After 1912 he became an
expatriate
recluse and lived mostly in Italy.
A-Companion-to-the-Cantos-of-Ezra-Pound-II
The vagaries of justice come from murderers and rapists receiving sentences similar to ones received by those guilty of
minor transgressions.
3. Amo ergo sum: L, "I love; therefore I am. " Rephrasing of the Cartesian cogito. A musical figure often used by Pound.
4. Margot: M. Asquith [38:22]. Time [Aug. 6, 1945] carried her obituary: "Died. Margot Asquith, 81, The Countess of Oxford and Asquith, witty widow of British Prime Minister (1908-16) Herbert H. Asquith, longtime society enfant terrible. . . . Her lifetime of audacities included writing a note in pencil to Queen Victoria, declining to stay at a dinner party despite King Edward's request. " Pound was fond of her. She ordered copies of Blast in advance [Fletcher, Life is My Song, 137] and had her portrait
sketched by Gaudier-Brzeska [Fang, II, 82].
5. Walter: W. Morse Rummel, 1887-1953, German pianist and composer who was much interested in 12th- and 13th-century French songs. Pound lived with him for months at a time in Paris and mentions him often [L, 21, 95, 131; GK, 199]. Like Michio Ito [77: 86] , he seems to have lacked a coin for the gas meter at times.
II. Spanish [45 :5].
bread: Before
adulteration
12. senesco sed amo: L, "I age, but I love. "
13. Madri' . . . : Spanish cities Pound re- membered from his younger days as a guide there.
14. Gervais: Brand name of a French dairy company.
15. Las Menilias: A painting by Velasquez of "the page girls" of the queen, which Pound saw at the Prado Museum along with several others he lists here.
16. Philip . . . : Portraits of Philip III on horseback, ca. 1635: Philip IVan horseback, ca. 1635; Philip IV hunting wild boar, ca. 1638; Philip IV in hunting suit but not on horseback, etc.
? 430
80/493-494
29. Turgenev: Ivan T. , 1818-1883, Russian novelist who was much influenced by his many years of friendship with Flaubert. The sentiment about death comes from his Une Nichee de Gentilshommes, which Pound frequently cited [PE, 23; GK, 200; SP, 414J.
80/495
Analects, the Great Learning, and the Doc-
trine o f the Mean. These plus Mencius make up the Four Books.
41. Tsu Tsze: Tzu Hsi, empress dowager of China and actual ruler, 1898-1908. Pound tells an anecdote from Katherine Carl's book, With the Empress Dowager: "Under the insistence of the Empress she' turned out. . . an excellent work of art, in the course of producing which she observed the Dowager charming birds, definitely luring at least one down from a tree . . . . Mrs. Carl also describes the old lady painting or writing the ideograms, writing them large and with great and delicate perfection" [GK, 80-81J.
42. Confucius: Analects VI, 26: "He went to see (the duchess) Nan-tze. Tse-Lu was displeased. The big man said: Well, I'll be damned, if there's anything wrong about this, heaven chuck me" [CON, 218J.
43. Nancy: N. Cunard, 1896-1965, contem- porary American poet and patron of the arts. Nan-tze in the Analects above suggests this Nancy who had a violent love affair with Henry Crowder, an American Jazz musician [84:9J, which scandalized the expatri- ates in Paris during the late 20s.
44. Hartmann: Sadakichi Hartmann, 1867- 1944, American poet, playwright, and art critic whom Pound thought highly of. He wrote: "Sadakichi Hartmann sends me a SOrt of helter-skelter table . . . and Aristotle is among the 'near great' on his list. I mention this because Sadakichi has lived. Has so lived that if one hadn't been oneself it wd. have been worth while to have been Sadakichi. This is a tribute I can pay to few men (even to those listed in his table of glories:" [GK, 309-310J.
45. Manhattan: Hartmann noted on the title page of his A Tragedy in a New York Flat that it was "written in a New York flat, '95-'96, on nothing a week" [Fang, II, 56J.
46. Hovey: Richard H. , 1864-1900, Ameri- can poet.
431
S. , 1874-1904,
17. the dwarfs: Portrait of the dwarf Sebastian de Morra, ca. 1643-1649; portrait of the dwarf EI Primo. 1644.
18. Don Juan: Painting so named.
19. Breda: Las Lanzas, or The Surrender of
Breda, a painting in which lances are promi- nently displayed; done ca. 1635.
