should be able to
determine
the degree of the tolerance of usury in the society in which it was painted" [SP, 323].
A-Companion-to-the-Cantos-of-Ezra-Pound-II
Schwartz: Repeat of a similar conversa- tion overheard during WWII.
Point: As al- ways, the little, innocent people are the ones led to slaughter in Bellum perenne [cf.
108 belowJ.
86. "Mai . . . chic homme": F, "But the Prussian! The Prussian is a natty man. "
87. femme de menage: F, "lady of the establishment" or "madam. "
88. "Vous . . . rosse": F, "You would like to roll [slang for sex actJ me, but you do not roll me because I am too decrepit. "
89. litigantium dona: L, "gifts of litiga- tion. " Return to Couvreur. The whole sen? tence in Legge is: "Gain got by the decision of cases [litigation} is no precious ac- quisition. "
90. Ideogram: Fei [MI819J, "not. "
91. Ideogram: Pao [M4956], "precious. "
92. non coelum . . . medio: L, "not heaven not neutral. " Legge: "It is not Heaven that does not deal impartially with men, but men ruin themselves. "
93. Fortuna: L, "destiny. " Pound is saying that the words "but man is under Fortuna" is a forced translation of the Latin line be- fore it, as indeed it is. A recurrent theme [96/656; 97/676J.
94. La Donna . . . : I, "The lady who turns. " From "10 son la [I am theJ donna che volga," the opening line of Cavalcanti's "Canzone to Fortune," where Dame For- tune (of Fortune's Wheel) is speaking [An- derson,Pai, 12-1, 41-46J.
95. Ideogram: Chen [M315J, "terrify. " The sequence of lines in Cavalcanti's poem says that fortune's wheel, in its turning (not from heaven's will), is terrifying.
96. Iou Wang: Yu Wang, Chou ruler, 781- 770, whose bad administration contributed to the decay of the Chou dynasty. Ideo- gram: yu [M7505J , "dark"; Ideogram: wang [M703 7J , "king. "
97. King Jou: Legge's transcription. He says, "King Jou was a recipient of divine justice. " Thus he was "A Man under For- tune. " As proof of a fateful destiny we read: "In the sixth year of his reign . . . occurred an eclipse of the sun. It is commemorated in the Chou King . . . as 'an announcement of evils by the sun and moon. ' " Couvreur has a note that says Yu Wang was killed by barbar- ians from the West ("barbares occidentaux") in the 770th year before our era.
98. Ideogram: I [M3002J, "right conduct"; Ideogram: ho [M2115J, "harmony. " The name of an uncle of King Ping Wang, who was a valuable aid to his administration.
99. in angustiis . . . : L, "Y ou have defended me in my difficulties. " The quote is trans- posed from Couvreur's Latin: "defendisti me in angustiis. " From a speech of Ping Wang, who said, according to Legge: "Uncle E-ho . . . you have done much to repair my
. . . ":
84.
overheard during the years of the mittel- europe cantos 35 and 38.
"We fight
Perhaps
conversation
487
? 488
86/567-568
87/569
489
losses and defend me in my difficulties. . . . I reward you with a jar of spirits, made from the black millet, mixed with odoriferous herbs; with one red bow and a hundred red arrows; with one black bow, and a hundred black arrows. "
100. ne inutile quiescas: L, "be not useless- ly at ease. " The speech made by Ping Wang, known as "the Tranquillizer" (reigned 770- 719), ends with these words. He was the last emperor of the Chou dynasty recorded in Chou King.
101. Ideogram: Pe [M4977], "uncle" or "elder"; Ideogram: k'in, ch'in [MII00], "birds" or "animals. " Here the name of "the prince of Loo under the reign of Ch'eng Wang. " Pound returns to the next to last chapter of Chou King for more data COD- cerning the disintegration of the Chou dy- nasty. Legge gives us for Pe K'in's speech: "We must now largely let the oxen and horses loose . . . shut up your traps, and fill up your pitfalls, and do not presume to injure any of the animals let loose. . . . When your followers . . . abscond, presume not to leave the ranks to pursue them. . . . And let none of your people presume to rob
or detain vagrant animals or followers, or to jump over enclosures and walls to steal away horses or oxen . . . . On the day Keii-shu I will punish the tribes of Seu;-prepare
roasted grain and other provisions. "
102. Ideogram: Tch'eng, ch'eng [M379], "to perfect"; Ideogram: wang [M7037], "king. " Ch'eng Wang (reigned 1115-1078)
was the son of Wu Wang and the second and last great Chou emperor. His name and reign are evoked here as a contrast to the present disorder.
