However good the inten- tions of the Emperor, his writ scarcely ran beyond the limits of his palace" [Temple- wood, Nine
Troubled
Years, ISO].
A-Companion-to-the-Cantos-of-Ezra-Pound-II
Symonds, Renaissance in Italy, London, 1897?
99; M.
von Wolff, Lorenzo Valla, Leipzig, 1893 [Wolff, Valla]; Bernard J.
Poli, Ford Madox Ford and the Transatlantic Review, Syracuse, 1967.
Exegeses
John Peck, Agenda, vol. 9, nos. 2? 3, 1971,26? 29; Jamila Ismail, Agenda, vol. 9, nos. 2? 3, 1971,70? 87; CFT,Pai, 3? 1,90? 122; NS, Reading, Ill; MSB, Pai, 3? 3, 332; John Peck, Pai, 2? 1,144; FR, P/J, 216? 221; MB, Trace, 418-423; William Cookson,A Guide to The Cantos, inedit [WC, Guide].
Glossary
94. Arab
. . .
Sweden: Said Del
Mar: "A
106. edicti prologo: L, "with a prologue to the edict" [96:271]. The edict of Leo the Wise.
107. dope . . . use: Not in the source in this
apparent sense. But Paul the Deacon men-
tions a drink that drove the king out of his mind [Migne, 582] [BK].
108. Puteum . . . : L, "'I shall fill a well with the testicles of clericS,' said Alchis. "
109. Alchis: The Brescian duke Alachis (or Alahis) tried to take power from King Cu? ningpert of Lombardy [96:40]. He uttered the line after he had killed an Arian? heretical prelate who he thought was the king
[Migne, 620].
110. Das Leihkapital: G, "the loan? capital. "
I l l . Mensdorf letter: A letter written by Count Albert Mensdorf [19:22] to Nicholas Murray Butler, 28 June, 1928, who was then Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Carnegie Endowment for Peace. Mensdorf recommended a study of the causes of wars and included a list as a starter [EH,Pai, 1? 2, 273? 275; IMP, 281? 283]. A note in Impact says that Pound helped draft the letter.
barbaric imitation o f Byzantine coin o f the
fifth century was found in Mallgard, Got? land" [HMS, 119]. Gotland is an island of SE Sweden in the Baltic Sea.
95. Fortuna: [96/656].
96. Raleigh . . . usury: [97:191].
97. Wodan . . . : L, "Wodan has charge of power" [Migne, 95, 447? 448].
98. Frieo: [Fricco]: A major Lombardic
god who presided over peace and sexual
pleasures [ibid. ].
99. voluptatem: L, "pleasure" [ibid. ].
100. Agelmund: [97:268].
101. quae . . . sacrificiis: L, "which from frankincense they were accustomed in their sacrifices" [96:3].
102. Roma: [96:5]. 103. Brennus: [96:7].
1. Na Khi . . . game: Source in Rock [110:54] : "The region here is wild, and not a breath of air is stirring in the forest. . . Not a human soul dwells here" [Rock, II,
235? 6n. ;Pai, 3? 1,105].
2. Mihailovitch: Draja Mikhailovitch, 1893? ? 1946, Serbian revolutionary who fought on the monarchist side against the axis, as did Croatian underground leader Marshall Josef Tito, who sided with the Communists. But M. 's guerilla group, the Chetniks, was in every way ? antithetical to Tito's Partisans. The ideological crosS- purposes and confusions of all WWII alii? ances were played out in microcosm by the struggles of these two. Although M:s force did not want to fight for any totalitarian power, it did sign up with the Communists to fight the Nazis. The situation behind the- canto lines is complicated. In 1941 some people in the British Foreign Office ("F. O. ") wanted to support M. rather than Tito be? cause he had been pro? British in the Balkan Wars and in WWI and would be more reliable to deal with after the war than Tito would be. But the pro? Communist forces in the
government won out and support went to
Tito rather than M. M. was by all his acts an Allied hero, but after the war he was tried by Tito in a glare of pUblicity. In spite of worldwide protest, he was found guilty and executed. The world concluded that internal political considerations dictated the sentence rather than his guilt. Julian Amery in his autobiography, Approach March, has a po? lite but detailed statement of the affair [see "Mihailovitch, General Draja" in the index]. - The "young lout" could be any member of the Communist party then high up in the British government (Burgess and Blunt come to mind); the "old lout" is prob. someone close to the foreign secretary or even to Churchill himself.
