Cholkis: Colchis, the kingdom of Aeetes, son of Helios, where Jason and the
Argonauts
sought the golden fieece.
A-Companion-to-the-Cantos-of-Ezra-Pound-II
.
rivolge: I, "the sad thought turns / toward Ussel.
To Ventadour / goes the thought, the time turns back.
" Pound's
74. Limoges: Manufacturing and commer- cial city of Haute-Vienne Department, W central France, not far from Ventadour. Perhaps the polite salesman is the same one celebrated by T. S. Eliot in "Gerontion" as Mr. Silvero. Pound said that all the trouba? dours who knew letters or music had been taught "at the abbeys of Limoges" [SR, 91].
75. which city: Fang identifies the forgot? ten city as Les Eyzies, a small town near which "are numerous sites of pre-historic Europeans" [II, 223J.
76. Urochs: Aurochs, the European bison [cf. 152 belowJ.
77. Mme Pujol: A landlady in Provence. Excideuil, between Limoges and Perigueux, was the place where Mme. Pujol or Poujol kept an inn. Pound told HK that Madame would be dead but the inn would still be there.
78. white bread: Observation on the adul? teration of food by additives. Cf. "is thy bread ever more of stale rags / " [45/229] .
79. Mt Taishan: [cf. 46 above].
80. Carrara: The city in Tuscany, Italy. The marble used in building the leaning tower of Pisa came from its quarries.
81. Kuanon: Kuan? yin (J: Kuanon). The
Prob.
reference
to
73. V entadour: department of near Limousin.
Former Correze,
duchy S central
in the France,
? ? ? 368
90. Erigena:
[36:9], medieval philosopher and theolo?
gian. His book, De Divisione Naturae, was condemned in 1225 by Pope Honorius III [80:90].
91. Shun: One of the legendary emperors, reigned 2255? 2205 B. C. Pound sometimes calls him Chun [53:14, 23]. We read in Chung Yung: "Kung said: Shun was a son in the great pattern . . . he offered the sacrifices in the ancestral temple and his descendants offered them there to him [CON, 133]. For "precision" see 20 above.
92. Mt Taishan: [cf. 46 above]. The Four Books nowhere say Shun was at Taishan, but the visit is recorded in Shu Ching [I, ii, 8; Fang, IV, 110].
93. paraclete: In John 14. 26, Christ speaks of Paracletus as the intercessor or comforter. Capitalized, the Paraclete is the third person of the Trinity. Here it is "the divine spirit," which Pound believes is the same at all times and all places, East and West.
94. Yao: Legendary early ruler [53:14].
95. Yu: [53:15].
96. 4 giants . . . bones: DTC scene with a guard in a tower at each corner of the camp. Some of the "trainees" became fond of Pound and, althougb not allowed to speak to ! tim, performed helpful services.
97. Zion: Part of Jerusalem called the city of David. The name is symbolic of the promised land and of the messianic hopes of Israel.
98. David rex: L, "King David," king of the Hebrews, who died ca. 972 B. C.
99. Isaiah: Late Hebrew prophet who fiourished in 8th century B. C. The Lord told him He'd "had enough of burnt offer? ings and . . . the blood of bulls. " Instead, He said, "Zion shall be redeemed by justice, and those in her who repent, by righteous~ ness" [Isaiah 1:11,27].
74/429
quote. Pound translates the passage in part thus: "As silky light, King Wen's virtue / Coming down with the sunlight, / what purity! . . . Here the sense is: In this way was Wen perfect. The unmixed functions [in time and in space] without bourne. The unmixed is the tensile light, the Immaculata. There is no end to its action" [CON, 187].
101. "sunt lumina": [cf. 89 above].
102. Oirishman: Erigena [cf. 90 above].
103. King Carolus: Charles II, called "the Bald," 823? 877, Roman emperor and king of the West Franks, grandson of Charlemagne, inherited with his half? brothers the kingdom of Emperor Louis the Pious. After the death of Louis in 840, his sons and heirs began a protracted struggle to gain control of each other's parts of the kingdom. His later success in dealing with enemies was helped by the bishops and Pope John VIII [83:10].
104. dug him up: No record exists that Erigena was exhumed. Perhaps Pound means the 13th? century heretic Amalric (or Amaury) de Bene, whose pantheistic theo? ries derive from E. Amalric (d ca. 1204? 1207); he was dug up in 1209 [80:90] and burned, along with 10 of his still living followers, before the gates of Paris [EB].
