of the Praetorian Guard under Tigul- lius (? ) burned Rome in A. D. 64. Or it may be a reference to WWII, in which much was destroyed by bornbing.
230. Palatine: One of the 7 hills of Rome rebuilt in magnificent fashion after the fire.
231. Cx. 7rA,l1oT{a: H, "insatiate desire. "
232. KaKovp,,/{a: H, "Wickedness. "
233. BOAQ\,: H, "dome. "
234. WJl&PCY. : H, "anything with an arched covering. "
235. iY. arjJ&AE(<y'v: H, "stability. "
236. E/J:rretptCxv: H, "experienced. "
237. (JEJ,1? A,WC;: H, "foundation. "
238. oa(Jpor::. : H, "cracked. "
239. Justinian's boy: In 532-537, Jus- tinian I, the son of Justin J, built the Santa Sophia after two previous structures had been destroyed by fire because they were structurally weak. The present one was a fireproof structure, strong in foundation, domes, arches and everything else.
240. Pearson: Norman Holmes P. , English professor at Yale, visited Pound at St. Eliza- beths while he was working on Thrones.
241. Jlil ro Knl;owvov AO~OV: H, "not built on a slant. "
242. Morrison: Robert M. , 1782-1834, au- thor of Chinese Grammar (1814) and Chi- nese Dictionary (6 vols. , 1821).
243. de Saumase: F, "Claude de Saumaise," the French name of Salmasius [87:24]. In a note appended to Nicole's Livre du Prefet Pound read: "Ces le,ons meilleures du Gene- vensis confirment certaines corrections des critiques modernes, de Saumaise et de Reitz. " A rhyme with the names of several other people in The Cantos who, in justice, should be remembered for their contribu?
: L, "the
praise of
? ? ? ? ? 600
96/656-657
96/657
601
used to describe the result of Mauricius's dictatorial rule which led to his being deposed.
125. Fortuna: [86:93; for "pervanche" cf. 97: 188].
126. CHEN4: [M315], "to tremble. "
127. e che pennutasse: I, "and who has
changed entirely" [In/. VII, 79]. Part of the answer to a question: "Master . . . this for- tune which you touch on here, what is it, that has the goods of the world so in its clutches? " Virgil's answer is about the change of the good things of the world, under Fortune, from one person to another.
128. Dei Matris: L, "of the Mother of God. "
129. HERACLJUS: H. I, ca. 575-641, By- zantine emperor (610-641), the son of an African governor. H. succeeded the tyrant Phocas after he deposed and executed him. He was threatened on all sides by Avars and Bulgars. He lost Syria, Palestine, and Egypt to the Persians in his early years but con~ quered them back in costly wars (622-628)-then lost them to the Moslem Arabs (629-641). Pound's date (602) comes from the "Mixed History," which is wrong. H. assumed power by coming to the city on castellated ships (navibus castellatis) that bore images of the Mother of God [Migne, 1023].
130. imperator , . . sponsus: L, "both com- mander and bridegroom. "
131. reip's business, . . : Pound's rendition of "invenit dissoluta reip negotia" ("found the republic's business gone to pieces").
132. Avars . . . desert: [Cf. 61 above]. Trans. of "Europam Avares reddidere desertam" [Migne, 1024].
133. Persians . . . Asia: Trans. of "Asiam vera totam Persae exterrninaverunt" [ibid. ].
134. Chosroes: King Chosdroes II. This Per- sian king answered a message from Emperor Heraclius with these words: "I won't spare
you until you deny the crucified one, whom you profess to be God, and adore the Sun" [Migne, 1025]. Heraclius could not stand this, so in order to defeat King Chosdroes he melted down candles and sacred vessels to get gold and silver coins. In a footnote the coins are called by their Greek names [Migne, 1026], given in the next line of the
text.
135. VOj. l{U/lCt:. TCt K{h /lLf. . . Lexpiaul: H, "current coins and silver coins. " The last word is not in Liddell-Scott. The closest form is /. uALapwv, which means a copper vessel to boil water in.
136. nummos . . . : L, "gold and silver coins" [Migne, 1026].
137. eiI<. OvD<;: H, "sacred image. " Heraclius swears on an icon shaped like "the virile figure of God" that he will fight Chosdroes to the death [Migne, 1026].