103. HE: [cf. 76 above].
104. Woodward: [cf. 75 above].
105. Dwight L. Morrow: Dwight Whitney M. , 1873-1931, American banker and diplo- mat who was a civilian aide to Gen. John J. Pershing in WWI. In 1927 he was ambassador to Mexico, where he started a new era of understanding and cooperation. He served in the U. S. Senate 1930-1931. His daughter, Anne Morrow, married Charles Lindbergh. Pound tells a story of how he asked the late
Senator Cutting in a letter, "How many liter- ate senators are there? " Said Pound: "He sent nine hames, ending 'and I suppose Dwight L. Morrow' " [GK,260].
106. Br . . . C . . . . g: Prob. Bronson Cutting, although the dots in the name are not exact as in Pound's usual practice. [E. P. Walkie- wicz and H. Witemeyer, Pai, 9-3, 441-459]. It was not 1932 but earlier, since Morrow died in 1931.
107. "hysteric presiding . . . ": A controver- sial reference. The context convinces me that Roosevelt is intended. Based on note- books Pound gave him, W. Cookson believes the "hysteric" is Hitler [Pai, 8-2, 361]. The " '39" appears to go with this line.
108. Bellum carro perenne: L, "I sing of war everlasting. " A musical figure that occurs often in the poem [88:21; 87:2].
Background
EP, America, Roosevelt and the Causes of the Present War,
London, Peter Russell, 1951 [ARCPW], GK, 46, 105, 58, 324, 357,77,109,278-279,225,57,182, 15;SP, 323, 272-273, 311, 65, 29, 53, 240, 436; L, 255, 348, 173-176; NPL, 149-158; Francis Steegmuller, ed. , The Letters of Gustwe Flaubert, 1830- 1857, Harvard Univ. Press, 1980 [Steegmuller]; Aeschylus, Eu- menides, line 752; William Cabell Bruce, John Randolph ofRoa- noke, New York and London, G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1922, Vol. II, 232; Philip Spencer, Flaubert, A Biography, New York, Grove Press, 1952; G. Legman, The Guilt of the Templars, New York, Basic Books, 1966 [Guilt]; Jessie L. Weston, From Ritual to Romance, Cambridge, 1920; M de R, Discretions, 196; Charles Norman, Ezra Pound, Macmillan, 1960 [Norman]; Ford Madox Ford, Portraits from Life, 1937 (later published as Mightier than the Sword, London, Allen & Unwin, 1938); D'Arcy W. Thomp- son, On Growth and Form, Cambridge, 1916, rpts. MacMillan,
1942-1948; Sir Arthur Evans, The Palace o f Minos at Knossos, Vol. III, Biblo and Tannen, New York, 1964.
Exegeses
CE, Ideas, 47-56; Achilles Fang, Ph. D. dissertation, Harvard, Vol. III; EH, Pai, 2-1, 141; CFT, Pai, 2-2, 223 ff. ; Grieve, Pai, 4-2 & 3, 481; HK, Era, 331, 335 ff. ; FR, Pai, 7-2 & 3, 29 ff. ; WB,
Approaches, 303-318; L. Surette, A Light From Eleusis, Oxford University Press, 1979, 263-267; HK, Pai, 4-2 & 3, 381.
Glossary
CANTO LXXXVII Sources
EP WT 8 50 54; Dante, Vita Nuova, 12. 4 [VN]. ; Sophocles, EI~ctra:li~e 351; EP, CON, 22, 27, 232; Seraphin Couvreur, Chou King, Paris, Cathasia, 1950 [Couvreur]; James Legge, The Four Books, Shanghai, 1923 [Legge].
4. perche . . . meltere: I, "why do you wish to put. " In 1932 Mussolini asked this ques- tion. Pound gives the question and his an- swer, "Pel mio poema" ("For my poem"'), later [93:75], thereby showing insistence on a Confucian order in his own mind [GK, 105].
5. Grock: The stage name of Charles Wet- tach (1880-1959), circus performer, acrobat, and comic musician with violin a9d piano.
T
I. between the usurer: [45:1]. This recur- rent theme js further developed in many of Pound's writings on economics [GK, 46; cf. also CE, Ideas, 47-57], e. g. , "To repeat: an expert, looking at a painting . . .
should be able to determine the degree of the tolerance of usury in the society in which it was painted" [SP, 323].
2. perenne: L, "continued, perennial. " Part of recurrent tag: "bellum perenne. " For, usury is the cause: "Wars are provoked in succession, deliberately, by the great usurers, in order to create debts, to create scarcity, so that they can extort the interest on these debts, so that they can raise the price of money . . . altering the prices of the various
monetary units when it suits them . . . com- pletely indifferent to the human victim"
[ARCPW,8].
