No More Learning

44. "In locis . . . viventia": "In desert places / we rejoice in the middle of the woods. / are sheared, you kill, they are milked / by which you till the land. / You
30. Chez . . . civilizee: F, "In our the press is still very little civilized. "
country
31. Napoleon Third: 1808-1873, president of the Second Republic, 1848-1852, emperor of the French, 1852-1870.
32. '69: southern Slavs . . . : By the terms of the Treaty of Paris (1856), Russia agreed to a neutralization of the Black Sea and to cease efforts to dominate the Slavic popUla- tions of the old Ottoman Empire. But by the late 60s, Russia was making serious efforts to control these areas and gain access to the southern seas. These efforts were rebuffed by a pan-Slavic movement, including a secret society formed in 1869. Led first by Baku- nin as a revolutionary movement against the Tzar, it was used by the southern Slavs as a means of keeping out of the Russian empire. The movement caused only a reaction: the Black Sea clauses were repudiated by Russia in 1870 [Clarkson, Russia, 284-308] . .
33. Zollverein: G, "customs union:" The political unification of Germany was much assisted by the preceding economic unifica- tion called the Zollverein, in which, over a period of 30 years, the small German states dropped tariffs amongst themselves and erected a common tariff barrier against outside states. The success of this venture became one of the models for the post-WWII European Common Market.
34. Ionides: Luke I, [40:26]. A Greek Pound knew during his early London years
[GK,227].
35. Count Usedom: Ironic epithet created for Bismarck.
36. Bismarck: [86:3].
37. ( . . . no more wars . . . ): To Bismarck,
40. aristos
were generally aristocrats. Hence, their ignorance (of the way the usuracrats worked), combined with the similar illiteracy of the plutocrats, allowed France to be "bitched. "
ploots: The
Ultramontaines
? 648
100/715-717
100/717-718
649
shed their blood / their flesh fills you inside / you thus become a living sepulchre of dead bodies. " From a Latin translation of a Greek account of Alexander the Great's conversation with Indian Brahmins, done (prob. ) by st. Ambrose, entitled De Moribus Brachmanorum.
45. "That Virginia . . . with . . . ": John Randolph [87:10] got some resolutions adopted at Charlotte Courthouse in 1833 which contained these phrases: "That Virginia 'is, and of right, ought to be, a free, sovereign and independent state. ' . . . when . . . Virginia [joined] . . . the other twelve colonies . . . , she parted with no portion of her sovereignity" [BK, Pai 9-3, 425].
46. Oh GAWD! ! ! . . . : Supposedly, Pound's reaction upon discovering that Section X of the Constitution could be used as a bar- rier to some monetary reforms he thought essential, such as the Douglas concept of "local control of local purchasing power"
[96: 118; NS, Reading, 110].
47. George Second encouraged . . . : During
his reign, the production of indigo in the U. S. was encouraged, but . . . [88:93].
clearly from stone to stone" [Par. XX, 19-20] :
55. the sound . . . light: From, "Where I saw begemmed the sixth light" [,par. XX, 17] .
56. lute[s neck: From, "And as sound at the neck of lute / takes its form" [Par. XX, 22-23].
59. Taney: [37:58; 89:57]. President Jack- son appointed him to replace Duane as secretary of the treasury in April 1834. But the Senate refused to confirm.
60. Duane: [34:43]. During the political conflicts over renewing the charter of the Bank of the U. S. , Jackson appointed Duane as secretary of the treasury to replace Louis McLane, who had refused to remove government deposits to the state banks. Duane also refused to carry out the transfer and was replaced by Taney.
61. Erebus: [1:8; 90:27]. Just as Dante does, Pound places men groveling for money here [14:3,4].
62. all gates: [47: 10; 94:20].
63. bab: [bab] A and Per, "gate". In mysti- cal writings it means "the way" and is used to refer to Abdul Baha [96:93], the founder of the Bahai movement [93:162].
64. Pandects . . . Gaius: [94: 21] .
65. Consul for . . . : [94:29].
66. Windsor: Edward VIII [95 :39].
67. Agassiz, Kung: [93:51,52].
68. maison close: F, "closed [sealed or
encircled] house. "
69. Lightfoot: [95:42].
70. Le Portel: [80:422].
71. KREDEMNON: [96:1].
72. DEXATO XERSI: H, "received it in [her] hand" rOd. V,462].
73. AGERTHE: H, "returned again. " While dozens of other events are taking place in the poem, we recall that in Canto I Odysseus started his "Nostos" (journey home). At the end of Rock-Drill, Ino (Leucothea) saved him with her magic veil and protected him on his swim to Phaeacia. Here we note his arrival at the shores where Ina retrieves her
magic veil and the hero goes ashore.
