Brooks was tried for the offence in the House, but the two- thirds
majority
needed could not be mus- tered to oust him.
A-Companion-to-the-Cantos-of-Ezra-Pound-II
tos, which Pound explained to his father: "The 'magic moment' or moment of meta- morphosis, bust through from quotidien into 'divine or permanent world.
' Gods, etc.
" [L, 210].
Note, too, the way images used early in the poem are repeated as we near the end: "There is a wine?
red glow in the shallows"
[2/7].
50. OU THELEI . . . KOSMOU: H. Pound's
"they
teacher . . . the
[SP ,328].
child just
seemed
stupid"
28. Dummheit: G, "stupidity. "
29. (Ingrid): A London woman Pound cor? responded with who said "she could not find anything by Sir Barry Domvile in local li? braries" [NS,Reading, 111]. Pound believed this was deliberate suppression. According to Stock, "Pound was thinking specifically of Domvile's autobiography, From Admiral to Cabin Boy, a comparatively mild piece of anti? semitism published in 1947. " It is the suppression of anti? Semitic data which Stock thinks explains "as was natural" [a poem by Domvile is in PD, 236? 237].
30. "pseudos . . . pepneumenos": H, [98:45], "he won't lie . . . is much too clever" rOd. III, 20]. The intimation is that Domvile has been silenced because he was, like Nestor, "too intelligent to prevaricate"
[99/697].
31. seed . . .
(of Lacedaemonia) sacrificed a horse to Apollo on Mt. Taygetus [97:290]. Eury? cleia, the nurse, lulled Penelope to sleep: "She then . . . went up to her upper chamber with her handmaids, and placing barley grains in a basket prayed to Athene" rOd. IV, 758? 761].
32. Leucothoe: [Cf. 7, 8 above]. The divine intelligence that makes the cherrystone into a cherrytree is what makes the metamor- phosed girl rise "as an incense bush. "
33. "for my bitch eyes": Helen of Troy said to Menelaus, "when for the sake of shame-
in the next line: want. . . . " But Pound neglects the negative, "QU. " Peter Lori gives: "does not want to come into the world" [Pai, 3? 2, 289]. For the phrase in Greek except for EAEAN, see
(Lacedaemon):
The Spartans
umns of [97:165].
St. Mark's
Venice
102/729-730
102/730-731
661
Cathedral in
41. AISSOUSIN:
[97: 169]. Odysseus tells of his visit to Tire?
sias and says: "To him even in death Perse- phone has granted reason, that he alone should have understanding; but the others flit about as shadows" rOd. X, 494-495].
42. Berenice:
[97: 170].
52. Antoninus: [42:4; 78:56].
53. Julian: J. the Apostate, 331? ? 363, Ro? man emperor (361. 363). He succeeded Con? stantius III, who had made him caesar with command of the Western Empire. But his success in Gaul as an idol of his troops and his reforms of the fiscal system in Rome, which allowed him to reduce the tax from
43. "Same books" [88:67].
brotherlike:
44. south slope . . . : [101 :2; 110:20].
H, "flitting
about"
105/750. 51. amnis
translation
. ripas: L, "river-grass-banks" [JW, Pai, 3? 2, 289] .
? ? ? ? ? ? ? 662
25 to 7 solidi per caput, made Constantius fearful of him as a rival. Constantius ordered him to bring his army east. Julian tried, but his troops refused and named him augustus. Then he marched east, but before the con? frontation Constantius died of a fever [cf. 57 below].
54. Marcellinus: Ammianus M. , ca. 300-ca. 400, Latin historian who was a great admirer of Julian. His 31-book history of Rome, in the manner of Tacitus, covered A. D. 96 to 378, but only books XIV-XXXI survive. Bk. XXIII, chap. 6, has this heading: "A descrip- tion of the eighteen greater provinces of the Persian kingdom, with the cities of each and the customs of their inhabitants" [Mar. , II, 349]. This chapter does not contain the quotations about the many dead, but similar
102/731
lines are found throughout the 3 vols. in the many battle scenes,
55. Assyrios . . . : L, "he passed the fron- tiers of Assyria" [Mar. XXN, I, Vol. II, p. 399]. Julian had sent a reserve army into Assyria, but on the way there himself in 363 was attacked by Persians and mortally wounded.