3. without . . . credit: Partial usury [45/230].
definition of
? ? ? 490
87/569
87/569-570
491
Originator of routine developed later by Jack Benny, Victor Borge, and others. Grock made a London appearance in 1911, where Pound may have first seen him: "He per- fected those adventures of a simpleton among musical instruments . . . wonder as to where the strings had gone when he held his fiddle the wrong side up and at his labours to sit nearer the piano by pushing it toward
the stool. " The French dialog is typical of the nonsequiturs he used with his straight- man partner, a clown he teamed up with named "Brick. " Grock's autobiography ap- peared in 1956 [Die Memoiren des Konigs der Clowns].
6. OU ca? : F, "How's that? "
7. 1'ai une idee: F, "I have an idea. "
8. Berchtold: Leopold, Graf von B. , 1863- 1942, Austro? Hungarian foreign minister who, after the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand at Sarajevo, followed a harsh, reckless policy that contributed to the start of WWI. Although he was outwardly calm, the effect of the assassination on him was dynamite. The lines suggest that Pound met Berchtold, perhaps during his visit to Vienna in 1928 [35:6;76:132].
9. Varchi: Italian historian who made no judgment as he did not have enough facts
[5:33,58].
10. Of Roanoke: John Randolph, 1773- 1833, American statesman called "of Roa- noke. " During the years 1799-1829, he served a total of 24 years in the U. S. House of Representatives and 2 years in the Senate (for 4 of those years he was out of office). He became a powerful force as well as a flamboyant orator. The more he was against something, the more dramatic and biting his oratory became. His violent excoriations of Henry Clay and JQA led to the famous duel
[88:passim]. Because of his opposition to Jefferson on the acquisltion of Florida, he lost his leadership in the House temporarily. He also opposed James Madison and the Northern Democrats, the War of 1812, the second Bank of the United States, the tariff
measures, and the Missouri compromise. He is a continuous, if at times shadowy, pres- ence in Cantos 87-89.
II. "Nation silly . . . ": A recurrent theme cited in all of Pound's writings on the eco- nomic history of the United States, and a major theme of R-D [88:passim]. ln a letter to Benton [88:80], Dec. 12, 1829, Ran- dolph said: "It is obvious that the discount- ing of private paper has no connection with the transfer of public monies, or a sound paper currency. My plan was to make the great custom-houses branches of our great
national bank of deposit-a sort of loan of- fice, if you will . . . . This would give one description of paper, bottomed upon sub- stantial capital, and whensoever Government might stand in need of a few millions, in- stead of borrowing their own money from a knot of brokers on the credit of said brokers, it might, under proper restriction, issue its own paper in anticipation of future
revenues on taxes to be laid; such notes to be cancelled within a given time" [Bruce, Randolph, Vol. II, 232]. N. B. : Herein is the heart of the social credit idea as well as Pound's basic attitude about debt-free money.
12. Polk: James K. P. , 1795-1849, lith U. S. president (1845-1849), lawyer and statesman from Tennessee; supporter of President Jackson, especially in the war against the bank. Thus, he deserves to be among those honored for fighting the "usu- rocracy. "
13. Tyler: John T. , 1790-1862, 10th U. S. president (1841-1845). He stood between the great parties and was opposed to most of the policies of Jackson and Van Buren, ex- cept for a brief period while senator from Virginia [34:81; 37:39].
14. paideuma: A word taken from Fro- benius [38:45] which Pound defines not as the Zeitgeist but as "the gristly roots of ideas that are in action" during a period of time [GK, 58].
15. Buchanan: James B. , 1791-1868. As
president (1847-1861) he was not a rigorous henchman of the money interests [34: 84].
16. Infantilism: An epithet Pound applies to those who continue to have puerile or sim- pleminded ideas about economics, who em- phasize the idea of "circulation" and neglect the importance of the source of money andl or credit.
17. the problem of issue: A central question of Economic Democracy [C. H. Douglas, 1920] and the social credit movement: who should issue the money and how should the issue be tied to production.
18. Nakae Toji: 1608-1648, Japanese phil- osopher known as "the Sage of Omi. " He expounded the neo-Confucian philosophy of Wang Yang-mingo Pound got the name and the association from Carson Chang, who visited him at St. Elizabeths [Fang, III, 96].
19. Wai' Ya': Wang Yang-ming, 1472-1528, the Ming dynasty neo-Confucian. In Carson Chang's Kiangsu dialect, "Wai' Ya' " approx- imates the sound for the name. "Min's lamp" is Wang's enlightened philosophy
[ibid. ].
20. Nippon: Japan.
21. Grenfell: Russell Grenfell, 1892-1954, author of Unconditional Hatred, which purports to prove that the Roosevelt- Morgenthau-Churchill program of uncondi- tional surrender and the reduction of Ger- many after WWII to a powerless agrarian state showed less wisdom than the program of Wellington at the Congress of Vienna to build a lasting balance of power in Europe. This theme is developed at length in Cantos 100-105 [85:7].