74. two lies: The red-herring technique Pound often deplored and from which he has suffered much. He said to Bridson: "Confusion is caused by package-words. You call a man a Manichaean or a Bolshevik, or something or other, and never find out what he is driving at. The technique of infamy is to start two lies at once and get people arguing which is the truth" [ND. 17, 174-175].
the silk trade as a state monopoly: "[He tried] to divert the trade from the Persian route . . . into the East of Europe. In this he failed, but two Persian monks . . . arrived at Constantinople and imparted their knowl- edge to the emperor" [EB, Vol. XXV, 11th ed. , 97] .
83. monetary (218 A. D. ): No data can be found for this date, but since Landulph's chronology is 7 years less than the accepted [JW, Later, 113], the reference may be to Caracalla's [97:41] new coinage system of A . D . 211 which established the silver-gold r~tio at 12 for 1 [HMS, 49].
84. Belisarius: Ca. 505-565, Byzantine gen- eral under Justinian 1. He suppressed the Nika sedition (532), defeated the Vandals of Africa (533-534), recovered Italy from the Ostragoths, took Naples and Rome (536), and so on. Since he was handicapped by Justinian's distrust and jealousy, he could only keep the enemy in check and so retired. But he returned to drive the Bulgars from Constantinople (559).
85. NO . . . shares: The anecdote concerns an Allied submarine which the Italian navy might have sunk but didn't because it was insured by the Trieste branch of Lloyd's, an international marine insurance under- writer made up of about 300 different syndi- cates. A rhyme with similar international munitions makers' acts ofWWI [18: 13].
86. De Stael: Anne Louise Germaine Necker, wife of Jacques Necker [68:96], baronne de Stael-Holstein, 1766-1817, whose defense of German culture and romanticism outraged Napoleon. His police caused her flight and exile to Russia and England, but she returned in 1815 to become a great influence on European thought and literature.
87. Santayana: [81:38; 95:66].
88. Nel mezzo: I, "in the middle. " Trans- lation of character [M 1504], "chung. "
89. Ideogram: Fu2-s [MI982], "Buddha" or "the Buddhists" [98:64].
48. Barley . . . tax-free:
49. hilaritas: [83 :9].
50. Letizia: I, "gladness" [Par. XVIII,42].
S1. Virtu: I, "spiritual power to love.
" Dante feels this power increasing after his delight, in the preceding line, of seeing Beatrice and doing well [Par. XVIII, 60].
. . .
53. Lume non e . . . : I, "There is no light, if not from the serene [nature of God]"
[Par. XIX, 64] .
54. stone . . . descending:
52. Buona
itself' [Par. XIX, 86-87]. "The primal will is good in itself, I and from itself, which is the highest good, it is never moved" [JW]. A rhyme with directio vo/untalis [77: 57] .
volonta:
I, "Will good in
81. No greek . . . : Since
ranean ethnic groups did sell their own people into slavery, perhaps this indicates for Pound an advanced civilization before Christ.
82. Silk news . . . : Sericulture passed from China to India before 1000 B. C. and, after that, slowly to Persia and the Middle East. Aristotle [Hist. Anim. V, 19(17), 11(6)] mentions the silkworm. Justinian conducted
From "I
hear the murmur of a river / that descends
[88:96].
seem to
57. Jackson . . .
Adams: [88:97]. 58. Tocqueville: [88:84].
\
, "
. ~,
76. Gesetzbuch: G, "law-book; code. "
77. Justin's village: Prob. Justinian the Great [94:45; cf. 84 below].
78. "Non della" (Verona): [78:18,19].
79. 1. Austin: John A. , 1790-1859, English jurist and professor at the University of London and author of Province of Juris- prudence Determined (1832), in which he analyzed the principles on which all legal systems were based. He argued that the law expressed the will of the sovereign and should not be confused with the dictates of ethics or of religions.
80. Frank Harris: [97:135].
I.
75. CODE: Code.
[65: 126;
94:45].
Justinian's
other
Mediter-
? 650
100/718-720
100/720-721
651
90. taozers: Followers of the Tao [98:61]. 91. Ideogram: Pai jih [M3124-125], "day-
light" [DG, Pai, 5-3, 398].
92. Alighieri . . . : The brilliant light o f para- dise was so blinding that Dante had to shade his eyes [JW,Pai, 2-2, 176].