56. sueta annona: L, "usual high price. "
103/732 663 Exegeses
EP, Pai, 3-3, 393; New Directions 17, 1961 [ND 17]; Eustace Mullins, This Difficult Individual, Ezra Pound, Fleet Pub. Corp. , N. Y. , 1961 [Difficult]; M de R, Discretions; BK & TC Duncan Eaves, Pai, 9-3, 428-439.
Glossary
CANTO CIII Sources
William Elliot Grims, Millard Fillmore, Andrus and Church, Ithaca, N. Y. , 1915 [Fillmore]; Roy Franklin Nichols, Franklin Pierce, Univ. of Penn. , Philadelphia, 1931, rpt. 1958 [Pierce]; Memoirs of the Prince de Talleyrand, ed. duc de Broglie, trans. Raphael de Beaufort,S vols. , G. P. Putnam, N. Y. , 1891 [Mem- oirs, vol. , p. ]. Dante, In/. XXV, Pur. V; Seraphin Couvreur, Les Annales de la Chine, Cathasia, PariS; George Ticknor Curtis, Life of James Buchanan, 2 vols. , N. Y. , 1883 [Buchanan, vol. , p. ]; Alexander Del Mar, History ofMonetary Systems, Chicago, 1896
[HMS] ; J. P. Migne, Patrologiae Latina, vol. 95 [Migne].
Background
David Donald, Charles Sumner and the Coming of the Civil War, Knopf, 1960, [Sumner]; David Donald, Charles Sumner and the Rights of Man, Knopf, 1970; B. L. Reid, The Man from New York: John Quinn and His Friends, Oxford Univ. Press, N. Y. , 1968; EP, SP, 180; CON, 210; MB, Trace; Robert J. Rayback, Millard Fillmore, Buffalo Hist. Soc. , N. Y. , 1959 [Rayback, Fill- more] ;
. . .
L, "whom a
I. 1850: Upon the death of Zachary Taylor in 1850, Millard Fillmore became president. Because he broke with the branch of his party led by Weed and Seward and associ- ated himself with the prosouthern Whigs, he was not nominated in 1852. The conflict paralyzed the government during his two years in office.
2. '56, an M. C. . . . : At a critical moment just before the nominating convention of 1856, Franklin Pierce, who had been a com- promise candidate in 1852 because he was more acceptable to the South than any of the strong candidates (Marcy, Douglass, or Buchanan), faced great difficulty in being renominated by the Jacksonian Democrats. Stresses over sectionalism, slavery, and Cen- tral America made it nip-and-tuck. Pound's source [Pierce, 464] gives a 300-page back- ground to the important moment and then shows, in a chapter entitled "The Calamities of a Month," how scandalous events ruined whatever chances Pierce may have had: "Few months have been more murderous, in peace times, than May 1856. Just as the cycle began [formation of forces for reelec- tion] , news came that some Kansans of Law- rence had shot Sheriff Jones, perhaps fatally. On May 8, Herbert, member of Congress from California, killed one of the waiters at the Willard [Headquarters of Pierce's party]. That same day, John P. Heiss, recently back from Nicaragua, assailed Wallach, the editor of the Star, for an article on Nicaragua. On the 15th there was a murder at the Navy Y ard. " As i f all this weren't enough, then came Brooks. So did scandal alter the course
of the nation.
3. Brooks . . . others": On May 22, 1856, the nephew of Senator Butler, Preston S.
Brooks, a congressman from South Carolina, entered the Senate chamber after it had ad- journed and attacked Sumner with a cane and injured him severely.
Brooks was tried for the offence in the House, but the two- thirds majority needed could not be mus- tered to oust him. On July 14 he made a speech in the House, during which he said he acted in defense of the rights of the South and of others and resigned. But he was over- whelmingly reelected and became a great hero in the slave states [Donald, Sumner, 294 ff. ].