22. Antoninus: A. Pius, A. D. 86-161, the Roman emperor (137-161) Pound often cites for his knowledge and promotion of wise maritime laws [42:4;46:42; 78:56].
23. "state shd / . . . benefit": Concept Pound attributes to Antoninus, who fought against widespread piracy and supported maritime insurance. Antoninus was indig- nant that people should exploit the misfor-
tunes (e. g. , shipwrecks) of others [SP, 272,311].
24. Salmasius: Claudius S. , 1588-1653, la- tinized name of Claude Saumaise, author of De Modo Usurarum, which Pound says, "ap- pears not to have been reprinted since 1639 to 40" [SP, 323, 65, 272-273, 311].
25. Xpda: H, "use, service, need. " Pound said the word, as used in Aristotle, should be translated as "demand" and not "value. " In his opinion the lack of precision in translat- ing such a key word as this does damage to correct thinking through the ages [GK, 324,357].
26. Ari: Aristotle.
. . .
28. Richardus: Richard St. Victor [85:52].
29. Centrum circuli: I, "center of a circle. " In the Vita Nuova, Amor (Love) says to Dante: "I am the center of a circle, which possesseth all parts of its circumference equally but thou not so" [12. 4]. Pound first quoted it in the New Age 1912 [SP ,29].
30. Remove the mythologies: An ironic rec- ommendation. Pound believes the myths as retold by Ovid (for one) express the interac- tion of the human and the divine. Hence, when asked what he believed, Pound said he "answered such questions by telling the en- quirer to read Confucius and Ovid"
[SP ,53].
31. Picahia: Francis P. , 1879-1953, a French painter who advanced the cause and practices of the cubists, dadaists, and surreal- ists. He was part of the Parisian group of artists, including Man Ray and Cocteau, whose creativity Pound respected most.
32. Alsace-Lorraine: An area along the Rhine bank between France and Germany
": L, Pound
27. "Cogitatio
"cogitation, meditation, and contempla- tion. " He further illustrates: "In the first the mind flits aimlessly about the object, in the second it circles about it in a methodical manner, in the third it is unified with the object" [GK, 77;Pai, 2-2,182].
translates as
? 492
87/570-571
87/571-572
493
control of which has been contested from
the time of the Roman occupation of Gaul. Since the Treaty of Verdun (843) it has passed back and forth between Germany and France a number of times.
33. Vlaminck: Maurice de V. , 1876-1958,
was one of the fauvist painters influenced by
Van Gogh, a group that included Derain and
Matisse. Pound knew them in his Paris years. Perhaps the "Art is local" is a response to W. C. Williams's attribution of the idea to John Dewey. In the "Author's Note" to Paterson, WCW said that Dewey said: "The local is the only universal, upon that all art builds. "
34. Wops: Italian immigrants at Ellis Island
who were "without papers" were identified
with these initials. Not a pejorative label: just the language of the people.
35. 8lix[JOPOV . . . : H, a fusion of words from lines 676-677 of Sophocles' Trachiniae (8lix[JOPOV rrpos OV8EVOS/TWV <1;80v, e,! -) , . 8ECJTOV . ~ "'UTOV <peevEd and line 351 of Electra (au ra:vra: npos Kcx'/wiu 8elA(av ? X? L;). Thus: "Destroyed by nothing within, but
eaten by itself, it wastes away; and in addi- tion to our woes, shall we add cowardice? " A Sophoclean rhyme with the previous 2
His dedication to the concept of justice
rhymes with the act of Athena [85:5].
had he ever known how to spare himself"
[OCD]. Pound may have got the idea that he was "burnped off" from Goleyevsky [cf. 47 below]. But his death did put a stop to a lot of planned development in the civilized world of his time.
47. Gollievski: Goleyevsky, a Russian gen- eral with an English wife whom the Pounds knew in Paris in the early 20s. Pound men- tions him anonymously [GK, 229]: "To re- capitulate, I take it from my ex-Russian ex- General that the fall of Alexander's empire was a disaster" [EH,Pai, 2-1,141].
48. Greece . . . : Goleyevsky had another idea: "Most European history saw the fall of Rome, but failed to calculate the possible greater loss to knowledge, learning, civiliza- tion implied in the fall of the Macedonian empire" [ibid. ].
49. Justinian's codes: J. the Great, 527-565,
inherited the corpus of Roman law called Codex Theodosianus, issued in 438, which by his time needed up-dating [65:126]. He promoted a new Codex, which in time had to be redone under Basil and Leo the Wise
[CFT,Pai, 2-2, 223 ff. ; 94:45].