20. the Virgin: The Virgin Delivering the Chasuble to St. Ildefonso, ca 1618-1620.
21. Los Boracchos: The Drinkers, 1629.
22. Las Hilanderas: The Carpet Weavers
(female), painted ca. 1655-1660.
23. the Prado: The National Museum of Painting and Sculpture in Madrid.
24. "Las Americas": Bazaar in Madrid.
25. Symons: Arthur S. , 1865? 1945, British poet and critic important in the develop- ment of symbolism in the 1890s. He may have told the story Ernest Rhys [74:434J reported in Everyman Remembers. "One droll impression connects Symons with Paul Verlaine. It was at a Paris party given by Verlaine in his tiny bedroom. He had been ill. . . . But Verlaine was a humorous host. He produced . . . a ten-franc note, and said . . . 'I have money: I will have pleasure. Go, Jean-and buy a bottle of rum. ' When the rum arrived, as there was only one tumbler, they all drank from it in turn" [pp. 11l? 1l2J. Symons or Rhys probably told this or a similar anecdote at the Tabarin.
26. TabarD! : The Bal Tabarin was a Mont- martre nightclub at 58 rue Pigalle, on the Right Bank.
27. Hennique: Leon H. , 1851-1935, French dramatist and novelist. Speaking of literary lights in France, Pound said: "A few more than middle aged gents had reminiscences. Hennique remembered Flaubert and Maupassant. Men distinctly of the second line conserved this, that, or the other" [GK, 88-89J.
28. Flaubert: Gustave F. , 1821-1880, French novelist.
47. Stickney: American poet.
Trumbull
[1 :7J. Prob. invoked here in
30. Tiresias:
the capacity of seer and prophet.
31. /Y,YA(WC; ? ? . : H, the 4 words do not construe. Pound is trying to recall a line from Homer rOd. X, 490-495] which says, "Bright Persephone has granted reason to the blind man" [Tiresias; 74:366J. MSB's note reads: the blind see to whom Perse- phone still provides intelligence. "
32. Still hath: Recurrent Tireseas [39:18; 47:1J.
epithet for
33. X
y: Quisling [RaJ. [79: 18J .
34.
35. Verdun: [16:37J.
Petain:
36. Blum: Leon B. ,
socialist, statesman, and writer. After he became premier in 1936, he reorganized the Banque de France into the Banque de la France. Prob. Pound meant "bank" by "bidet. " Writing about books one should have in an Oriental series, he said in 1938: "We need the economics volume of the Chinese encyclopedia among other now unavailable works. Probably contains a bit more dynamite to blow up Blum, and the Banque with him" [NEW, Dec. 15, 163; Fang, III, 79J.
37. bidet: F, "sitz-bath. "
38. To communicate . . . : [79:40J.
39. simplex . . . : L, "plain in her neatness" [Horace, Odes 1, 5J .
40. Legge: James L. , 1815-1897, Scottish missionary and sinologist; editor of The Chinese Classics, a translation with critical and exegetical notes, prolegomena, and copious indexes, in 7 vols. (London: 1861- 86), of which Vol. 1 contains the Confucian
1872-1950,
French
!
f
48. Loring: Frederic Wadsworth L. , 1848- 1871, American poet and journalist.
49. Santayana: George S. ,
Madrid, Spain, but moved with his family to the U. S. in 1872. He graduated from Harvard in 1886 and taught philosophy there from 1889 to 1912, except for a year at Cambridge and the Sorbonne.
After 1912 he became an expatriate recluse and lived mostly in Italy. His early works, The Sense o f Beauty, 1896, and The Life o f Reason, 5 vols. , 1905-1906, were traditional. But he developed new theories in the 1920s and 30s in such works as The Realms of Being, 4 vols. ; The Realm of Truth, 1937; and The Realm of Spirit, 1940. He appears to have been an avowed materialist, but his doctrines
about faith and the "essences" are difficult to fit into so restricted a mold. He was also a poet whose prose style was called poetic. A novel, The Last Puritan (1935), was a best-seller among the literate. Pound met Santayana in Venice late in 1939 and was much taken with his honesty and corre- sponded with him thereafter [L, 331,333, 318J. Pound prob. read the MS of his memoirs, Persons and Places (Vols. I-II, 1944-1Yt5), sometime in 1940 [81 :37, 40J .