3. young S. : Unidentified, but pass. young
Jan Smuts who is mentioned by Amery as pro-Mihailovitch. The connection between the "Na-Khi" lines and the "F. O. " lines is one of time and theme: Dr. Rock in 1941 is exploring the paradisal scene of peace in the Mekon,g mountains; meanwhile, back in Eu- rope, etc.
CANTO CIY
Sources
Joseph Rock, The Ancient Na-Khi Kingdom ofSouthwest China, 2 vols. , Harvard University Press, 1947 [Rock, vol. , p. ]; Seraphin Couvreur, Chou King, Cathasia, 1950; Ovid, Fasti, VoL I, V; Allen Upward, The Divine Mystery, London, New York, 1910 [Upward, Mystery]; L A. Waddell, Indo? Summertan Seals Deci? phered, London, 1925 [Seals]; Dante, Par. XV, 70? 87.
lOS. Rothar . . . : L, heresy" [96:27,28].
"Rothar
of the
Arian
? ? 676
104/738-739
104/739-740
4. Lepanto: The naval battle in 1571 at which the Christian powers defeated the Turkish fleet and prevented the Ottoman Empire from controlling the Mediterranean and the Balkans. Pound's contention is that the banks in power (after the battle) con- trolled the outlets of money and depreciated the value of the printed currency. The con- nection between Lepanto and the WWII Bal- kans is "the same old story. "
5. Ling: [85:1]. C, "sensibility. " If the ethics of the West were grounded in ling, we would not have the conditions suggested by the preceding glosses.
6. semina: L, "seeds. " A part of the musical figure semina motuum [90:24]: "seeds in qIotion. " Paraphrase: Only by a great human sensibility will the seeds that might blossom into a paradisio terrestre be put into motion.
7. Ideogram: Wu [M7164], "ritual," the bottom component of ling.
8. And a $ . . . : The results of a managed and calculated depreciation of the currency.
9. Procope: [102: 15].
10. Dondo: Mathurin Marius D. , 1884-? , French playwright and poet who made adap- tations of medieval pieces. Pound wrote in a letter to WCW, Dec. 1913: "Dondo has turned up again after years of exile. He is in Paris, has met De Gourmont. We printed a page of his stuff, verse, in The N. F. last
week. I think he will do something" [L,28]. 11. Tabarin: [80:26]. French restaurant
and nightclub.
12. Moulin Rouge: A nightclub favored by a number of the modernist painters as well as the beau monde.
13. Degas: H. G. EdgarD. , 1834-1917, one of the most important of the impressionist painters.
14. La Concorde: The Degas painting Place de la Concorde (paris, c. 1875) has a per- spective from the center of the square to the Chamber of Deputies in the distance. A fam- ily group is in the right foreground. The
painting shows only what the eye catches at a glimpse.
. . .
nephew of Sir Samuel Hoare), an employee
of the Bank of Egypt who got from Addis Ababa all the gold Haile Selassie had hidden under his bed [80: 307] . The Bank of Egypt was in effect a branch of the Bank of En- gland, whose interest in the Lion of Judah dintinished after they had the gold [BK, Pai, 12-2 &3]. Sir Samuel Hoare, British foreign secretary 1835-1836, was given the job of forestalling the Italian occupation of Ethi- opa. Hoare said of Haile Selassie's rule: "The Amharic Government of Addis Ababa had little authority over the tribes and races of the south and west, Gallas, Somalis, Leiba and Shifta wandering gangs, disloyal Rases, anti-Christian Moslems, Arab slave traders and intriguing adventurers, who one and all did much as they liked in this remnant of Medieval Africa.
However good the inten- tions of the Emperor, his writ scarcely ran beyond the limits of his palace" [Temple- wood, Nine Troubled Years, ISO].