SO. "abbiamo. ,,": I, "we have made a
heap. "
51. Mus. viva voce: I, "Mussolini orally"
[with live voice]: Implies M tried to get parties to avoid the haystack of laws by settling out of court.
52.
86. "Mai . . . chic homme": F, "But the Prussian! The Prussian is a natty man. "
87. femme de menage: F, "lady of the establishment" or "madam. "
88. "Vous . . . rosse": F, "You would like to roll [slang for sex actJ me, but you do not roll me because I am too decrepit. "
89. litigantium dona: L, "gifts of litiga- tion. " Return to Couvreur. The whole sen? tence in Legge is: "Gain got by the decision of cases [litigation} is no precious ac- quisition. "
90. Ideogram: Fei [MI819J, "not. "
91. Ideogram: Pao [M4956], "precious. "
92. non coelum . . . medio: L, "not heaven not neutral. " Legge: "It is not Heaven that does not deal impartially with men, but men ruin themselves. "
93. Fortuna: L, "destiny. " Pound is saying that the words "but man is under Fortuna" is a forced translation of the Latin line be- fore it, as indeed it is. A recurrent theme [96/656; 97/676J.
94. La Donna . . . : I, "The lady who turns. " From "10 son la [I am theJ donna che volga," the opening line of Cavalcanti's "Canzone to Fortune," where Dame For- tune (of Fortune's Wheel) is speaking [An- derson,Pai, 12-1, 41-46J.
95. Ideogram: Chen [M315J, "terrify. " The sequence of lines in Cavalcanti's poem says that fortune's wheel, in its turning (not from heaven's will), is terrifying.
96. Iou Wang: Yu Wang, Chou ruler, 781- 770, whose bad administration contributed to the decay of the Chou dynasty. Ideo- gram: yu [M7505J , "dark"; Ideogram: wang [M703 7J , "king. "
97. King Jou: Legge's transcription. He says, "King Jou was a recipient of divine justice. " Thus he was "A Man under For- tune. " As proof of a fateful destiny we read: "In the sixth year of his reign . . . occurred an eclipse of the sun. It is commemorated in the Chou King . . . as 'an announcement of evils by the sun and moon. ' " Couvreur has a note that says Yu Wang was killed by barbar- ians from the West ("barbares occidentaux") in the 770th year before our era.
98. Ideogram: I [M3002J, "right conduct"; Ideogram: ho [M2115J, "harmony. " The name of an uncle of King Ping Wang, who was a valuable aid to his administration.
99. in angustiis . . . : L, "Y ou have defended me in my difficulties. " The quote is trans- posed from Couvreur's Latin: "defendisti me in angustiis. " From a speech of Ping Wang, who said, according to Legge: "Uncle E-ho . . . you have done much to repair my
. . . ":
84.
overheard during the years of the mittel- europe cantos 35 and 38.
"We fight
Perhaps
conversation
487
? 488
86/567-568
87/569
489
losses and defend me in my difficulties. . . . I reward you with a jar of spirits, made from the black millet, mixed with odoriferous herbs; with one red bow and a hundred red arrows; with one black bow, and a hundred black arrows. "
100. ne inutile quiescas: L, "be not useless- ly at ease. " The speech made by Ping Wang, known as "the Tranquillizer" (reigned 770- 719), ends with these words. He was the last emperor of the Chou dynasty recorded in Chou King.
101. Ideogram: Pe [M4977], "uncle" or "elder"; Ideogram: k'in, ch'in [MII00], "birds" or "animals. " Here the name of "the prince of Loo under the reign of Ch'eng Wang. " Pound returns to the next to last chapter of Chou King for more data COD- cerning the disintegration of the Chou dy- nasty. Legge gives us for Pe K'in's speech: "We must now largely let the oxen and horses loose . . . shut up your traps, and fill up your pitfalls, and do not presume to injure any of the animals let loose. . . . When your followers . . . abscond, presume not to leave the ranks to pursue them. . . . And let none of your people presume to rob
or detain vagrant animals or followers, or to jump over enclosures and walls to steal away horses or oxen . . . . On the day Keii-shu I will punish the tribes of Seu;-prepare
roasted grain and other provisions. "
102. Ideogram: Tch'eng, ch'eng [M379], "to perfect"; Ideogram: wang [M7037], "king. " Ch'eng Wang (reigned 1115-1078)
was the son of Wu Wang and the second and last great Chou emperor. His name and reign are evoked here as a contrast to the present disorder.