105. soi disantly: F, "supposedly. " 106. Manichaeans: [23:28].
107. Les Albigeois: F, "The Albigensians. " Like the Manichaeans, they derived part of their thought from Mithras, the Persian god of light. They were destroyed by a crusade mounted against them by Innocent III [cf. 2 above].
108. problem of history: Since the Inquisi? tion "ruthlessly extirpated the sect and its books," the only historical evidence left is what the church would endorse [Fang, II, 232]. That evidence is grossly slanted. Pound related the spirit of the movement to gai savoir and called the Albigensian crusade "a sordid robbery cloaking itself in religious pretence" which "ended the gai savoir in southern France" [SR, 101].
74/429-430
109. Salamis: Island off Piraeus, in the gulf of which the Greeks defeated the Persians in 480 B,C.
110. money . . . state:
the battle of Salamis in ships built by money made from the state-owned silver mines at Laurion, which the state loaned to the shipwrights. A recurrent refrain in the Pisan and later cantos [cf. 155, 344 below and 77:63, 79:55]. Pound uses the incident to illustrate a major thesis of Social Credit, that the extension of credit should be the prerog? ative not of private banks but of the state, which should benefit from the interest: "The state can lend. The fleet that was victorious at Salamis was built with money advanced to the shipbuilders by the State of Athens" [SP, 314, 342].
111. Temp';s . . . Ioquendi: L, "A time to speak, a time to be silent" [31: 1] .
112. dixit: L, "said. "
113. Lenin:
Ulyanov, 1870? 1924, Soviet statesman and Marxist theoretician. Lenin is quoted again at 80/497 [80:81].
114. Pisa: Location ofDTC.
115. 23 year: Since the formation of the Mussolini government in 1922.
116. Till: Louis T. , American soldier, DTC,
369 121. 01' TI~: H, "No Man" [cf. 17 above].
123. the ewe: Remark probably made by Till. The incongruity of such sentiment from one hung for murder and rape is suggested.
124. Hagoromo: Classical, one? act, Noh play [CNTJ, 98? 104]. The "hagoromo" is a "feather-mantle" or magical cloak of a "Tennin," or nymph, who leaves it hanging on a bough where it is found by a priest. Pound calls the tennin "an aerial spirit or celestial dancer. " She wants her magic cloak back and the priest finally promises to return it, "if she will teach him her dance. " Pound goes on: "She accepts the offer. The chorus explains that the dance symbolizes the daily changes of the moon. . . . In the finale, the tennin is supposed to disappear like a mountain slowly hidden in mist" [ibid. , 98]. The Hagoromo, mentioned in Vr? Canto 1 [Poetry 10 (1917), 117], is evoked several times in the Pisan and later cantos [79/485,80/500].
125. Taishan: [cf. 46 above].
Johannes
Scotus Erigena
100. Light tensile . . . :
10] quotes Shi King and comments on the
\
120. Ideogram tive; not; no. "
Mo
[M4557],
"A
nega?
Lombardo,
Chung Yung
[XXVI,
Nikolai L.
Vladimir
Ilich
Pisa, who
Ironically,
Chicago, was murdered by two white citi- zens (Roy Bryant and John Milan) of Money, Miss. , where he was visiting at age 14.
117.
Cholkis: Colchis, the kingdom of Aeetes, son of Helios, where Jason and the Argonauts sought the golden fieece.
118. Zeus ram: In the myth, the ram with the golden fleece was sacred to Zeus.
119. Snag . . . : Snatch of GI dialog over? heard at DTC. Snag may have been a nick? name for Till.
was executed Mr. Till's son
July 24, Emmet, from
. . . :
Venice].
130. Pietro 1435? 1515,
Romano: Pietro
Italian architect and sculptor
Themistocles won
1945.
[27:30].
man . . . down:
122. a
applied to Odyssean hero in time of trouble: to Odysseus in the power of Circe or the Cyclops and prob. by extension to Pound ! timself who, like Till, faced possible death at the DTC.
126. tovarish:
Here Pound prob. refers to himself as the one who, at the DTC, blessed all creation and "wept in the rain ditch. "
127. Sunt lumina: L, "are lights" [cf. 89 above].
128. stone . . . form: A favorite idea of Pound's which informed his perception of sculptors as discoverers or unveilers of form
[GB, passim].