25. Londres' books . . . : Albert L. during the 20s and 30s published a series of well- written exposes of oppression and corrup- tion, dealing with: black oppression (Terre d'Ebene, 1929); prison conditions (Au Bague, 1932); white slavery (Le Chemin de Buenos Aires, 1927); mental institutions (Chez les fous, 1925); drug traffic in China (La Chine enfolie, 1925). "His Le juif errant est arrive (1930) is a sympathetic treatment of the Zionist cause which denounces the persecution of Jews in Central Europe" [Sie- burth, Pai, 5-2, 293].
26. pine-needles: [101:46].
27. 2mua"u Ibpo: C, "sacrifice to heaven. "
15. Seurat's":
French post~impressionist painter whose pointillism (tiny dots of pure color) suggest "splintered light. "
16. Pitagora: Pythagoras, the well-spring of Neoplatonic light-philosophy.
17. Disraeli. . Parliament: [48:19; 89:156]. In one of his broadcasts Pound said: "Subversion was not invented in the days of Disraeli" [Speaking, 400]. But Pound believes that under his leadership and with his example it was brought to a point of perfection. The "bitching England"con- cerns D's deals with the house of Roth- schild to buy the controlling interest of the Suez Canal [86:61].
18. Wolff: Henry Wolff (b. 1931), poet, writer, and perennial student (in 1982 at UC Berkeley). Sometime during the mid-fifties H. W. allowed John Kaspar, a close friend, to use his apartment in N. Y. Since Pound was writing to Kaspar often and addressing his
letters c/o Henry Wolff, the name became familiar to him. Prob. the "double ff' indi- cated Jewish descent to Pound, even though the spelling does not indicate anything for certain. The association is prob. because of Pound's idea of Disraeli as a Jewish "Wolfman. "
19. de l'audace: F, "the audacity of it'"
20. PANURGIA: H, "villany. " The brutal drug-smuggling and slave-trading [ef. 24 below].
21. Xreia: H, "need. "
22. Schmidt: [86/566]. Formerly recalled as Schwartz.
23. Rocke: An English colonel, "active on behalf of Italy during the Abyssinian war, who disseminated information that was being refused circulation in Britain and else- where" [NS, Reading, Ill]. The other Rock is a botanist [110:54].
George S. ,
1859-1891,
T
24. Sammy's newy
: Ted
Press
(the
Vatican Library and a great patron of the humanities.
32. (Valla): Lorenzo V. , c. 1407-1457, an Italian humanist who knew Greek well. Pope Nicholas V chose him to translate Herodotus andTh~cydidesintoLatin. Heexposedthe Donation of Constantine as a forgery
[89:236] and was subject to suspicion be- cause of his treatise De Voluptate, which attacked chastity as an ideal [89:204].
33. latinitas: L, "pure Latin" or "the spirit of latinity"; from Valla's De Elegantiis La- tinae Linguae [Wolff, Val/a; the " f r ' spelling of Wolffs name (cf. 18 above) may have reminded Pound of this book].
34. Bassinio: Basinio da Parma, 1424-1457, an Italian scholar who died in Rimini and is buried in a sarcophagus next to Sigismundo Malatesta [9:7].
35. Uncle Carlo: [92:49].
36. (Wieland): Prob. Christoph Martin Wie- land, 1733-1813, the great Gennan poet, novelist, and critic, who after living long in Switzerland; was converted from pietism to a light-hearted romantic attitude of the scenic kind. Prob. a memory of a WWI scene of getting a torpedo boat overland suggested something in W. 's work.
37. The Pollok . . . sea": Sir Ian Hamilton [93:163], 1853-1947, who commanded the British Mediterranean Expeditionary Force in WWI and after became an adviser on Near Eastern affairs, told the Poles that if Ger- many invaded Poland they could expect help via the Black Sea. But the Soviet-Nazi pact intervened, which made it impossible to get
to Poland via the Black Sea [WC, Guide] . 38. Pitonessa: I, UPythoness. " Name of a
woman seer, such as at the Oracle of Delphi, who became inspired by breathing intoxi- cating fumes: "[She] took her stand on a three-legged stool, or tripod, placed over a crack in the floor of a cave, and became literally inspired by the fumes that issued from the earth" [Upward, Mystery, 15].