138. Justinian: [Cf. 12 above]. 139. Tiberius: [Cf. 106 above]. 140. Mauricius: [Cf. 114 above].
141. Phocae: Emperor of Byzantium, 595- 610. His tyrannical regime led to his over- throw and execution.
142. Heraclius: So ends this historical re- view and summary. H. is a transitional figure.
143. Deutschland unter: G, "Germany un- der. " The phrase takes off from "Deutsch- land tiber alles. "
144. Dulles: John Foster D. , 1888-1959, U. S. secretary o f state, 1953-1959. While this canto was being written, he was much in the news with foreign policy formulations called "brinkmanship" and with the doctrine of "massive retaliation. " In that post-WWII decade Dulles could almost dictate the for- eign policy of the European nations that confronted the communist nations behind the iron curtain. Gennany was a key to that policy, and a center of effort, after the con- struction of the Berlin Wall. On Jan. 22,
1954 Dulles arrived at the Berlin Conference with hopes of advancing the cause of the reunification of Germany. Over the years he promoted the "Baghdad Pact," a mutual de- fense alliance formed in 1955 between Tur- key, Pakistan, and Iraq as a part of the bipartisan policy of communist con- tainment.
145. over Euphrates: After the enemy burned a hemp bridge over the Euphrates River, Heraclius created a bridge by lashing a number of boats together [Migne, 1032].
146. Sebastia: An ancient name of Sivas, a city in central Turkey. While Heraclius passed the winter there, Chosdroes ruthlessly ransacked churches and robbed private citi- zens to build an elite army called the Golden Spears [JW, Later, 116]. He also tried to enlist the aid of a number of other enemies of the empire in the north, the Bulgars, Gespids, and "Hunnos," as well as the Turks, to move against the city called "Fu Lin"
[Migne, 1033] .
147. XpvaoAOXcic;: H, "Golden Spears. "
148. quatenus Hunnos: L, "as far as the Hunnos. "
149. Fu Lin: Chinese phrase for prefect's city: Constantinople.
150. Turcos . . . vocant: L, "Turks who are called Cazars. "
151. superlaudabilis: L, with the "ultra praiseworthy" help of "God's Mother," a great hailstorm fell upon Chosdroes's army killing many of them, so that Heraclius's army won [Migne, 1036].
152. populus . . . glorificantes: L, "the peo- ple feasted sumptuously, glorifying God"
[ibid. ] .
153. zinziber: L, "ginger. "
154. tigrides . . . : L, "tigers of amazing hugeness. " After their victory the Byzan- tines pushed on to Damastager and found Chosdroes's great palace there deserted. They found spices such as those mentioned
and saw huge tigers, antelopes, and other beasts [Migne, 1037].
155. in sky . . . power: At the moment of final victory a warning came: a giant sword- like image, stretched in the sky from Mesem- bra to the star of Arcturus, predicted the Arabs were in the ascendant and would soon occupy all the Middle East [Migne, 1045].
156. Constans: Emperor, 642-668, the son and successor of Constantine III and grand- son of Heraclius. Early in his reign the Mos- lems invaded Armenia and Asia Minor, took Cyprus, and threatened Constantinople and Sicily. The Latin source, "cinis e coelo de- scendit," "ashes descended from heaven," is a portent of other disasters to come [Migne, 1049].
157. Muhavis: A Moslem general who de- stroyed the famous Colossus of Rhodes, one of the seven wonders of the world, and sold 900 camel loads of its materials to a dealer named Emesenus [Migne, 1049].
158. mille . . . sexaginta: L, "one thousand, three hundred and sixty years" the Colossus had stood.
159. aere oneravit: L, "bronze-loaded. "
160. seven years less: Pound follows the dating in the various books of Migne.
161. Habdimelich: Abd-I-Malik, 646-705, fifth Omayyad caliph (685-705), the son of Marwan [cf. 165 below]. When he became caliph, Islam was torn by internal troubles and hard pressed by the Byzantine Empire. His troubles could have been multiplied when Justinian II became emperor, so he made peace.
162. 2nd Justinian: Justinian II, 669-711, Byzantine emperor (685-711), the son and successor of Constantine IV. He fought against the Persians without success while his extravagance and the extortions of his minis- ters caused a revolution. J. II's nose was cut off (hence his name "Rhinotmetus"), and he was exiled to the Crimea. In 705 he was restored to the throne with the help of the
? ? 602
96/657-658
96/658-659
603
Bulgars, but he was finally deposed in 71l. His enemies prevented a second return by cutting off his head.
163. contra Zubir: L, "against Zubir. " Abd-l-Malik, by consolidating his own power, finally won against his chief rival, Zubir, and burned him alive along with his house and his idols [Migne, 1059] .
164. sed susciperent: L, "but they should accept. " That is, the emperor should accept coins paid in tribute to Rome with Abd-l- Malik's image on them.