129. sia . . . Miracoll:
R, "comrades"
I, "either [Aphrodite] or Isotta [Malatesta, 9:59], or Saint Mary of the Miracles" [church in
Metaphor
often
Cythera
? ? ? I;'
Misprint Redimiculum Matellarum (L, "A garland of chamberpots"), a collection of Bunting's
370
74/430-431
74/431-432
371
who did Dante's tomb at Ravenna as well as work listed in gloss above.
131. 01' TIl: . . . . down: [cf. 121 and 122 above].
132. diamond die: A metaphor to suggest that although civilization has been over? whelmed by the avalanche of the war. things of real and permanent value in man's aspira- tions will, like the diamond, prevail in the end, untarnished.
falsehood, for the third time through greed and for the fourth time through dissension. Should Wagadu ever be found for the fourth time, then she will live so forcefully in the minds of men that she will never be lost again. : . . Hooh! Dierra, Agada, Ganna, Silla! Hooh! Fasa! " The rest ? of the legend (12 pages) gives a number of stories of how Wagadu was lost, each section ending with the refrain "Hooh! . . . " repeated 10 times. The legend illustrates a Confucian doctrine central to Pound's thinking: If a king (or chief) lacks order in himself that leads to lack of order in the family, which leads to
lack of order in the state, which thus be- comes lost [cf. "Cheng Ming: A New Paideuma," inside front cover of Pai; 57 above].
135. dell' Halia tradita: I, "of betrayed Italy. " Pound is stating that Italy was betrayed by the king and Pietro Bodoglio, who replaced M as head of the government. This act derived from a lack of order as expressed by the Confucian Cheng Ming ("right name") or lack of "a new pai? deuma," which Pound associates with Frobenius [SP, 284; GK, 58-59].
136. a terrace . . . : [cf. 8 above].
137. la luna: I, "the moon. "
138. Demeter: Greek goddess of fertility.
139. contrappunto: I, "counterpoint. "
140. ch'intenerisce: I, "that softens. " Dante [Pur. VIII, 2] describes thus the twilight hour softening the hearts of the homeward
bound.
141. a sinistra la Torre: I, "to the left of the Tower. "
142. Che . . . cader: P, The 3d line of Bernart de Ventadour's "Lark" poem: "che s'oblia es laissa chazer," "who forgets and lets himself fall" [T, 427].
143. NEKUIA: Book XI of the Odyssey [1: Sources]. Odysseus, before and after the Nekuia, saw the spirits of Tyro and Alcmene in Hades rOd. II, 120; XI, 235, 266].
144. A1cmene: Amphitryon's wife. She was visited by Zeus, in the form of her husband, and bore his son, Heracles.
145. Tyro: [2: 12].
146. Charybdis: The whirlpool opposite Scylla, off the coast of Sicily, by which Odysseus had to pass rOd. XII, 104? 106].
155. Salamis [cf. 109 above].
156. Joe Gould: Joseph
1889? 1957, Greenwich Village bohemian. Cummings painted his portrait and referred to him twice in his work [Eimi, 315; CP, 1938, no. 261]. Gould, Harvard 1911, started as a police reporter but after 1917 supposedly spent his life writing An Oral
History o f Our Times, scribbled in hundreds of nickle notebooks (left in cellars and closets), a few bits of which were printed by Pound [Exile 2, 1927, 112-116] and Richard John [Pagany II, 2, Spring 1931]. After his death it transpired that very little of the history was actually written [HK]. Since both Bunting and Cummings were imprisoned because of WWI, Pound may have thought Gould was also; but the record does not reveal this.
157. cummings: edward estlin c. , 1894- 1962; American poet, author of Eimi and The Enormous Room, an account of his imprisonment by the French army at the end of WWI, during the early years of which
he served as a volunteer ambulance driver.
158. black . . . translucent: The black panther in the Roman zoo [HK].
159. Est . . . Ite: L, "It is finished, Go. " Formula used at end of Catholic Mass, derived from Christ's final words on the cross.
160. Tangier . . . flame: The seaport of NW Morocco; Pound visited it with his Aunt Frank and doubtless saw the fakir recalled here.