4. "respectful . . . others": After the inaugu- ration of Lincoln, Pierce continued to preach conciliation and the avoidance of war. Says Nichols: "On June 1 at an anniver- sary banquet given in Faneuil Hall . . . he was among the speakers and he lost no time in preaching to New England. We must learn to respect our own rights and the equally sacred rights of others" [Pierce, 508]. For expressing such views, he was not reelected.
5. Homestead: The Homestead Act, 1862, authorized the government to sell land to settlers in the West for revenue. Pound would approve of the government receiving money this way to be used for public ser- vices. Pound wrote to Mullins in 1950: "Del Mar's vast and exact erudition enabled him to correct Mommsen on various points. Mommsen's great merit as a teacher resided in his demonstration that the stability of the Roman Empire, in contrast to the various Mesopotamian despotisms, lay in Rome's planting its veterans in homesteads, as dis- tinct from mere raids of pillage" [EM, Diffi- cult, 311]. Land policy of this kind became central to Pound's criticism of Stalinism. In a note to Strike [Oct. 1955] he quoted
57. Quem
fever took from me. " Refers to the death of Constantius.
59. infaustus: L, "unfortunate. "
eripuit:
slight
[91 :91].
58. Domitian:
tensity of his reign of terror resulted in his assassination.
The increased in-
? ? ? 664
103/732
103/732-733
665
Mencius to show the Confucian idea of a reasonable balance between public and pri- vate lands and ownership: " A square Ii covers 9 squares of land, which 9 squares contain 900 mau. The central square is the public field, and 8 families, each having its private 100 mau, cultivate in common the public field. And not until the public work is finished, may they presume to attend to their private affairs" [Pai, 3? 3, 393] .
6. kolschoz: R, "collective farm"
[104:113]. In the same issue of Strike [cf. 5 above], Pound went on: "We ask the 'Voice of America' if they are making full use of this idea in the fight against Communism in China. Bolshevism started off as an attack against loan? capital and quickly shifted into an attack against the homestead" [ibid. ]. The idea stuck with Pound. In the Bridson interview, July 9, 1959, he said: "Lack of local government is an effect, not a cause, The contest is between the homestead and the kolchos. Mommsen noted that the Ro? man Empire endured longer than Oriental tyrannies because they settled veterans on the land. Civilization is from the homestead. The Russian Revolution was a fake: it pre? tended to attack capital-the general under? standing being that that was loan capital- and it merely attacked landed property down to the peasant's cow" [ND 17, p. 179].
7. Rome . . . Babylon: In Rome "gold was under the Pontifex" [92 :43]. In Babylon, the. rulers did not perceive the "power inlIer- ent" [quiddity; 91 :82] of gold to the state [ef. 5above].
again; this time to . . . Hawthorne. . . . The funeral was imposing because of those who attended: Emerson, Whittier, Lowell, Long?
Cuba, because the large sum . . . would in? sure the payment of the debt. " Belmont was appointed to a diplomatic post at The Hague. The negotiations were delicate and secrecy was essential. The abolitionists would consider the whole thing the under? handed deal it was. But Pierce was under the threat of powerful southerners that they'd take the island by force if need be. Says Nichols: "Into the midst of the puzzle came Mr. Sickles" [Pierce, 357? 358] .
14. Sickles: Daniel Edgar S. , 1819? 1914,
early became a lawyer and a democratic poli~ tician and, by age 35, an ebullient charmer. At this moment he was the secretary of Buchanan's legation in London and arrived in New York with dispatches for Pierce. Says Nichols: "Pierce and Sickles were kindred spirits. Sickles talked too much in his usual vein. He had a great deal to say about the revolution in Spain" [Pierce, 358]. Pierce got him to return to Europe and explore other ways to obtain Cuba. He did, and bounced around Europe, and just before the fan elections of 1854 he talked freely to a group of Congressmen and others in Paris about his plans. The uproar that broke in the
press thereafter guaranteed the party's de?
feat in the elections and the end of any plans
to annex Cuba. Says Nichols: "Pierce's last Cuban card was thrown away by his agents"
[366] .