39. Ideogram: Ling2 [85:1]. The top com-
. . .
28. agitante
are warmed" [93:107].
29. nos otros: S, "we others. "
"stirs
calescimus: L,
us we
30. Murare, tradurre: I, "to build, to translate. "
31. Pope Nicolo: Nicolo V, 1397-1455, who as pope (1447-1455) was a founder of the
677
? ? 678
104/740-741
104/741-742
679
ponent stands for clouds. The repeated cen- tral component [M3434], "mouth," gives "the three voices," over the bottom com- ponent, which stands for a wizard or seer, such as the Pythoness.
40. And stopped . . . metals: Prob. the reli? gious ecstasy that led some to dedicate themselves to values other than gold and silver.
41. Once gold . . . burrows: Waddell says: "The gold? digging 'ants' are described by Strabo as having 'skins as large as leopards. ' They were evidently the large Tibetan rabbit? like Marmots, which burrowed in the auriferous sand and brought gold to the sur? face" [Seals, 13].
42. paothree: [M4956J, "treasure. " Charac- ter as given.
43. paoth",: [M4953], "a bird said to be like the wild goose. " Character not given.
44. paofOll': [M4954], "a leopard; a pan? ther; a kind of wildcat. " Character as given.
45. da radice torbida: I, "of turbid root. "
46. maalesh: A colloquial Arabic expression that means "never mind," "don't worry about it," "take things as they come," "que sera sera," ot all these things.
47. Adolf: A. Hitler. Pound seems to have believed that Hitler got onto the bankers and usurocrats; his perception of their interna- tional plot is what made him furious [Pound, Speaking, 49, 79, 433, passim]. But Pound also wrote, in a piece entitled "From Italy" [NEW, May 24, 1934]: "Adolphe is, an, almost, pathetic hysteric; . . . he is, so far as I can make out, a tool of almost the worst Huns. "
48. they . . . : FDR, Churchill, and all those who were blind to what WWII was really all about.
49. "Beg the . . . him": The source of the remark is unknown, but clearly the speaker is a wonderful lady of the old school, who knows it is immoral to embarrass anyone.
50. And the cap . . . nuance: The lines are an enigma. This gloss number and space are reserved for the time when someone will have a reasonable clue.
of England, such as Athelstan or Lear, whose prayers were often to Diana [91/612? 613].
60. "Wash . . . Ian'. ": Prob. remark of Elder Lightfoot [95:42].
71. monoceros: H, "unicorn. " Yeats wrote of "Magical Unicorns" and "cloud-pale uni- corns" in the last stanza of The Tower. His bookplate shows a rampant unicorn in heral~ dic style.
n. Gladstone: William Ewart G. , 1809? 1898, dominant personality of the British Liberal party and erstwhile prime minister toward end of the century. Earlier, as a young man, he served in the cabinet of Pal~ merston and may have tried to cultivate one of his important lady supporters, which may have been bad but was not as bad as Dis? raeli's act of selling the country.
73. Palmerston: [89:154].
74. Hollis: Author of The Two Nations, A
Financial Study of English History, a book that exposed the "Whiggery" of the profes? sorships as well as the diliberate and know? ing creation of a nation of poverty in order to maintain a nation of wealth.
75. Regius: [46:29]. 76. Coke: [107:3].
51. 1910: Pears': Although
claimed suzerainty over Tibet since 1720, the British began challenging that control in the 20th century. In 1904 they sent to Thasa Sir Frances Younghusband, who by 1910 had managed to get a number ofvalu? able trading rights. In those years Pears' soap
was supposedly a measure of the civilization Britain was bringing to the "unwashed" world: it functioned as a symbol with ironic
overtones, somewhat as Coca-Cola does today.
52. Les Douze: Prob. a Parisian literary group of the old school who met occasional? ly at a restaurant but were quite oblivious to the important things going on, such as Ford's new Transatlantic Review.