161. Rais Vii: Ahmed ibn? Muhammed Raisuli, 1875? 1925, Moroccan brigand who kidnapped Ion Perdicaris and his nephew, Cromwell Varley, around 1910 and collected $30,000 ransom from the U. S. But the sultan of Morocco paid back the $80,000 to avoid war with the U. S. and England [Fang, I! , 48-49]. Pound wrote an imaginary interview called "The Rais Uli Myth . . . being Tangier in Dry Point" and sent it to his father with an idea that McClure swould pubiish it.
. . . :
man must first despise himself, and then
others will despise him. A family must first destroy itself, and then others will destroy it. A kingdom must first smite itself and then others will smite it" [Legge, 704]. This Confucian idea is illustrated by the story of Wagadu in "Gassire's Lute. "
134. 4 times . . . Fasa: "Gassire's Lute," the Soninke legend, starts with these words: "Four times Wagadu stood there in all her splendor. Four times Wagadu disap? peared and was lost to human sight: once through vanity, once through falsehood, once through greed and once through dissension. Four times Wagadu changed her name. First she was called Dierra, then Agada, then Ganna, then Silla. Four times she turned her face. Once to the north, once to the west, once to the east and once to the
south. For Wagadu, whenever men have seen her, has always had four gates: one to the north, one to the west, one to the east and one to the south. Those are the directions whence the strength of Wagadu comes, the strength in which she endures no matter whether she be built of stone, wood and earth or lives but as a shadow in the mind and longing of her children. For really, Wagadu is not of stone, not of wood, not of earth. Wagadu is the strength which lives in the hearts of men and is sometimes visible because eyes see her and ears hear the clash of swords and ring of shields, and is some? times invisible because the indomitability of men has overtired her, so that she sleeps.
Sleep came to Wagadu for the first time through vanity, for the second time through
133. first must destroy
Mencius:
" A
\
poetry published in 1930.
!
,
149. Vai soli: A misspelling of L, vae soli, "woe to (one who is) alone"; the biblical sentence "V ae soli, quia cum ceciderit, non habet sublevantem se" ("Woe to him who is alone when he falls for he has no one to help him up"). Pound got the phrase from Laforgue who got it from the Bible [Eccle- siastes 4. 10]. Pound used it for a translation he called "Pierrots" [T, 247].
150. 'HAlON . . . : H, "the sun around the sun. "
151. Lucina: Minor Roman diety, an aspect of Juno, the goddess of childbirth. Also Diana Lucina, lunar aspect of tidal and menstrual periodicity.
152. urochs: "Aurochs," European bison.
153. Bunting: Basil B. , 1900?
74. Limoges: Manufacturing and commer- cial city of Haute-Vienne Department, W central France, not far from Ventadour. Perhaps the polite salesman is the same one celebrated by T. S. Eliot in "Gerontion" as Mr. Silvero. Pound said that all the trouba? dours who knew letters or music had been taught "at the abbeys of Limoges" [SR, 91].
75. which city: Fang identifies the forgot? ten city as Les Eyzies, a small town near which "are numerous sites of pre-historic Europeans" [II, 223J.
76. Urochs: Aurochs, the European bison [cf. 152 belowJ.
77. Mme Pujol: A landlady in Provence. Excideuil, between Limoges and Perigueux, was the place where Mme. Pujol or Poujol kept an inn. Pound told HK that Madame would be dead but the inn would still be there.
78. white bread: Observation on the adul? teration of food by additives. Cf. "is thy bread ever more of stale rags / " [45/229] .
79. Mt Taishan: [cf. 46 above].
80. Carrara: The city in Tuscany, Italy. The marble used in building the leaning tower of Pisa came from its quarries.
81. Kuanon: Kuan? yin (J: Kuanon). The
Prob.
reference
to
73. V entadour: department of near Limousin.
Former Correze,
duchy S central
in the France,
? ? ? 368
90. Erigena:
[36:9], medieval philosopher and theolo?
gian. His book, De Divisione Naturae, was condemned in 1225 by Pope Honorius III [80:90].
91. Shun: One of the legendary emperors, reigned 2255? 2205 B. C. Pound sometimes calls him Chun [53:14, 23]. We read in Chung Yung: "Kung said: Shun was a son in the great pattern . . . he offered the sacrifices in the ancestral temple and his descendants offered them there to him [CON, 133]. For "precision" see 20 above.
92. Mt Taishan: [cf. 46 above]. The Four Books nowhere say Shun was at Taishan, but the visit is recorded in Shu Ching [I, ii, 8; Fang, IV, 110].