165. Anno . . . Columnas: L. The passages in brackets restore the material in the source left out of the canto text, as indicated by ellipses. "In the sixth year of his rule lusti? nian foolishly broke the peace that he had made with Abd-l-Malik, and decided out of all reason to move both the whole island of Cyprus and its people, and refused to accept the formula sent to him from Abd-l-Malik since it was seen for the first time and had
never before been used. [A great number of Cypriots while they were trying to get across
were phmged into the water and perished from wJ-akness. The survivors were in fact sent back to Cyprus. ] And hearing all this, Abd-l-Malik, urged on by the devil, asked that the peace not be broken but that they (the Arabs) should issue their own currency since the Arabs would not use the mark of the Romans in their coinage. Because the weight of the gold was the same he said: the Romans would suffer no loss from the fact
that the Arabs struck new coins. [But he (Justinian) thinking that the request had been made out of fear, did not consider it seriously, because it was their own wish, or that they were the leaders in suppressing the incursion of the Mardi, and in this way he dissolved the peace under the cover of a suppositious reason. ] And so it was done,
and Abd-l-Malik both sent Muchan to build a temple and determined to carry off the col- umns of st. Gethseman" [Migne, 1059, 1060]. (In line 5 of the quotation, Pound has eum for cum, and in lines 10-11, he has dropped the e out of efficietur.
) This passage
is critical as it concerns the early stage of the dissolution of the Eastern Empire. For Pound, the separate coinage is crucial. Justi- nian had refused the tribute because the form of address included an acknowledge- ment of the supremacy of Allah. [John Es- pey provided this translation and the sub- stance of these notes. 1
166. this item . . . : This item does locate what Pound called, before the long quote, "the crux of the matter"-a matter devel- oped at length at the beginning of Canto 97. It concerns the sacred or "sacerdotal" nature of coinage. Prob. Pound first found the idea in History of Monetary Systems by Del Mar
[ef. 119 above], who said that Gibbon in his 17th chapter "declares that by law the im- perial taxes during the dark ages were pay- able in gold coins alone. . . . The custom of the period was that when gold coins were not paid, silver coins were accepted instead at the sacred weight ration of 12. " Caesar had set that ratio centuries earlier, "and this alteration he sanctified and rendered penna- nent by stamping upon the coins the most sacred devices and solemn legends. " Again, "It is not to be wondered that Justinian I rebuked Theodore the Frank for striking heretical gold coins, nor that Justinian II proclaimed war against Abd-l-Malik for pre- suming to pay his tribute in other heretical gold. " The myth is important because it shows: "The sovereign-pontiff alone enjoyed the prerogative of coining gold throughout the Empire, and that the princes of the Em- pire respected this prerogative" '[HMS, 91-93]. The idea that "gold was under the Pontifex" [89/602]' is a recurrent motif
[89/594; 92/620; 104/744]. It rhymes with all of Pound's monetary theories, including the theory that governmental units only should issue credit or money and should provide legal controls to prevent the people from exploitation, a subject central to the quotes from The Eparch's Book in the re- mainder of the canto.
167. Kemal: Mustafa K. , 1880-1938, known as Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey.
168. PANTA'REI: L, "Everything flows. " A Latin transcription of a phrase from Hera- clitus. The phrase is transitional between the first part of Canto 96 and the next part: the interchange of ideas about law and justice flows from one group of emperors and kings to the next. All things change with the di- vine fire, and even Byzantium rises and falls.
169. Du Bellay: Joachim Du B. , 1522-1560, French poet of the Ple;ade and friend of Ronsard. He dedicated himself to reforming French poetry, wrote Latin poems, and be- came a student and translator of the classics.
170. base . . . slide: Losing the imperial right to coinage was the base of Byzantium's loss of power over Asia Minor and eventually everywhere.
171. twenty thousand scl. vons: T o help him in his return to power Justinian II [cf. 162 above] persuaded a leader of the Slavs to support him with "viginti millibus Sc1avo- rum" ("20,000 Slav troops"). J. 1l was over- thrown by Leontius, who lasted as emperor only 3 years (695-698). He was overthrown by the navy, who put forward a naval officer named Aspimar, who as emperor called him- self Tiberius, that being more Roman. J. 1l in time gathered enough support amongst the enemies of the empire to try a return to power. This he finally managed with the help of the Bulgars.
In. 7th Absim. rus: Or Tiberius Aspimar, so-called because historians can't agree on whether he should be T. 1l or T. m (the ques- tion is whether the T. of Christ's time should be counted. ) It was in the 7th year of his reign that J. 1l appeared with a large army outside the walls of Constantinople. Says Constance Head: "Then after the third night after their arrival, someone uncovered a se- cret passage under the city's walls. . . . The passageway was an old aqueduct or tunnel, and through this dark, underground channel, Justinian led a few of his trusted comrades. " [Head, J. 11, 111]. Or as Migne has it: "per aquaeductum ingressus" ("entering through the aqueduct"), an event that took place in 705, the year Abd-l-Malik died [1065].
173. Franks out of Thrace: Having recov- ered his throne with the help of the various tribes to the north, one of J. Il's problems afterwards was to relieve the pressure of the Franks, who were challenging the territory of all southern Europe.
174. Watling Street: Ancient Roman mili- tary highway that reached from the English coast of Kent in SE England, through Lon- don, to Chester in the NW.