103. HE: [cf. 76 above].
104. Woodward: [cf. 75 above].
105. Dwight L. Morrow: Dwight Whitney M. , 1873-1931, American banker and diplo- mat who was a civilian aide to Gen. John J. Pershing in WWI. In 1927 he was ambassador to Mexico, where he started a new era of understanding and cooperation. He served in the U. S. Senate 1930-1931. His daughter, Anne Morrow, married Charles Lindbergh. Pound tells a story of how he asked the late
Senator Cutting in a letter, "How many liter- ate senators are there? " Said Pound: "He sent nine hames, ending 'and I suppose Dwight L. Morrow' " [GK,260].
106. Br . . . C . . . . g: Prob. Bronson Cutting, although the dots in the name are not exact as in Pound's usual practice. [E. P. Walkie- wicz and H. Witemeyer, Pai, 9-3, 441-459]. It was not 1932 but earlier, since Morrow died in 1931.
107. "hysteric presiding . . . ": A controver- sial reference. The context convinces me that Roosevelt is intended. Based on note- books Pound gave him, W. Cookson believes the "hysteric" is Hitler [Pai, 8-2, 361]. The " '39" appears to go with this line.
108. Bellum carro perenne: L, "I sing of war everlasting. " A musical figure that occurs often in the poem [88:21; 87:2].
Background
EP, America, Roosevelt and the Causes of the Present War,
London, Peter Russell, 1951 [ARCPW], GK, 46, 105, 58, 324, 357,77,109,278-279,225,57,182, 15;SP, 323, 272-273, 311, 65, 29, 53, 240, 436; L, 255, 348, 173-176; NPL, 149-158; Francis Steegmuller, ed. , The Letters of Gustwe Flaubert, 1830- 1857, Harvard Univ. Press, 1980 [Steegmuller]; Aeschylus, Eu- menides, line 752; William Cabell Bruce, John Randolph ofRoa- noke, New York and London, G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1922, Vol. II, 232; Philip Spencer, Flaubert, A Biography, New York, Grove Press, 1952; G. Legman, The Guilt of the Templars, New York, Basic Books, 1966 [Guilt]; Jessie L. Weston, From Ritual to Romance, Cambridge, 1920; M de R, Discretions, 196; Charles Norman, Ezra Pound, Macmillan, 1960 [Norman]; Ford Madox Ford, Portraits from Life, 1937 (later published as Mightier than the Sword, London, Allen & Unwin, 1938); D'Arcy W. Thomp- son, On Growth and Form, Cambridge, 1916, rpts. MacMillan,
1942-1948; Sir Arthur Evans, The Palace o f Minos at Knossos, Vol. III, Biblo and Tannen, New York, 1964.
Exegeses
CE, Ideas, 47-56; Achilles Fang, Ph. D. dissertation, Harvard, Vol. III; EH, Pai, 2-1, 141; CFT, Pai, 2-2, 223 ff. ; Grieve, Pai, 4-2 & 3, 481; HK, Era, 331, 335 ff. ; FR, Pai, 7-2 & 3, 29 ff. ; WB,
Approaches, 303-318; L. Surette, A Light From Eleusis, Oxford University Press, 1979, 263-267; HK, Pai, 4-2 & 3, 381.
Glossary
CANTO LXXXVII Sources
EP WT 8 50 54; Dante, Vita Nuova, 12. 4 [VN]. ; Sophocles, EI~ctra:li~e 351; EP, CON, 22, 27, 232; Seraphin Couvreur, Chou King, Paris, Cathasia, 1950 [Couvreur]; James Legge, The Four Books, Shanghai, 1923 [Legge].
4. perche . . . meltere: I, "why do you wish to put. " In 1932 Mussolini asked this ques- tion. Pound gives the question and his an- swer, "Pel mio poema" ("For my poem"'), later [93:75], thereby showing insistence on a Confucian order in his own mind [GK, 105].
5. Grock: The stage name of Charles Wet- tach (1880-1959), circus performer, acrobat, and comic musician with violin a9d piano.
T
I. between the usurer: [45:1]. This recur- rent theme js further developed in many of Pound's writings on economics [GK, 46; cf. also CE, Ideas, 47-57], e. g. , "To repeat: an expert, looking at a painting . . .
should be able to determine the degree of the tolerance of usury in the society in which it was painted" [SP, 323].
2. perenne: L, "continued, perennial. " Part of recurrent tag: "bellum perenne. " For, usury is the cause: "Wars are provoked in succession, deliberately, by the great usurers, in order to create debts, to create scarcity, so that they can extort the interest on these debts, so that they can raise the price of money . . . altering the prices of the various
monetary units when it suits them . . . com- pletely indifferent to the human victim"
[ARCPW,8].
3. without . . . credit: Partial usury [45/230].
definition of
? ? ? 490
87/569
87/569-570
491
Originator of routine developed later by Jack Benny, Victor Borge, and others. Grock made a London appearance in 1911, where Pound may have first seen him: "He per- fected those adventures of a simpleton among musical instruments . . . wonder as to where the strings had gone when he held his fiddle the wrong side up and at his labours to sit nearer the piano by pushing it toward
the stool. " The French dialog is typical of the nonsequiturs he used with his straight- man partner, a clown he teamed up with named "Brick. " Grock's autobiography ap- peared in 1956 [Die Memoiren des Konigs der Clowns].