53. Fordie: Ford Madox F. [74:165]. In the early twenties, when he was editing the Transatlantic Review in Paris.
54. Ambro[i]se Pare: French army surgeon, ca. 1510? 1590, famous for introducing hu? mane methods into medicine. He did away with "the boiling oil treatment of wounds" (which sometimes caused death by shock), promoted the use of artificial limbs, and saved many lives by introducing the tour- niquet.
55. before Zeus . . .
Exegeses
John Peck, Agenda, vol. 9, nos. 2? 3, 1971,26? 29; Jamila Ismail, Agenda, vol. 9, nos. 2? 3, 1971,70? 87; CFT,Pai, 3? 1,90? 122; NS, Reading, Ill; MSB, Pai, 3? 3, 332; John Peck, Pai, 2? 1,144; FR, P/J, 216? 221; MB, Trace, 418-423; William Cookson,A Guide to The Cantos, inedit [WC, Guide].
Glossary
94. Arab
. . .
Sweden: Said Del
Mar: "A
106. edicti prologo: L, "with a prologue to the edict" [96:271]. The edict of Leo the Wise.
107. dope . . . use: Not in the source in this
apparent sense. But Paul the Deacon men-
tions a drink that drove the king out of his mind [Migne, 582] [BK].
108. Puteum . . . : L, "'I shall fill a well with the testicles of clericS,' said Alchis. "
109. Alchis: The Brescian duke Alachis (or Alahis) tried to take power from King Cu? ningpert of Lombardy [96:40]. He uttered the line after he had killed an Arian? heretical prelate who he thought was the king
[Migne, 620].
110. Das Leihkapital: G, "the loan? capital. "
I l l . Mensdorf letter: A letter written by Count Albert Mensdorf [19:22] to Nicholas Murray Butler, 28 June, 1928, who was then Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Carnegie Endowment for Peace. Mensdorf recommended a study of the causes of wars and included a list as a starter [EH,Pai, 1? 2, 273? 275; IMP, 281? 283]. A note in Impact says that Pound helped draft the letter.
barbaric imitation o f Byzantine coin o f the
fifth century was found in Mallgard, Got? land" [HMS, 119]. Gotland is an island of SE Sweden in the Baltic Sea.
95. Fortuna: [96/656].
96. Raleigh . . . usury: [97:191].
97. Wodan . . . : L, "Wodan has charge of power" [Migne, 95, 447? 448].
98. Frieo: [Fricco]: A major Lombardic
god who presided over peace and sexual
pleasures [ibid. ].
99. voluptatem: L, "pleasure" [ibid. ].
100. Agelmund: [97:268].
101. quae . . . sacrificiis: L, "which from frankincense they were accustomed in their sacrifices" [96:3].
102. Roma: [96:5]. 103. Brennus: [96:7].
1. Na Khi . . . game: Source in Rock [110:54] : "The region here is wild, and not a breath of air is stirring in the forest. . . Not a human soul dwells here" [Rock, II,
235? 6n. ;Pai, 3? 1,105].
2. Mihailovitch: Draja Mikhailovitch, 1893? ? 1946, Serbian revolutionary who fought on the monarchist side against the axis, as did Croatian underground leader Marshall Josef Tito, who sided with the Communists. But M. 's guerilla group, the Chetniks, was in every way ? antithetical to Tito's Partisans. The ideological crosS- purposes and confusions of all WWII alii? ances were played out in microcosm by the struggles of these two. Although M:s force did not want to fight for any totalitarian power, it did sign up with the Communists to fight the Nazis. The situation behind the- canto lines is complicated. In 1941 some people in the British Foreign Office ("F. O. ") wanted to support M. rather than Tito be? cause he had been pro? British in the Balkan Wars and in WWI and would be more reliable to deal with after the war than Tito would be. But the pro? Communist forces in the
government won out and support went to
Tito rather than M. M. was by all his acts an Allied hero, but after the war he was tried by Tito in a glare of pUblicity. In spite of worldwide protest, he was found guilty and executed. The world concluded that internal political considerations dictated the sentence rather than his guilt. Julian Amery in his autobiography, Approach March, has a po? lite but detailed statement of the affair [see "Mihailovitch, General Draja" in the index]. - The "young lout" could be any member of the Communist party then high up in the British government (Burgess and Blunt come to mind); the "old lout" is prob. someone close to the foreign secretary or even to Churchill himself.