15. land . . . veterans: Toward the end of a
chapter entitled "Salvaging the Program,"
Nichols lists a number of bills that failed, a few which the 33rd Congress passed: "It had voted 160 acres of land to all veterans, their widows or minors, a blanket grant which Pierce signed in spite of its size; he had a tender spot for old soldiers" [Pierce, 379]. The Mommsen reference [97:33] relates the act to the homestead acts [cf. 5, 6 above] .
16. Hui: Kung was asked [Analects. Five, VIII]: "Who comprehends most, you or Hui? " He answered: "No comparison, Hui hears one point and relates it to ten . . . ; I hear one point and can only get to the next"
[CON, 210]. Pound is asking the reader to
act like Hui and see how many random things relate in a dramatic way; how states and governments rise and fall, not by the well? considered merits of their causes, but by what ought to be minor matters. It is a central theme of this and mimy other cantos.
17. cunicoli: [101:16].
18. canalesque: [canalisque]: L, "and con?
duits. "
19. (min): C [M4508], "the people;
mankind. "
20. caelum renovabat: L, "he restored heaven. "
21. manes: [60:43].
22. Protocol . . . : In the duc de Broglie's
Memoirs there are a'number of chapters con? cerned with efforts to restore the balance of power to Europe after the revolution of 1830. Much of the problem developed around the possibility of obtaining the neu? trality of Belgium as a buffer state between France, to the south, and the powerful Neth? erlands, to the north. In a letter proposing neutrality, he has an introductory sentence: "In sending the protocol of this sitting to Paris on January 29th, I wrote as follows:" What follows is an outline of the problem and the proposal of the neutrality solution [Memoirs, IV, 26]. It should be noted that the problem was not solved quickly, nor in perpetuity.
23. (T. C. P. ): Thaddeus Coleman Pound [97:205] .
8. The slaves . . .
issuers:
Pound believed
the
Pound preferred the idea that, after Tally?
rand, France started no war in Europe. When
the facts dictated otherwise he blanked these
two lines, but they were restored in the New
Directions edition [MB, Trace, 417] . "No" was replaced by "one. "
25. Bismarck: [86:3]. B's EMS Dispatch
presumably insulted France into starting the
Franco? Prussian War in 1870. B believed that
was to be the "war to end all wars. "
26. Casimir: C. Pierre Perier, 1777? 1832,
American Civil War was fought not to free
the slaves but to protect New York bankers,
who had many great plantations under mort?
gage [SP, 180].
9. Emerson . . . funeral: Says Nichols: "On
December 2, 1863, Mrs. Pierce died. Haw?
thorne came to him immediately and to?
gether they looked at the shrunken figure in the coffin, which strangely affected the au? thor. . . . In the spring of 1864, death came
13. Belmont:
gust Belmont had once suggested to Bucha? nan [now Minister to Great Britain] that the way to acquire Cuba- was to use backstairs influence on the Spanish royal family and to call in the aid of the great European banking houses . . . the Barings, the Rothschilds, and other large holders of Spanish bonds who would be interested in having Spain sell
fellow, Agassiz, and Alcott.
there too" [Pierce, 524? 525].
10. Agassiz: [93:51].
. . .
Pierce
was
11. Alcot: Amos Bronson Alcott, 1799? 1888, one of the New England Transcenden? talists and once a nonresident member of Brook Farm.
12. principal bond? holders: The Spanish royal house was greatly in debt to most of the big banking houses of Europe, all of which had branches in the U. S. The problem of Cuba was one of the most difficult and treacherous o f Pierce's administration. The South demanded that Cuba be "freed" from Spain. What really frightened them were rU' mors that Cuba was on the point of freeing its slaves, an idea which was anathema to all slave~state politicians in the U. S. Proposi? tions to either conquer the island or buy it were in the works for years. The Gadsden Purchase had just passed by a narrow mar~ gin. In May 1854 a secret agent returned from Cuba and reported it was all true. Spain was getting ready to free Cuban slaves. An uproar ensued in the Senate.