50. Carman: 3liss C. , 1861-1929, Canadian poet and journalist. He spent much time on the open road in the U. S. , singing his poems for food and a place in the barn to sleep.
51. Whitman: In his book Conversations with Walt Whitman, Hartmann mentions "a can of lobster" they ate togeth~r. In a letter to H. , Pound said: "On the strength of the oysters to Walt (who died before the body emerged from the---------------of time) you might git a sandwich" [L, 341J. Pound is telling H. that, because of his meeting with and book about Whitman, he might receive some kind of grant from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences he has just been elected to. He confused the lobster with oysters.
52. Nenni . . . : Pietro N. , 1891-1980, head
1863-1952, b.
? ? 432
80/495-497
80/497-498
433
of the Italian Socialist party, who took an important role in Italian governments after the fall of Mussolini in 1943 [Pai, 6-2, 245], Time [July 2, 1945] carried a note about the government of Feruccio Parri: "Most restive was Vice Premier Nenni, who had hoped to be Premier himself. But liberal philosopher Benedetto Croce had voiced a general opinion: 'Nenni, you cannot be Premier. First, because you are Nenni, second, because you have no idea of admin- istration' " [pp, 34-35] ,
53, Tseng: Tzu Kung, disciple of Confucius who was important in diplomacy. He asked, "What shall we add"," [74:11],
54, Benito: B, Mussolini [41 :2; 74:3], The next 20 lines contain Pound's perception of MussoHni in relation to the people around him who Pound thinks helped destroy a great and idealistic humanitarian.
55. Billyum: W, B. Yeats, who for a while served as senator in the Irish Free State, and flirted, briefly, with the Fascist movement there.
56. 0 woman . . . : First line of a Padraic Colum poem: "0 woman, shapely as the swan, / On your account I shall not die,"
57. Padraic Colum: 1881-1972, an Irish poet Pound much admired,
of
59,Ifaman,,,:Yeatswrotein"APacket for Ezra Pound" [1929]: "My dear Ezra, Do not be elected to the Senate of your coun- try. . . . " This is Pound's response.
60, Palio: I, "horserace" [20:24], Annual event in Siena.
61. "Torre! . . . ": I, "Tower! Tower! Owl! " cries at the horserace. But the words are also names of the districts of the town
[MdeR].
62. giribizzi: I, "fancies. "
63. dove . . . : I, "where is Barilli? "
64, Barilli: Bruno B" 1880-1952, music critic and composer.
65. calvario: I, "calvary. "
66. prete: I, "priest. "
Italian
76, Tempio, Rimini: [8:43], The facade was damaged in WWII.
77, Mutholini: Said by Sir Robert Mond [78:10].
78, 35 via Balbo: I, "35 Balbo Street. " It appears that Pound met Mond in the draw- ingroom of 35 via Balbo in Rome in 1935,
79, Waterloo: The battle of 12 June 1815 in which Napoleon was defeated by Wellington,
89, Beddoes: Thomas Lovell B" 1803-1849, English poet whom Pound believes is greater than anyone else believes he is ["Beddoes and Chronology," SP, 378-383],
90, luz: Beddoes wrote that, like a seed which can raise up a green herb again, "So is there in such a man, a seed-shaped bone, I Aldabaron, called by the Hebrews Luz, / Which, being laid into the ground, will bear /
After three thousand years the grass of flesh, / The bloody, soul-possessed weed called man" [Death's Jest-Book, Act III, sc. 3, 11. 447-454], According to rabbinical teaching, the "os coccygis" is the only bone in the human body which resists decompo- sition after death, The bone has the shape of a hazelnut (H, k6kkos), The idea that if you could find and destroy the bone Luz, you could condemn a person to perpetual hell, was the reason Amalric [74:104], or in Pound's mind, Erigena, was dug up out of sepulture.
91. Mr Eliot: Prob, a reference to Eliot's question in Ash Wednesday: "And God said / Shall these bones live? Shall these / Bones live? "
92, (T. L. ): Thomas Lovell Beddoes, whose major subject was death.
93, (and pearls): Evokes "Those are pearls that were his eyes," of The Waste Land,
94, croce, , , sol: I, "Cross of Malta, figure like the sun. " Pound considered his eucalyp- tus pip a sort of magic talisman because the markings on it suggested a cat face, a maltese cross, and/or the sun with rays [74:232] ,
95, Ideograms: [77:28, 29]: "How is it far. "
96, "Hot, . . cat": Sound of drill sergeant counting cadence.