3. young S. : Unidentified, but pass. young
Jan Smuts who is mentioned by Amery as pro-Mihailovitch. The connection between the "Na-Khi" lines and the "F. O. " lines is one of time and theme: Dr. Rock in 1941 is exploring the paradisal scene of peace in the Mekon,g mountains; meanwhile, back in Eu- rope, etc.
CANTO CIY
Sources
Joseph Rock, The Ancient Na-Khi Kingdom ofSouthwest China, 2 vols. , Harvard University Press, 1947 [Rock, vol. , p. ]; Seraphin Couvreur, Chou King, Cathasia, 1950; Ovid, Fasti, VoL I, V; Allen Upward, The Divine Mystery, London, New York, 1910 [Upward, Mystery]; L A. Waddell, Indo? Summertan Seals Deci? phered, London, 1925 [Seals]; Dante, Par. XV, 70? 87.
lOS. Rothar . . . : L, heresy" [96:27,28].
"Rothar
of the
Arian
? ? 676
104/738-739
104/739-740
4. Lepanto: The naval battle in 1571 at which the Christian powers defeated the Turkish fleet and prevented the Ottoman Empire from controlling the Mediterranean and the Balkans. Pound's contention is that the banks in power (after the battle) con- trolled the outlets of money and depreciated the value of the printed currency. The con- nection between Lepanto and the WWII Bal- kans is "the same old story. "
5. Ling: [85:1]. C, "sensibility. " If the ethics of the West were grounded in ling, we would not have the conditions suggested by the preceding glosses.
6. semina: L, "seeds. " A part of the musical figure semina motuum [90:24]: "seeds in qIotion. " Paraphrase: Only by a great human sensibility will the seeds that might blossom into a paradisio terrestre be put into motion.
7. Ideogram: Wu [M7164], "ritual," the bottom component of ling.
8. And a $ . . . : The results of a managed and calculated depreciation of the currency.
9. Procope: [102: 15].
10. Dondo: Mathurin Marius D. , 1884-? , French playwright and poet who made adap- tations of medieval pieces. Pound wrote in a letter to WCW, Dec. 1913: "Dondo has turned up again after years of exile. He is in Paris, has met De Gourmont. We printed a page of his stuff, verse, in The N. F. last
week. I think he will do something" [L,28]. 11. Tabarin: [80:26]. French restaurant
and nightclub.
12. Moulin Rouge: A nightclub favored by a number of the modernist painters as well as the beau monde.
13. Degas: H. G. EdgarD. , 1834-1917, one of the most important of the impressionist painters.
14. La Concorde: The Degas painting Place de la Concorde (paris, c. 1875) has a per- spective from the center of the square to the Chamber of Deputies in the distance. A fam- ily group is in the right foreground. The
painting shows only what the eye catches at a glimpse.
. . .
nephew of Sir Samuel Hoare), an employee
of the Bank of Egypt who got from Addis Ababa all the gold Haile Selassie had hidden under his bed [80: 307] . The Bank of Egypt was in effect a branch of the Bank of En- gland, whose interest in the Lion of Judah dintinished after they had the gold [BK, Pai, 12-2 &3]. Sir Samuel Hoare, British foreign secretary 1835-1836, was given the job of forestalling the Italian occupation of Ethi- opa. Hoare said of Haile Selassie's rule: "The Amharic Government of Addis Ababa had little authority over the tribes and races of the south and west, Gallas, Somalis, Leiba and Shifta wandering gangs, disloyal Rases, anti-Christian Moslems, Arab slave traders and intriguing adventurers, who one and all did much as they liked in this remnant of Medieval Africa.
However good the inten- tions of the Emperor, his writ scarcely ran beyond the limits of his palace" [Temple- wood, Nine Troubled Years, ISO].
25. Londres' books . . . : Albert L. during the 20s and 30s published a series of well- written exposes of oppression and corrup- tion, dealing with: black oppression (Terre d'Ebene, 1929); prison conditions (Au Bague, 1932); white slavery (Le Chemin de Buenos Aires, 1927); mental institutions (Chez les fous, 1925); drug traffic in China (La Chine enfolie, 1925). "His Le juif errant est arrive (1930) is a sympathetic treatment of the Zionist cause which denounces the persecution of Jews in Central Europe" [Sie- burth, Pai, 5-2, 293].