6. OU ca? : F, "How's that? "
7. 1'ai une idee: F, "I have an idea. "
8. Berchtold: Leopold, Graf von B. , 1863- 1942, Austro? Hungarian foreign minister who, after the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand at Sarajevo, followed a harsh, reckless policy that contributed to the start of WWI. Although he was outwardly calm, the effect of the assassination on him was dynamite. The lines suggest that Pound met Berchtold, perhaps during his visit to Vienna in 1928 [35:6;76:132].
9. Varchi: Italian historian who made no judgment as he did not have enough facts
[5:33,58].
10. Of Roanoke: John Randolph, 1773- 1833, American statesman called "of Roa- noke. " During the years 1799-1829, he served a total of 24 years in the U. S. House of Representatives and 2 years in the Senate (for 4 of those years he was out of office). He became a powerful force as well as a flamboyant orator. The more he was against something, the more dramatic and biting his oratory became. His violent excoriations of Henry Clay and JQA led to the famous duel
[88:passim]. Because of his opposition to Jefferson on the acquisltion of Florida, he lost his leadership in the House temporarily. He also opposed James Madison and the Northern Democrats, the War of 1812, the second Bank of the United States, the tariff
measures, and the Missouri compromise. He is a continuous, if at times shadowy, pres- ence in Cantos 87-89.
II. "Nation silly . . . ": A recurrent theme cited in all of Pound's writings on the eco- nomic history of the United States, and a major theme of R-D [88:passim]. ln a letter to Benton [88:80], Dec. 12, 1829, Ran- dolph said: "It is obvious that the discount- ing of private paper has no connection with the transfer of public monies, or a sound paper currency. My plan was to make the great custom-houses branches of our great
national bank of deposit-a sort of loan of- fice, if you will . . . . This would give one description of paper, bottomed upon sub- stantial capital, and whensoever Government might stand in need of a few millions, in- stead of borrowing their own money from a knot of brokers on the credit of said brokers, it might, under proper restriction, issue its own paper in anticipation of future
revenues on taxes to be laid; such notes to be cancelled within a given time" [Bruce, Randolph, Vol. II, 232]. N. B. : Herein is the heart of the social credit idea as well as Pound's basic attitude about debt-free money.
12. Polk: James K. P. , 1795-1849, lith U. S. president (1845-1849), lawyer and statesman from Tennessee; supporter of President Jackson, especially in the war against the bank. Thus, he deserves to be among those honored for fighting the "usu- rocracy. "
13. Tyler: John T. , 1790-1862, 10th U. S. president (1841-1845). He stood between the great parties and was opposed to most of the policies of Jackson and Van Buren, ex- cept for a brief period while senator from Virginia [34:81; 37:39].
14. paideuma: A word taken from Fro- benius [38:45] which Pound defines not as the Zeitgeist but as "the gristly roots of ideas that are in action" during a period of time [GK, 58].
15. Buchanan: James B. , 1791-1868. As
president (1847-1861) he was not a rigorous henchman of the money interests [34: 84].
16. Infantilism: An epithet Pound applies to those who continue to have puerile or sim- pleminded ideas about economics, who em- phasize the idea of "circulation" and neglect the importance of the source of money andl or credit.
17. the problem of issue: A central question of Economic Democracy [C. H. Douglas, 1920] and the social credit movement: who should issue the money and how should the issue be tied to production.
18. Nakae Toji: 1608-1648, Japanese phil- osopher known as "the Sage of Omi. " He expounded the neo-Confucian philosophy of Wang Yang-mingo Pound got the name and the association from Carson Chang, who visited him at St. Elizabeths [Fang, III, 96].
19. Wai' Ya': Wang Yang-ming, 1472-1528, the Ming dynasty neo-Confucian. In Carson Chang's Kiangsu dialect, "Wai' Ya' " approx- imates the sound for the name. "Min's lamp" is Wang's enlightened philosophy
[ibid. ].
20. Nippon: Japan.
21. Grenfell: Russell Grenfell, 1892-1954, author of Unconditional Hatred, which purports to prove that the Roosevelt- Morgenthau-Churchill program of uncondi- tional surrender and the reduction of Ger- many after WWII to a powerless agrarian state showed less wisdom than the program of Wellington at the Congress of Vienna to build a lasting balance of power in Europe. This theme is developed at length in Cantos 100-105 [85:7].