93. paraclete: In John 14. 26, Christ speaks of Paracletus as the intercessor or comforter. Capitalized, the Paraclete is the third person of the Trinity. Here it is "the divine spirit," which Pound believes is the same at all times and all places, East and West.
94. Yao: Legendary early ruler [53:14].
95. Yu: [53:15].
96. 4 giants . . . bones: DTC scene with a guard in a tower at each corner of the camp. Some of the "trainees" became fond of Pound and, althougb not allowed to speak to ! tim, performed helpful services.
97. Zion: Part of Jerusalem called the city of David. The name is symbolic of the promised land and of the messianic hopes of Israel.
98. David rex: L, "King David," king of the Hebrews, who died ca. 972 B. C.
99. Isaiah: Late Hebrew prophet who fiourished in 8th century B. C. The Lord told him He'd "had enough of burnt offer? ings and . . . the blood of bulls. " Instead, He said, "Zion shall be redeemed by justice, and those in her who repent, by righteous~ ness" [Isaiah 1:11,27].
74/429
quote. Pound translates the passage in part thus: "As silky light, King Wen's virtue / Coming down with the sunlight, / what purity! . . . Here the sense is: In this way was Wen perfect. The unmixed functions [in time and in space] without bourne. The unmixed is the tensile light, the Immaculata. There is no end to its action" [CON, 187].
101. "sunt lumina": [cf. 89 above].
102. Oirishman: Erigena [cf. 90 above].
103. King Carolus: Charles II, called "the Bald," 823? 877, Roman emperor and king of the West Franks, grandson of Charlemagne, inherited with his half? brothers the kingdom of Emperor Louis the Pious. After the death of Louis in 840, his sons and heirs began a protracted struggle to gain control of each other's parts of the kingdom. His later success in dealing with enemies was helped by the bishops and Pope John VIII [83:10].
104. dug him up: No record exists that Erigena was exhumed. Perhaps Pound means the 13th? century heretic Amalric (or Amaury) de Bene, whose pantheistic theo? ries derive from E. Amalric (d ca. 1204? 1207); he was dug up in 1209 [80:90] and burned, along with 10 of his still living followers, before the gates of Paris [EB].
105. soi disantly: F, "supposedly. " 106. Manichaeans: [23:28].
107. Les Albigeois: F, "The Albigensians. " Like the Manichaeans, they derived part of their thought from Mithras, the Persian god of light. They were destroyed by a crusade mounted against them by Innocent III [cf. 2 above].
108. problem of history: Since the Inquisi? tion "ruthlessly extirpated the sect and its books," the only historical evidence left is what the church would endorse [Fang, II, 232]. That evidence is grossly slanted. Pound related the spirit of the movement to gai savoir and called the Albigensian crusade "a sordid robbery cloaking itself in religious pretence" which "ended the gai savoir in southern France" [SR, 101].
74/429-430
109. Salamis: Island off Piraeus, in the gulf of which the Greeks defeated the Persians in 480 B,C.
110. money . . . state:
the battle of Salamis in ships built by money made from the state-owned silver mines at Laurion, which the state loaned to the shipwrights. A recurrent refrain in the Pisan and later cantos [cf. 155, 344 below and 77:63, 79:55]. Pound uses the incident to illustrate a major thesis of Social Credit, that the extension of credit should be the prerog? ative not of private banks but of the state, which should benefit from the interest: "The state can lend. The fleet that was victorious at Salamis was built with money advanced to the shipbuilders by the State of Athens" [SP, 314, 342].
111. Temp';s . . . Ioquendi: L, "A time to speak, a time to be silent" [31: 1] .
112. dixit: L, "said. "
113. Lenin:
Ulyanov, 1870? 1924, Soviet statesman and Marxist theoretician. Lenin is quoted again at 80/497 [80:81].
114. Pisa: Location ofDTC.
115. 23 year: Since the formation of the Mussolini government in 1922.
116. Till: Louis T. , American soldier, DTC,
369 121. 01' TI~: H, "No Man" [cf. 17 above].
123. the ewe: Remark probably made by Till. The incongruity of such sentiment from one hung for murder and rape is suggested.