97, Prowling night-puss. , , : The remainder of this page and some of the next is a comic interlude addressed to a wandering cat, Pound's favorite animal. The hungry cat climbs into a box that bacon came in, which has its contract number (W-l10090) stamped on it, etc. This passage is just one of
58, Ulster: Northernmost
Ireland, which, being mainly Protestant, did not join the Irish Free State during the revolution.
82. Mosqu: Attempt to get Slavic sound of the name Moscow.
83. Andy Jackson: Andrew J. , 1767-1845, seventh president of the U,S, He was a member of the House of Representatives (1796-1797) and of the U. S, Senate (1797- 1798). He defended New Orleans against the British in 1814, was a two-term president (1828-1836), and led the struggle against the Bank of the United States [37:passim; 88, 89:passim; 103:76],
84, Napoleon: [31 :53],
85. a partial resurrection: These several lines
through luz may concern medieval concep- tions of the Resurrection at the Last Judg- ment as reflected in paintings, theology, and pious belief [cf. Shuldiner, Pai, 4-1, 73-75] ,
86, Cairo: The city in Egypt. Beddoes's song in Death's Jest-Book [see 90 below] entitled "The Song that Wolfram Heard in Hell" has two lines: "Old Adam, the carrion crow,/The old crow of Cairo, ,," [reprinted in The New Book of English Verse, p. 683; Fang, IV, 47],
87, Sadducees: A sect of Jews at the time of Christ. Urban and aristocratic, the Sadducees were firm upholders of the prescriptions of the law and were religiously
province
67. carrocchio: I, "flag car of an army. " Here, the lead float in the parade, in which each city ward has its symbols or flags
[JW]
68. contrade: I, "districts"
69. "non e una . . . ": I (Sienese dialect), "it's not a district, it's a complex. " Siena is divided into 17 contrade [JW] ,
70. arti: I, "guilds. "
71. hamomila de hampo: I (Sienese dialect), "camomile of the fields. "
72, Osservanza: I, the Church of the Obser- vants outside Siena, containing many art works from the Della Robbia family, Some were destroyed in WWII.
73. de la Robbia: [Della Robbia], the Florentine family of SCUlptors and cera- micists. Their terra cotta enamels bear the name "Della Robbia ware. "
74. busted: The church had a Coronation of the Virgin by Andrea della Robbia at the second altar on the left. A postwar report stated: "Direct bomb-hits caused the com- plete collapse of the roof, the vaulting of the nave, the aisles, the Chapels, and the Sac- risty, , , . Fragments of the reliefs by Della Robbia and Cozzarelli have been recovered" [Fang, II, 256], The Della Robbia has since been so finely restored that the lay eye can detect no damage [HK].
75. Li Saou: Li Sao [56:24], Since Pound has confused certain characters, Fang says: "The enigmatic phrase 'and near what? Li Saou' probably means the same as 'near what pine trees? ' [80/512], If so, it may refer to 'The pine at Takasago / grows with the pines of Ise' (4/15) and 'Grow with the Pines of Ise' (21/99)" [IV, 151-152], Lacking any other cue at all, perhaps so.
80, Leave the Duke"
, : [50:28; 79:53].
81. "Will never Lenin [74: 113],
be used
. . .
": Remark
of
conservative, resurrection.
denying immortality
and
88, Mr, Eliot: T, S. Eliot [46: 1],
? 434
80/498-500
80/500-501
435
many human/comic notes all through the poem and especially the Pisan Cantos. They are important as they connect with the paradisal theme of "hilaritas," perhaps most specifically underlined in the Bible with the recurrent refrain "Be glad and rejoice for the Lord is with thee. " But since it's rather officious to keep saying "that's a joke man," I'll take this one liberty and henceforth prac- tice faith and silence.
98. Confucius: One of the three books Pound had at Pisa.
99. kitten on the keys: A popular piano composition of the 20s by Zez Confrey.
100. Calliope: The muse of eloquence and epic poetry, but here, ironically, a steam organ, a musical instrument made up of stearn whistles played on a keyboard. Prob. as with other music or songs referred to in the passage, the lines are prompted by things played over the loudspeaker.
101. Battle Hymn . . . : Pound used this and the phrase "mi-hine eyes hev" as examples in explaining his technique to the DTC censors', who in passing the manuscripts began to suspect (because of his reputation as a spy and traitor) that they contained coded messages for the enemy [King,"Steele,"59J.