26. pine-needles: [101:46].
27. 2mua"u Ibpo: C, "sacrifice to heaven. "
15. Seurat's":
French post~impressionist painter whose pointillism (tiny dots of pure color) suggest "splintered light. "
16. Pitagora: Pythagoras, the well-spring of Neoplatonic light-philosophy.
17. Disraeli. . Parliament: [48:19; 89:156]. In one of his broadcasts Pound said: "Subversion was not invented in the days of Disraeli" [Speaking, 400]. But Pound believes that under his leadership and with his example it was brought to a point of perfection. The "bitching England"con- cerns D's deals with the house of Roth- schild to buy the controlling interest of the Suez Canal [86:61].
18. Wolff: Henry Wolff (b. 1931), poet, writer, and perennial student (in 1982 at UC Berkeley). Sometime during the mid-fifties H. W. allowed John Kaspar, a close friend, to use his apartment in N. Y. Since Pound was writing to Kaspar often and addressing his
letters c/o Henry Wolff, the name became familiar to him. Prob. the "double ff' indi- cated Jewish descent to Pound, even though the spelling does not indicate anything for certain. The association is prob. because of Pound's idea of Disraeli as a Jewish "Wolfman. "
19. de l'audace: F, "the audacity of it'"
20. PANURGIA: H, "villany. " The brutal drug-smuggling and slave-trading [ef. 24 below].
21. Xreia: H, "need. "
22. Schmidt: [86/566]. Formerly recalled as Schwartz.
23. Rocke: An English colonel, "active on behalf of Italy during the Abyssinian war, who disseminated information that was being refused circulation in Britain and else- where" [NS, Reading, Ill]. The other Rock is a botanist [110:54].
George S. ,
1859-1891,
T
24. Sammy's newy
: Ted
Press
(the
Vatican Library and a great patron of the humanities.
32. (Valla): Lorenzo V. , c. 1407-1457, an Italian humanist who knew Greek well. Pope Nicholas V chose him to translate Herodotus andTh~cydidesintoLatin. Heexposedthe Donation of Constantine as a forgery
[89:236] and was subject to suspicion be- cause of his treatise De Voluptate, which attacked chastity as an ideal [89:204].
33. latinitas: L, "pure Latin" or "the spirit of latinity"; from Valla's De Elegantiis La- tinae Linguae [Wolff, Val/a; the " f r ' spelling of Wolffs name (cf. 18 above) may have reminded Pound of this book].
34. Bassinio: Basinio da Parma, 1424-1457, an Italian scholar who died in Rimini and is buried in a sarcophagus next to Sigismundo Malatesta [9:7].
35. Uncle Carlo: [92:49].
36. (Wieland): Prob. Christoph Martin Wie- land, 1733-1813, the great Gennan poet, novelist, and critic, who after living long in Switzerland; was converted from pietism to a light-hearted romantic attitude of the scenic kind. Prob. a memory of a WWI scene of getting a torpedo boat overland suggested something in W. 's work.
37. The Pollok . . . sea": Sir Ian Hamilton [93:163], 1853-1947, who commanded the British Mediterranean Expeditionary Force in WWI and after became an adviser on Near Eastern affairs, told the Poles that if Ger- many invaded Poland they could expect help via the Black Sea. But the Soviet-Nazi pact intervened, which made it impossible to get
to Poland via the Black Sea [WC, Guide] . 38. Pitonessa: I, UPythoness. " Name of a
woman seer, such as at the Oracle of Delphi, who became inspired by breathing intoxi- cating fumes: "[She] took her stand on a three-legged stool, or tripod, placed over a crack in the floor of a cave, and became literally inspired by the fumes that issued from the earth" [Upward, Mystery, 15].
39. Ideogram: Ling2 [85:1]. The top com-
. . .
28. agitante
are warmed" [93:107].