[2/7].
50. OU THELEI . . . KOSMOU: H. Pound's
"they
teacher . . . the
[SP ,328].
child just
seemed
stupid"
28. Dummheit: G, "stupidity. "
29. (Ingrid): A London woman Pound cor? responded with who said "she could not find anything by Sir Barry Domvile in local li? braries" [NS,Reading, 111]. Pound believed this was deliberate suppression. According to Stock, "Pound was thinking specifically of Domvile's autobiography, From Admiral to Cabin Boy, a comparatively mild piece of anti? semitism published in 1947. " It is the suppression of anti? Semitic data which Stock thinks explains "as was natural" [a poem by Domvile is in PD, 236? 237].
30. "pseudos . . . pepneumenos": H, [98:45], "he won't lie . . . is much too clever" rOd. III, 20]. The intimation is that Domvile has been silenced because he was, like Nestor, "too intelligent to prevaricate"
[99/697].
31. seed . . .
(of Lacedaemonia) sacrificed a horse to Apollo on Mt. Taygetus [97:290]. Eury? cleia, the nurse, lulled Penelope to sleep: "She then . . . went up to her upper chamber with her handmaids, and placing barley grains in a basket prayed to Athene" rOd. IV, 758? 761].
32. Leucothoe: [Cf. 7, 8 above]. The divine intelligence that makes the cherrystone into a cherrytree is what makes the metamor- phosed girl rise "as an incense bush. "
33. "for my bitch eyes": Helen of Troy said to Menelaus, "when for the sake of shame-
in the next line: want. . . . " But Pound neglects the negative, "QU. " Peter Lori gives: "does not want to come into the world" [Pai, 3? 2, 289]. For the phrase in Greek except for EAEAN, see
(Lacedaemon):
The Spartans
umns of [97:165].
St. Mark's
Venice
102/729-730
102/730-731
661
Cathedral in
41. AISSOUSIN:
[97: 169]. Odysseus tells of his visit to Tire?
sias and says: "To him even in death Perse- phone has granted reason, that he alone should have understanding; but the others flit about as shadows" rOd. X, 494-495].
42. Berenice:
[97: 170].
52. Antoninus: [42:4; 78:56].
53. Julian: J. the Apostate, 331? ? 363, Ro? man emperor (361. 363). He succeeded Con? stantius III, who had made him caesar with command of the Western Empire. But his success in Gaul as an idol of his troops and his reforms of the fiscal system in Rome, which allowed him to reduce the tax from
43. "Same books" [88:67].
brotherlike:
44. south slope . . . : [101 :2; 110:20].
H, "flitting
about"
105/750. 51. amnis
translation
. ripas: L, "river-grass-banks" [JW, Pai, 3? 2, 289] .
? ? ? ? ? ? ? 662
25 to 7 solidi per caput, made Constantius fearful of him as a rival. Constantius ordered him to bring his army east. Julian tried, but his troops refused and named him augustus. Then he marched east, but before the con? frontation Constantius died of a fever [cf. 57 below].
54. Marcellinus: Ammianus M. , ca. 300-ca. 400, Latin historian who was a great admirer of Julian. His 31-book history of Rome, in the manner of Tacitus, covered A. D. 96 to 378, but only books XIV-XXXI survive. Bk. XXIII, chap. 6, has this heading: "A descrip- tion of the eighteen greater provinces of the Persian kingdom, with the cities of each and the customs of their inhabitants" [Mar. , II, 349]. This chapter does not contain the quotations about the many dead, but similar
102/731
lines are found throughout the 3 vols. in the many battle scenes,
55. Assyrios . . . : L, "he passed the fron- tiers of Assyria" [Mar. XXN, I, Vol. II, p. 399]. Julian had sent a reserve army into Assyria, but on the way there himself in 363 was attacked by Persians and mortally wounded.