124. Hagoromo: Classical, one? act, Noh play [CNTJ, 98? 104]. The "hagoromo" is a "feather-mantle" or magical cloak of a "Tennin," or nymph, who leaves it hanging on a bough where it is found by a priest. Pound calls the tennin "an aerial spirit or celestial dancer. " She wants her magic cloak back and the priest finally promises to return it, "if she will teach him her dance. " Pound goes on: "She accepts the offer. The chorus explains that the dance symbolizes the daily changes of the moon. . . . In the finale, the tennin is supposed to disappear like a mountain slowly hidden in mist" [ibid. , 98]. The Hagoromo, mentioned in Vr? Canto 1 [Poetry 10 (1917), 117], is evoked several times in the Pisan and later cantos [79/485,80/500].
125. Taishan: [cf. 46 above].
Johannes
Scotus Erigena
100. Light tensile . . . :
10] quotes Shi King and comments on the
\
120. Ideogram tive; not; no. "
Mo
[M4557],
"A
nega?
Lombardo,
Chung Yung
[XXVI,
Nikolai L.
Vladimir
Ilich
Pisa, who
Ironically,
Chicago, was murdered by two white citi- zens (Roy Bryant and John Milan) of Money, Miss. , where he was visiting at age 14.
117.
Cholkis: Colchis, the kingdom of Aeetes, son of Helios, where Jason and the Argonauts sought the golden fieece.
118. Zeus ram: In the myth, the ram with the golden fleece was sacred to Zeus.
119. Snag . . . : Snatch of GI dialog over? heard at DTC. Snag may have been a nick? name for Till.
was executed Mr. Till's son
July 24, Emmet, from
. . . :
Venice].
130. Pietro 1435? 1515,
Romano: Pietro
Italian architect and sculptor
Themistocles won
1945.
[27:30].
man . . . down:
122. a
applied to Odyssean hero in time of trouble: to Odysseus in the power of Circe or the Cyclops and prob. by extension to Pound ! timself who, like Till, faced possible death at the DTC.
126. tovarish:
Here Pound prob. refers to himself as the one who, at the DTC, blessed all creation and "wept in the rain ditch. "
127. Sunt lumina: L, "are lights" [cf. 89 above].
128. stone . . . form: A favorite idea of Pound's which informed his perception of sculptors as discoverers or unveilers of form
[GB, passim].
129. sia . . . Miracoll:
R, "comrades"
I, "either [Aphrodite] or Isotta [Malatesta, 9:59], or Saint Mary of the Miracles" [church in
Metaphor
often
Cythera
? ? ? I;'
Misprint Redimiculum Matellarum (L, "A garland of chamberpots"), a collection of Bunting's
370
74/430-431
74/431-432
371
who did Dante's tomb at Ravenna as well as work listed in gloss above.
131. 01' TIl: . . . . down: [cf. 121 and 122 above].
132. diamond die: A metaphor to suggest that although civilization has been over? whelmed by the avalanche of the war. things of real and permanent value in man's aspira- tions will, like the diamond, prevail in the end, untarnished.
falsehood, for the third time through greed and for the fourth time through dissension. Should Wagadu ever be found for the fourth time, then she will live so forcefully in the minds of men that she will never be lost again. : . . Hooh! Dierra, Agada, Ganna, Silla! Hooh! Fasa! " The rest ? of the legend (12 pages) gives a number of stories of how Wagadu was lost, each section ending with the refrain "Hooh! . . . " repeated 10 times. The legend illustrates a Confucian doctrine central to Pound's thinking: If a king (or chief) lacks order in himself that leads to lack of order in the family, which leads to
lack of order in the state, which thus be- comes lost [cf. "Cheng Ming: A New Paideuma," inside front cover of Pai; 57 above].
135. dell' Halia tradita: I, "of betrayed Italy. " Pound is stating that Italy was betrayed by the king and Pietro Bodoglio, who replaced M as head of the government. This act derived from a lack of order as expressed by the Confucian Cheng Ming ("right name") or lack of "a new pai? deuma," which Pound associates with Frobenius [SP, 284; GK, 58-59].
136. a terrace . . . : [cf. 8 above].
137. la luna: I, "the moon. "
138. Demeter: Greek goddess of fertility.
139. contrappunto: I, "counterpoint. "
140. ch'intenerisce: I, "that softens. " Dante [Pur. VIII, 2] describes thus the twilight hour softening the hearts of the homeward
bound.
141. a sinistra la Torre: I, "to the left of the Tower. "
142. Che . . . cader: P, The 3d line of Bernart de Ventadour's "Lark" poem: "che s'oblia es laissa chazer," "who forgets and lets himself fall" [T, 427].