29. nos otros: S, "we others. "
"stirs
calescimus: L,
us we
30. Murare, tradurre: I, "to build, to translate. "
31. Pope Nicolo: Nicolo V, 1397-1455, who as pope (1447-1455) was a founder of the
677
? ? 678
104/740-741
104/741-742
679
ponent stands for clouds. The repeated cen- tral component [M3434], "mouth," gives "the three voices," over the bottom com- ponent, which stands for a wizard or seer, such as the Pythoness.
40. And stopped . . . metals: Prob. the reli? gious ecstasy that led some to dedicate themselves to values other than gold and silver.
41. Once gold . . . burrows: Waddell says: "The gold? digging 'ants' are described by Strabo as having 'skins as large as leopards. ' They were evidently the large Tibetan rabbit? like Marmots, which burrowed in the auriferous sand and brought gold to the sur? face" [Seals, 13].
42. paothree: [M4956J, "treasure. " Charac- ter as given.
43. paoth",: [M4953], "a bird said to be like the wild goose. " Character not given.
44. paofOll': [M4954], "a leopard; a pan? ther; a kind of wildcat. " Character as given.
45. da radice torbida: I, "of turbid root. "
46. maalesh: A colloquial Arabic expression that means "never mind," "don't worry about it," "take things as they come," "que sera sera," ot all these things.
47. Adolf: A. Hitler. Pound seems to have believed that Hitler got onto the bankers and usurocrats; his perception of their interna- tional plot is what made him furious [Pound, Speaking, 49, 79, 433, passim]. But Pound also wrote, in a piece entitled "From Italy" [NEW, May 24, 1934]: "Adolphe is, an, almost, pathetic hysteric; . . . he is, so far as I can make out, a tool of almost the worst Huns. "
48. they . . . : FDR, Churchill, and all those who were blind to what WWII was really all about.
49. "Beg the . . . him": The source of the remark is unknown, but clearly the speaker is a wonderful lady of the old school, who knows it is immoral to embarrass anyone.
50. And the cap . . . nuance: The lines are an enigma. This gloss number and space are reserved for the time when someone will have a reasonable clue.
of England, such as Athelstan or Lear, whose prayers were often to Diana [91/612? 613].
60. "Wash . . . Ian'. ": Prob. remark of Elder Lightfoot [95:42].
71. monoceros: H, "unicorn. " Yeats wrote of "Magical Unicorns" and "cloud-pale uni- corns" in the last stanza of The Tower. His bookplate shows a rampant unicorn in heral~ dic style.
n. Gladstone: William Ewart G. , 1809? 1898, dominant personality of the British Liberal party and erstwhile prime minister toward end of the century. Earlier, as a young man, he served in the cabinet of Pal~ merston and may have tried to cultivate one of his important lady supporters, which may have been bad but was not as bad as Dis? raeli's act of selling the country.
73. Palmerston: [89:154].
74. Hollis: Author of The Two Nations, A
Financial Study of English History, a book that exposed the "Whiggery" of the profes? sorships as well as the diliberate and know? ing creation of a nation of poverty in order to maintain a nation of wealth.
75. Regius: [46:29]. 76. Coke: [107:3].
51. 1910: Pears': Although
claimed suzerainty over Tibet since 1720, the British began challenging that control in the 20th century. In 1904 they sent to Thasa Sir Frances Younghusband, who by 1910 had managed to get a number ofvalu? able trading rights. In those years Pears' soap
was supposedly a measure of the civilization Britain was bringing to the "unwashed" world: it functioned as a symbol with ironic
overtones, somewhat as Coca-Cola does today.
52. Les Douze: Prob. a Parisian literary group of the old school who met occasional? ly at a restaurant but were quite oblivious to the important things going on, such as Ford's new Transatlantic Review.
53. Fordie: Ford Madox F. [74:165]. In the early twenties, when he was editing the Transatlantic Review in Paris.
54. Ambro[i]se Pare: French army surgeon, ca. 1510? 1590, famous for introducing hu? mane methods into medicine. He did away with "the boiling oil treatment of wounds" (which sometimes caused death by shock), promoted the use of artificial limbs, and saved many lives by introducing the tour- niquet.
55. before Zeus . . .