56. sueta annona: L, "usual high price. "
103/732 663 Exegeses
EP, Pai, 3-3, 393; New Directions 17, 1961 [ND 17]; Eustace Mullins, This Difficult Individual, Ezra Pound, Fleet Pub. Corp. , N. Y. , 1961 [Difficult]; M de R, Discretions; BK & TC Duncan Eaves, Pai, 9-3, 428-439.
Glossary
CANTO CIII Sources
William Elliot Grims, Millard Fillmore, Andrus and Church, Ithaca, N. Y. , 1915 [Fillmore]; Roy Franklin Nichols, Franklin Pierce, Univ. of Penn. , Philadelphia, 1931, rpt. 1958 [Pierce]; Memoirs of the Prince de Talleyrand, ed. duc de Broglie, trans. Raphael de Beaufort,S vols. , G. P. Putnam, N. Y. , 1891 [Mem- oirs, vol. , p. ]. Dante, In/. XXV, Pur. V; Seraphin Couvreur, Les Annales de la Chine, Cathasia, PariS; George Ticknor Curtis, Life of James Buchanan, 2 vols. , N. Y. , 1883 [Buchanan, vol. , p. ]; Alexander Del Mar, History ofMonetary Systems, Chicago, 1896
[HMS] ; J. P. Migne, Patrologiae Latina, vol. 95 [Migne].
Background
David Donald, Charles Sumner and the Coming of the Civil War, Knopf, 1960, [Sumner]; David Donald, Charles Sumner and the Rights of Man, Knopf, 1970; B. L. Reid, The Man from New York: John Quinn and His Friends, Oxford Univ. Press, N. Y. , 1968; EP, SP, 180; CON, 210; MB, Trace; Robert J. Rayback, Millard Fillmore, Buffalo Hist. Soc. , N. Y. , 1959 [Rayback, Fill- more] ;
. . .
L, "whom a
I. 1850: Upon the death of Zachary Taylor in 1850, Millard Fillmore became president. Because he broke with the branch of his party led by Weed and Seward and associ- ated himself with the prosouthern Whigs, he was not nominated in 1852. The conflict paralyzed the government during his two years in office.
2. '56, an M. C. . . . : At a critical moment just before the nominating convention of 1856, Franklin Pierce, who had been a com- promise candidate in 1852 because he was more acceptable to the South than any of the strong candidates (Marcy, Douglass, or Buchanan), faced great difficulty in being renominated by the Jacksonian Democrats. Stresses over sectionalism, slavery, and Cen- tral America made it nip-and-tuck. Pound's source [Pierce, 464] gives a 300-page back- ground to the important moment and then shows, in a chapter entitled "The Calamities of a Month," how scandalous events ruined whatever chances Pierce may have had: "Few months have been more murderous, in peace times, than May 1856. Just as the cycle began [formation of forces for reelec- tion] , news came that some Kansans of Law- rence had shot Sheriff Jones, perhaps fatally. On May 8, Herbert, member of Congress from California, killed one of the waiters at the Willard [Headquarters of Pierce's party]. That same day, John P. Heiss, recently back from Nicaragua, assailed Wallach, the editor of the Star, for an article on Nicaragua. On the 15th there was a murder at the Navy Y ard. " As i f all this weren't enough, then came Brooks. So did scandal alter the course
of the nation.
3. Brooks . . . others": On May 22, 1856, the nephew of Senator Butler, Preston S.
Brooks, a congressman from South Carolina, entered the Senate chamber after it had ad- journed and attacked Sumner with a cane and injured him severely.
Brooks was tried for the offence in the House, but the two- thirds majority needed could not be mus- tered to oust him. On July 14 he made a speech in the House, during which he said he acted in defense of the rights of the South and of others and resigned. But he was over- whelmingly reelected and became a great hero in the slave states [Donald, Sumner, 294 ff. ].