175. Hyacinthinis: L, "Vermilion" or "Crimson. I I Pound's source has now become The Eparch's Book ofLeo the Wise [cf. 271 below].
176. J1crCl. Aoi;fiAWV: H, " o f great majestic models. " The fake purple is Pound's transla- tion of the Latin in the line above. The idea is a comparison with royal purple because in the early years of cloth-dying only kings could afford it. In the Analects [B. XVII, chap. 18] Kung said: "I hate the way purple spoils Vermilion, I hate the way Chang so- nority confuses the music of the Elegantiae, I hate sharp mouths (the clever yawp, mouths set on profits) that overturn states and families" [CON, 277].
177. Dr. Liddell's: Of the Liddell and Scott Greek dictionary.
178. chastised: Chap. 4 of The Eparch's Book [Ep. B], entitled "Merchants of Silk Stuffs," forbids them to sell to strangers silks colored with dyes reserved for royalty. If they did they should be chastised [CFT, Pai, 2-2, 228-242].
179. coom ben: Slang for L, cum benis, "caught with the goods. "
180. verberator et bonis . . . : L, "flogged and liable to confiscation. "
. . . liable to confiscation. "
182. aurei: Roman coin.
181. 1TmocvEu8w
: H,
"flogged and
183. oeKa vO/. lw/1&rwv: H, "ten aurei. "
184. purpureas vestes: L, "silk merchants. " Professor Nicole's translation into Latin.
? ? ? 604
185. ra ~A. car[<Y. : H, "silk merchants,"
186. avawwc;: H, "shameless,"
187. Dr. Nicole: Professor at the University of Geneva who discovered the manuscript of the book. In 1891 he translated it into both modern Greek and Latin in parallel columns.
188. 11r1 . . ? TL/lf/v: H, "not to raise or lower the price. "
189. "Ao-yiorou~: H, "thoughtless. " 190. J<. C1. 11'r/AEvwv: H, "retail dealers. "
191. arollvA. oc;: H, "hucksters";a'Yopaioc;: H, "forensic. "
192. A&AO~; H, "babbler. "
193. Ideograms: From the top, they are
[M6954], "purple"; [M935], "to go to"; [M6433], "surpass"; and-. [MI346], "vermil- ion. " Freely rendered they mean, "Purple goes far in surpassing red" [cf. 175, 176 above].
194. Tapaxwo17': H, "quarrelsome. "
195. Beaucaire: A town on the west bank of
the Rhone roughly at the center of a triangle formed by Nimes, Avignon, and Aries. On the east bank is a Tarascon, a small commer- cial town prob. filled with hucksters and quarrelsome babblers. Pound mentioned the town in a Lustra poem, "The Gypsy" [P,
96/659-660
201. ii . . . ~eEl: H, "who files the coinage. " The Eparch's Book lists a number of rules governing crimes in the marketplace, fol- lowed by the punishment, which is often a phrase such as "shall be flogged or shaved. "
96/661-662
605
229. that louse G. : Perhaps one of the henchmen of Nero Claudius Caesar, who as a captain of the Praetorian Guard under Tigul- lius (? ) burned Rome in A. D. 64. Or it may be a reference to WWII, in which much was destroyed by bornbing.
230. Palatine: One of the 7 hills of Rome rebuilt in magnificent fashion after the fire.
231. Cx. 7rA,l1oT{a: H, "insatiate desire. "
232. KaKovp,,/{a: H, "Wickedness. "
233. BOAQ\,: H, "dome. "
234. WJl&PCY. : H, "anything with an arched covering. "
235. iY. arjJ&AE(<y'v: H, "stability. "
236. E/J:rretptCxv: H, "experienced. "
237. (JEJ,1? A,WC;: H, "foundation. "
238. oa(Jpor::. : H, "cracked. "
239. Justinian's boy: In 532-537, Jus- tinian I, the son of Justin J, built the Santa Sophia after two previous structures had been destroyed by fire because they were structurally weak. The present one was a fireproof structure, strong in foundation, domes, arches and everything else.
240. Pearson: Norman Holmes P. , English professor at Yale, visited Pound at St. Eliza- beths while he was working on Thrones.
241. Jlil ro Knl;owvov AO~OV: H, "not built on a slant. "
242. Morrison: Robert M. , 1782-1834, au- thor of Chinese Grammar (1814) and Chi- nese Dictionary (6 vols. , 1821).
243. de Saumase: F, "Claude de Saumaise," the French name of Salmasius [87:24]. In a note appended to Nicole's Livre du Prefet Pound read: "Ces le,ons meilleures du Gene- vensis confirment certaines corrections des critiques modernes, de Saumaise et de Reitz. " A rhyme with the names of several other people in The Cantos who, in justice, should be remembered for their contribu?