93. Tyler . . . Van Buren: Prob. Noel Stock, in a letter written ca, 1957 from Australia . [Pai, 9-3,419].
94. "With the horned moon . . . your valley": These 16 lines are Pound's rendition of parts of Chap. VII ("Orthodoxy") of The Sacred Edict [98:67, 78, 81]. The chapter con- cludes: "If you recognize that reason is true, and know that the mind enlightened is heaven, the mind in darkness is hell-you will then as a matter of course have a ruling principle, and it will be impossible for you to be beguiled away by heretical sects. If your character is upright . . . the Empire will
be at peace, and the people cheerful as a matter of course. If none of you people believe these heretical sects, they will not wait to be driven out, they will become extinct naturally" [Edict, 87]. "Wang" is the salt commissioner [98:49], "Sheng U," The Sacred Edict.
95. De Tribus . . . verl'estate: [98:105,107].
96. Fordie: [98:104].
97. Kuan Ming: Kuang Ming [M3583; M4534], "bright light. " Rhyme with Dante's paradisallight [ef. 55 above].
Swan, 1892-1950, whose obit. [Sept. 28, 1950, NY Times] identifies him as "an invest- ment manager for Wall Street concerns. "
ferred to in The Cantos as Mme. de R. ). All three of these people, as well as Paul de Remusat, the grandson of Clare and the son of Charles, appear in the poem and can eas- ily be confused. Charles is indicated here because as a writer of philosophical history he made studies of several people mentioned in the surrounding lines, such as Anselm [105:16] and Lord Herbert de Cherbury below.
111. "bien . . . apriori": P, "well accounted for knowledge [in a theological context] a priori. " Remusat wrote in a footnote in Chap. V of Saint Anselme de Cantorbery: "Saint Thomas ne s'est jamais bien rendu compte des connaissances apriori" [po 527].
112. Cocteau: [76:49].
113. Erigina: [74:90].
114. Cherbury: [Cf. 133 below].
115. Thiers: [101:11]. During the time of perils and "the conspiracies of Prince Louis Bonaparte in 1851, Thiers remained the most impassioned of Conservatives" [Thiers, 108]. In a book of 1848 (Defence ofProp- erty), he set forth his ideas of taxation, and in later speeches "he refuted Socialistic theories by the report of a committee appointed to examine . . . taxation, public credit, mortgage loans, paper money, and right to labor" [po 109]. Throughout, his attitude was against taxation of income or wealth.
116. Psellos: [23:2]. 117. Degas: [74:226].
118. Old what's-her-name: According to Michael Tsellos (called Psellos above), the Byzantine empress Zoe, whose one con- cern in her old age was to develop a new perfume. The braziers in her room in the summer made it unbearable for the servants, but the heat didn't bother her [The Chro- nographia, trans. E. R. A. Seurter, Yale, 1953,137-138, Bk. IV, 64] [BK].
119. servitu: I, "servants. "
120. Agra: One of the United Provinces ofindia.
98. Durch . . . kompromittiert:
of the Bankhouse, Pacelli compromised. "
99. Pacelli: Eugenio P . , 1876-1968, Pope Pius XII, 1939-1958.
100. B. Swan: Pound referred to B. Swan on a postcard to Ingrid Davies [25 March 1955] as "my murderer friend" whowas on an oil boat [MS, Humanities Research Cen- ter, University of Texas, Austin]. Says BK: "That's all we know. " The NY Times Index yields the name Benjamin Swan as an officer in a Swan-Finch Oil Co. ; but no further data can be found. Or perhaps Byron L.
G, "Because
101. OL YMPIAD/236:
held every 4th year, were founded in 776 B. C. According to a list of winners drawn up by Julius Africanus and preserved by Eusebius, the 236th Olympiad was held in A. D. 165.
102. Peregrinus: Cynic philosopher, A. D. ca. 100-165, of Parium in Mysia. Because he was suspected of murdering his father, he fled to Palestine, where he became a Chris- tian. For this act he was imprisoned. When he got out he became a restless wandering scholar (hence, peregrinate). In 165 he committed suicide by throwing himself onto the flames at the Olympic games.
103. P1arr: [16:18; 74:168].
104. Parion: For Parium, birthplace of Peregrinus (nicknamed Proteus).
105. Colelum . . . largitur: L, "The sky my roof, God does not sell; / the earth [is my] couch but He endows [me with wisdom]. " Supposedly said to Alexander the Great by the Brachmani (phaeacians) [Migne, XVII, 1176-79; MB, Trace, 389].
106. Caritas: L, "love; charity. "
107. Stead: William Thomas S. , 1849-1912, who pioneered modern journalistic methods in England and the U. S. He edited the Pall Mall Gazette and founded the Review of Reviews in 1890. An advocate of Naval reform, child welfare, and social legislation, he went to prison in 1885 for his attacks on government policy toward white slavery. In later years he became involved in psychical research; he died on the Titanic.
108.