4. "respectful . . . others": After the inaugu- ration of Lincoln, Pierce continued to preach conciliation and the avoidance of war. Says Nichols: "On June 1 at an anniver- sary banquet given in Faneuil Hall . . . he was among the speakers and he lost no time in preaching to New England. We must learn to respect our own rights and the equally sacred rights of others" [Pierce, 508]. For expressing such views, he was not reelected.
5. Homestead: The Homestead Act, 1862, authorized the government to sell land to settlers in the West for revenue. Pound would approve of the government receiving money this way to be used for public ser- vices. Pound wrote to Mullins in 1950: "Del Mar's vast and exact erudition enabled him to correct Mommsen on various points. Mommsen's great merit as a teacher resided in his demonstration that the stability of the Roman Empire, in contrast to the various Mesopotamian despotisms, lay in Rome's planting its veterans in homesteads, as dis- tinct from mere raids of pillage" [EM, Diffi- cult, 311]. Land policy of this kind became central to Pound's criticism of Stalinism. In a note to Strike [Oct. 1955] he quoted
57. Quem
fever took from me. " Refers to the death of Constantius.
59. infaustus: L, "unfortunate. "
eripuit:
slight
[91 :91].
58. Domitian:
tensity of his reign of terror resulted in his assassination.
The increased in-
? ? ? 664
103/732
103/732-733
665
Mencius to show the Confucian idea of a reasonable balance between public and pri- vate lands and ownership: " A square Ii covers 9 squares of land, which 9 squares contain 900 mau. The central square is the public field, and 8 families, each having its private 100 mau, cultivate in common the public field. And not until the public work is finished, may they presume to attend to their private affairs" [Pai, 3? 3, 393] .
6. kolschoz: R, "collective farm"
[104:113]. In the same issue of Strike [cf. 5 above], Pound went on: "We ask the 'Voice of America' if they are making full use of this idea in the fight against Communism in China. Bolshevism started off as an attack against loan? capital and quickly shifted into an attack against the homestead" [ibid. ]. The idea stuck with Pound. In the Bridson interview, July 9, 1959, he said: "Lack of local government is an effect, not a cause, The contest is between the homestead and the kolchos. Mommsen noted that the Ro? man Empire endured longer than Oriental tyrannies because they settled veterans on the land. Civilization is from the homestead. The Russian Revolution was a fake: it pre? tended to attack capital-the general under? standing being that that was loan capital- and it merely attacked landed property down to the peasant's cow" [ND 17, p. 179].
7. Rome . . . Babylon: In Rome "gold was under the Pontifex" [92 :43]. In Babylon, the. rulers did not perceive the "power inlIer- ent" [quiddity; 91 :82] of gold to the state [ef. 5above].
again; this time to . . . Hawthorne. . . . The funeral was imposing because of those who attended: Emerson, Whittier, Lowell, Long?
Cuba, because the large sum . . . would in? sure the payment of the debt. " Belmont was appointed to a diplomatic post at The Hague. The negotiations were delicate and secrecy was essential. The abolitionists would consider the whole thing the under? handed deal it was. But Pierce was under the threat of powerful southerners that they'd take the island by force if need be. Says Nichols: "Into the midst of the puzzle came Mr. Sickles" [Pierce, 357? 358] .
14. Sickles: Daniel Edgar S. , 1819? 1914,
early became a lawyer and a democratic poli~ tician and, by age 35, an ebullient charmer. At this moment he was the secretary of Buchanan's legation in London and arrived in New York with dispatches for Pierce. Says Nichols: "Pierce and Sickles were kindred spirits. Sickles talked too much in his usual vein. He had a great deal to say about the revolution in Spain" [Pierce, 358]. Pierce got him to return to Europe and explore other ways to obtain Cuba. He did, and bounced around Europe, and just before the fan elections of 1854 he talked freely to a group of Congressmen and others in Paris about his plans. The uproar that broke in the
press thereafter guaranteed the party's de?
feat in the elections and the end of any plans
to annex Cuba. Says Nichols: "Pierce's last Cuban card was thrown away by his agents"
[366] .