102. crooning: In 1945 Rudy Vallee's "crooning" was still pandemic.
109. Ideogram: Ch'iian [MI650J, "dog. " Here Canis Major or Sirius the dogstar.
110. Eos: Dawn or Venus at Dawn [cf. Pai, 5-1,45J.
111. Jones: The lieutenant who was the provost officer at the DTC.
112. man and dog: Prob. the constellation Orion and the dogstar, Sirius, the brightest in the sky.
114. Kuan Chung: Analects XIV, 18, 2: "He said: Kwan Chung. . . aided Duke Hwan as prime minister. . . . But for Kwan Chung we'd be wearing our hair loose and buttoning our coats to the left" [CON, 257J. Legge has a note interpreting this passage: "The sentiment of Confucius is, that but for Kwan Chung, his countrymen would have sunk to the state of the rude tribes about them" [Legge, 202J.
. . .
117. take the sheep "g. r. " is "gentle reader. "
of changed endings we can read: "At St. Bartholomew's I saw myself with the little boy, / Who was nailed to the ground with his arms spread apart / in the form of a cross. He groaned and said, 'I am the moon. ' With his feet on a silver scythe I he seemed to me to have a pitiful look" [cf. Pai, 1-2, 2I0J.
121. S. Bartolomeo: The church in the town of S. B. in GaIda, S Italy.
122. the young Dnmas . . . : When asked if by young Dumas he meant himself, Pound said that he didn't: he meant young Dumas [King, "Steele, " 59J. Says HK: "He told me it was Dumas the younger, who said, 'Je pleure paIce que j'ai des larmes. ' "
123. semina motuum: L, "seeds of motion," A recurrent leitmotif that will occur fre~ quently in later cantos [90:24J.
minor transgressions.
3. Amo ergo sum: L, "I love; therefore I am. " Rephrasing of the Cartesian cogito. A musical figure often used by Pound.
4. Margot: M. Asquith [38:22]. Time [Aug. 6, 1945] carried her obituary: "Died. Margot Asquith, 81, The Countess of Oxford and Asquith, witty widow of British Prime Minister (1908-16) Herbert H. Asquith, longtime society enfant terrible. . . . Her lifetime of audacities included writing a note in pencil to Queen Victoria, declining to stay at a dinner party despite King Edward's request. " Pound was fond of her. She ordered copies of Blast in advance [Fletcher, Life is My Song, 137] and had her portrait
sketched by Gaudier-Brzeska [Fang, II, 82].
5. Walter: W. Morse Rummel, 1887-1953, German pianist and composer who was much interested in 12th- and 13th-century French songs. Pound lived with him for months at a time in Paris and mentions him often [L, 21, 95, 131; GK, 199]. Like Michio Ito [77: 86] , he seems to have lacked a coin for the gas meter at times.
II. Spanish [45 :5].
bread: Before
adulteration
12. senesco sed amo: L, "I age, but I love. "
13. Madri' . . . : Spanish cities Pound re- membered from his younger days as a guide there.
14. Gervais: Brand name of a French dairy company.
15. Las Menilias: A painting by Velasquez of "the page girls" of the queen, which Pound saw at the Prado Museum along with several others he lists here.
16. Philip . . . : Portraits of Philip III on horseback, ca. 1635: Philip IVan horseback, ca. 1635; Philip IV hunting wild boar, ca. 1638; Philip IV in hunting suit but not on horseback, etc.
? 430
80/493-494
29. Turgenev: Ivan T. , 1818-1883, Russian novelist who was much influenced by his many years of friendship with Flaubert. The sentiment about death comes from his Une Nichee de Gentilshommes, which Pound frequently cited [PE, 23; GK, 200; SP, 414J.
80/495
Analects, the Great Learning, and the Doc-
trine o f the Mean. These plus Mencius make up the Four Books.
41. Tsu Tsze: Tzu Hsi, empress dowager of China and actual ruler, 1898-1908. Pound tells an anecdote from Katherine Carl's book, With the Empress Dowager: "Under the insistence of the Empress she' turned out. . . an excellent work of art, in the course of producing which she observed the Dowager charming birds, definitely luring at least one down from a tree . . . . Mrs. Carl also describes the old lady painting or writing the ideograms, writing them large and with great and delicate perfection" [GK, 80-81J.