143. NEKUIA: Book XI of the Odyssey [1: Sources]. Odysseus, before and after the Nekuia, saw the spirits of Tyro and Alcmene in Hades rOd. II, 120; XI, 235, 266].
144. A1cmene: Amphitryon's wife. She was visited by Zeus, in the form of her husband, and bore his son, Heracles.
145. Tyro: [2: 12].
146. Charybdis: The whirlpool opposite Scylla, off the coast of Sicily, by which Odysseus had to pass rOd. XII, 104? 106].
155. Salamis [cf. 109 above].
156. Joe Gould: Joseph
1889? 1957, Greenwich Village bohemian. Cummings painted his portrait and referred to him twice in his work [Eimi, 315; CP, 1938, no. 261]. Gould, Harvard 1911, started as a police reporter but after 1917 supposedly spent his life writing An Oral
History o f Our Times, scribbled in hundreds of nickle notebooks (left in cellars and closets), a few bits of which were printed by Pound [Exile 2, 1927, 112-116] and Richard John [Pagany II, 2, Spring 1931]. After his death it transpired that very little of the history was actually written [HK]. Since both Bunting and Cummings were imprisoned because of WWI, Pound may have thought Gould was also; but the record does not reveal this.
157. cummings: edward estlin c. , 1894- 1962; American poet, author of Eimi and The Enormous Room, an account of his imprisonment by the French army at the end of WWI, during the early years of which
he served as a volunteer ambulance driver.
158. black . . . translucent: The black panther in the Roman zoo [HK].
159. Est . . . Ite: L, "It is finished, Go. " Formula used at end of Catholic Mass, derived from Christ's final words on the cross.
160. Tangier . . . flame: The seaport of NW Morocco; Pound visited it with his Aunt Frank and doubtless saw the fakir recalled here.
161. Rais Vii: Ahmed ibn? Muhammed Raisuli, 1875? 1925, Moroccan brigand who kidnapped Ion Perdicaris and his nephew, Cromwell Varley, around 1910 and collected $30,000 ransom from the U. S. But the sultan of Morocco paid back the $80,000 to avoid war with the U. S. and England [Fang, I! , 48-49]. Pound wrote an imaginary interview called "The Rais Uli Myth . . . being Tangier in Dry Point" and sent it to his father with an idea that McClure swould pubiish it.
. . . :
man must first despise himself, and then
others will despise him. A family must first destroy itself, and then others will destroy it. A kingdom must first smite itself and then others will smite it" [Legge, 704]. This Confucian idea is illustrated by the story of Wagadu in "Gassire's Lute. "
134. 4 times . . . Fasa: "Gassire's Lute," the Soninke legend, starts with these words: "Four times Wagadu stood there in all her splendor. Four times Wagadu disap? peared and was lost to human sight: once through vanity, once through falsehood, once through greed and once through dissension. Four times Wagadu changed her name. First she was called Dierra, then Agada, then Ganna, then Silla. Four times she turned her face. Once to the north, once to the west, once to the east and once to the
south. For Wagadu, whenever men have seen her, has always had four gates: one to the north, one to the west, one to the east and one to the south. Those are the directions whence the strength of Wagadu comes, the strength in which she endures no matter whether she be built of stone, wood and earth or lives but as a shadow in the mind and longing of her children. For really, Wagadu is not of stone, not of wood, not of earth. Wagadu is the strength which lives in the hearts of men and is sometimes visible because eyes see her and ears hear the clash of swords and ring of shields, and is some? times invisible because the indomitability of men has overtired her, so that she sleeps.
Sleep came to Wagadu for the first time through vanity, for the second time through
133. first must destroy
Mencius:
" A
\
poetry published in 1930.
!
,
149. Vai soli: A misspelling of L, vae soli, "woe to (one who is) alone"; the biblical sentence "V ae soli, quia cum ceciderit, non habet sublevantem se" ("Woe to him who is alone when he falls for he has no one to help him up"). Pound got the phrase from Laforgue who got it from the Bible [Eccle- siastes 4. 10]. Pound used it for a translation he called "Pierrots" [T, 247].
150. 'HAlON . . . : H, "the sun around the sun. "
151. Lucina: Minor Roman diety, an aspect of Juno, the goddess of childbirth. Also Diana Lucina, lunar aspect of tidal and menstrual periodicity.
152. urochs: "Aurochs," European bison.
153. Bunting: Basil B. , 1900?