15. land . . . veterans: Toward the end of a
chapter entitled "Salvaging the Program,"
Nichols lists a number of bills that failed, a few which the 33rd Congress passed: "It had voted 160 acres of land to all veterans, their widows or minors, a blanket grant which Pierce signed in spite of its size; he had a tender spot for old soldiers" [Pierce, 379]. The Mommsen reference [97:33] relates the act to the homestead acts [cf. 5, 6 above] .
16. Hui: Kung was asked [Analects. Five, VIII]: "Who comprehends most, you or Hui? " He answered: "No comparison, Hui hears one point and relates it to ten . . . ; I hear one point and can only get to the next"
[CON, 210]. Pound is asking the reader to
act like Hui and see how many random things relate in a dramatic way; how states and governments rise and fall, not by the well? considered merits of their causes, but by what ought to be minor matters. It is a central theme of this and mimy other cantos.
17. cunicoli: [101:16].
18. canalesque: [canalisque]: L, "and con?
duits. "
19. (min): C [M4508], "the people;
mankind. "
20. caelum renovabat: L, "he restored heaven. "
21. manes: [60:43].
22. Protocol . . . : In the duc de Broglie's
Memoirs there are a'number of chapters con? cerned with efforts to restore the balance of power to Europe after the revolution of 1830. Much of the problem developed around the possibility of obtaining the neu? trality of Belgium as a buffer state between France, to the south, and the powerful Neth? erlands, to the north. In a letter proposing neutrality, he has an introductory sentence: "In sending the protocol of this sitting to Paris on January 29th, I wrote as follows:" What follows is an outline of the problem and the proposal of the neutrality solution [Memoirs, IV, 26]. It should be noted that the problem was not solved quickly, nor in perpetuity.
23. (T. C. P. ): Thaddeus Coleman Pound [97:205] .
8. The slaves . . .
issuers:
Pound believed
the
Pound preferred the idea that, after Tally?
rand, France started no war in Europe. When
the facts dictated otherwise he blanked these
two lines, but they were restored in the New
Directions edition [MB, Trace, 417] . "No" was replaced by "one. "
25. Bismarck: [86:3]. B's EMS Dispatch
presumably insulted France into starting the
Franco? Prussian War in 1870. B believed that
was to be the "war to end all wars. "
26. Casimir: C. Pierre Perier, 1777? 1832,
American Civil War was fought not to free
the slaves but to protect New York bankers,
who had many great plantations under mort?
gage [SP, 180].
9. Emerson . . . funeral: Says Nichols: "On
December 2, 1863, Mrs. Pierce died. Haw?
thorne came to him immediately and to?
gether they looked at the shrunken figure in the coffin, which strangely affected the au? thor. . . . In the spring of 1864, death came
13. Belmont:
gust Belmont had once suggested to Bucha? nan [now Minister to Great Britain] that the way to acquire Cuba- was to use backstairs influence on the Spanish royal family and to call in the aid of the great European banking houses . . . the Barings, the Rothschilds, and other large holders of Spanish bonds who would be interested in having Spain sell
fellow, Agassiz, and Alcott.
there too" [Pierce, 524? 525].
10. Agassiz: [93:51].
. . .
Pierce
was
11. Alcot: Amos Bronson Alcott, 1799? 1888, one of the New England Transcenden? talists and once a nonresident member of Brook Farm.
12. principal bond? holders: The Spanish royal house was greatly in debt to most of the big banking houses of Europe, all of which had branches in the U. S. The problem of Cuba was one of the most difficult and treacherous o f Pierce's administration. The South demanded that Cuba be "freed" from Spain. What really frightened them were rU' mors that Cuba was on the point of freeing its slaves, an idea which was anathema to all slave~state politicians in the U. S. Proposi? tions to either conquer the island or buy it were in the works for years. The Gadsden Purchase had just passed by a narrow mar~ gin. In May 1854 a secret agent returned from Cuba and reported it was all true. Spain was getting ready to free Cuban slaves. An uproar ensued in the Senate.