22. Antoninus: A. Pius, A. D. 86-161, the Roman emperor (137-161) Pound often cites for his knowledge and promotion of wise maritime laws [42:4;46:42; 78:56].
23. "state shd / . . . benefit": Concept Pound attributes to Antoninus, who fought against widespread piracy and supported maritime insurance. Antoninus was indig- nant that people should exploit the misfor-
tunes (e. g. , shipwrecks) of others [SP, 272,311].
24. Salmasius: Claudius S. , 1588-1653, la- tinized name of Claude Saumaise, author of De Modo Usurarum, which Pound says, "ap- pears not to have been reprinted since 1639 to 40" [SP, 323, 65, 272-273, 311].
25. Xpda: H, "use, service, need. " Pound said the word, as used in Aristotle, should be translated as "demand" and not "value. " In his opinion the lack of precision in translat- ing such a key word as this does damage to correct thinking through the ages [GK, 324,357].
26. Ari: Aristotle.
. . .
28. Richardus: Richard St. Victor [85:52].
29. Centrum circuli: I, "center of a circle. " In the Vita Nuova, Amor (Love) says to Dante: "I am the center of a circle, which possesseth all parts of its circumference equally but thou not so" [12. 4]. Pound first quoted it in the New Age 1912 [SP ,29].
30. Remove the mythologies: An ironic rec- ommendation. Pound believes the myths as retold by Ovid (for one) express the interac- tion of the human and the divine. Hence, when asked what he believed, Pound said he "answered such questions by telling the en- quirer to read Confucius and Ovid"
[SP ,53].
31. Picahia: Francis P. , 1879-1953, a French painter who advanced the cause and practices of the cubists, dadaists, and surreal- ists. He was part of the Parisian group of artists, including Man Ray and Cocteau, whose creativity Pound respected most.
32. Alsace-Lorraine: An area along the Rhine bank between France and Germany
": L, Pound
27. "Cogitatio
"cogitation, meditation, and contempla- tion. " He further illustrates: "In the first the mind flits aimlessly about the object, in the second it circles about it in a methodical manner, in the third it is unified with the object" [GK, 77;Pai, 2-2,182].
translates as
? 492
87/570-571
87/571-572
493
control of which has been contested from
the time of the Roman occupation of Gaul. Since the Treaty of Verdun (843) it has passed back and forth between Germany and France a number of times.
33. Vlaminck: Maurice de V. , 1876-1958,
was one of the fauvist painters influenced by
Van Gogh, a group that included Derain and
Matisse. Pound knew them in his Paris years. Perhaps the "Art is local" is a response to W. C. Williams's attribution of the idea to John Dewey. In the "Author's Note" to Paterson, WCW said that Dewey said: "The local is the only universal, upon that all art builds. "
34. Wops: Italian immigrants at Ellis Island
who were "without papers" were identified
with these initials. Not a pejorative label: just the language of the people.
35. 8lix[JOPOV . . . : H, a fusion of words from lines 676-677 of Sophocles' Trachiniae (8lix[JOPOV rrpos OV8EVOS/TWV <1;80v, e,! -) , . 8ECJTOV . ~ "'UTOV <peevEd and line 351 of Electra (au ra:vra: npos Kcx'/wiu 8elA(av ? X? L;). Thus: "Destroyed by nothing within, but
eaten by itself, it wastes away; and in addi- tion to our woes, shall we add cowardice? " A Sophoclean rhyme with the previous 2
His dedication to the concept of justice
rhymes with the act of Athena [85:5].
had he ever known how to spare himself"
[OCD]. Pound may have got the idea that he was "burnped off" from Goleyevsky [cf. 47 below]. But his death did put a stop to a lot of planned development in the civilized world of his time.
47. Gollievski: Goleyevsky, a Russian gen- eral with an English wife whom the Pounds knew in Paris in the early 20s. Pound men- tions him anonymously [GK, 229]: "To re- capitulate, I take it from my ex-Russian ex- General that the fall of Alexander's empire was a disaster" [EH,Pai, 2-1,141].
48. Greece . . . : Goleyevsky had another idea: "Most European history saw the fall of Rome, but failed to calculate the possible greater loss to knowledge, learning, civiliza- tion implied in the fall of the Macedonian empire" [ibid. ].
49. Justinian's codes: J. the Great, 527-565,
inherited the corpus of Roman law called Codex Theodosianus, issued in 438, which by his time needed up-dating [65:126]. He promoted a new Codex, which in time had to be redone under Basil and Leo the Wise
[CFT,Pai, 2-2, 223 ff. ; 94:45].
SO. "abbiamo. ,,": I, "we have made a
heap. "
51. Mus. viva voce: I, "Mussolini orally"
[with live voice]: Implies M tried to get parties to avoid the haystack of laws by settling out of court.
52.