42. Confucius: Analects VI, 26: "He went to see (the duchess) Nan-tze. Tse-Lu was displeased. The big man said: Well, I'll be damned, if there's anything wrong about this, heaven chuck me" [CON, 218J.
43. Nancy: N. Cunard, 1896-1965, contem- porary American poet and patron of the arts. Nan-tze in the Analects above suggests this Nancy who had a violent love affair with Henry Crowder, an American Jazz musician [84:9J, which scandalized the expatri- ates in Paris during the late 20s.
44. Hartmann: Sadakichi Hartmann, 1867- 1944, American poet, playwright, and art critic whom Pound thought highly of. He wrote: "Sadakichi Hartmann sends me a SOrt of helter-skelter table . . . and Aristotle is among the 'near great' on his list. I mention this because Sadakichi has lived. Has so lived that if one hadn't been oneself it wd. have been worth while to have been Sadakichi. This is a tribute I can pay to few men (even to those listed in his table of glories:" [GK, 309-310J.
45. Manhattan: Hartmann noted on the title page of his A Tragedy in a New York Flat that it was "written in a New York flat, '95-'96, on nothing a week" [Fang, II, 56J.
46. Hovey: Richard H. , 1864-1900, Ameri- can poet.
431
S. , 1874-1904,
17. the dwarfs: Portrait of the dwarf Sebastian de Morra, ca. 1643-1649; portrait of the dwarf EI Primo. 1644.
18. Don Juan: Painting so named.
19. Breda: Las Lanzas, or The Surrender of
Breda, a painting in which lances are promi- nently displayed; done ca. 1635.
20. the Virgin: The Virgin Delivering the Chasuble to St. Ildefonso, ca 1618-1620.
21. Los Boracchos: The Drinkers, 1629.
22. Las Hilanderas: The Carpet Weavers
(female), painted ca. 1655-1660.
23. the Prado: The National Museum of Painting and Sculpture in Madrid.
24. "Las Americas": Bazaar in Madrid.
25. Symons: Arthur S. , 1865? 1945, British poet and critic important in the develop- ment of symbolism in the 1890s. He may have told the story Ernest Rhys [74:434J reported in Everyman Remembers. "One droll impression connects Symons with Paul Verlaine. It was at a Paris party given by Verlaine in his tiny bedroom. He had been ill. . . . But Verlaine was a humorous host. He produced . . . a ten-franc note, and said . . . 'I have money: I will have pleasure. Go, Jean-and buy a bottle of rum. ' When the rum arrived, as there was only one tumbler, they all drank from it in turn" [pp. 11l? 1l2J. Symons or Rhys probably told this or a similar anecdote at the Tabarin.
26. TabarD! : The Bal Tabarin was a Mont- martre nightclub at 58 rue Pigalle, on the Right Bank.
27. Hennique: Leon H. , 1851-1935, French dramatist and novelist. Speaking of literary lights in France, Pound said: "A few more than middle aged gents had reminiscences. Hennique remembered Flaubert and Maupassant. Men distinctly of the second line conserved this, that, or the other" [GK, 88-89J.
28. Flaubert: Gustave F. , 1821-1880, French novelist.
47. Stickney: American poet.
Trumbull
[1 :7J. Prob. invoked here in
30. Tiresias:
the capacity of seer and prophet.
31. /Y,YA(WC; ? ? . : H, the 4 words do not construe. Pound is trying to recall a line from Homer rOd. X, 490-495] which says, "Bright Persephone has granted reason to the blind man" [Tiresias; 74:366J. MSB's note reads: the blind see to whom Perse- phone still provides intelligence. "
32. Still hath: Recurrent Tireseas [39:18; 47:1J.
epithet for
33. X
y: Quisling [RaJ. [79: 18J .
34.
35. Verdun: [16:37J.
Petain:
36. Blum: Leon B. ,
socialist, statesman, and writer. After he became premier in 1936, he reorganized the Banque de France into the Banque de la France. Prob. Pound meant "bank" by "bidet. " Writing about books one should have in an Oriental series, he said in 1938: "We need the economics volume of the Chinese encyclopedia among other now unavailable works. Probably contains a bit more dynamite to blow up Blum, and the Banque with him" [NEW, Dec. 15, 163; Fang, III, 79J.
37. bidet: F, "sitz-bath. "
38. To communicate . . . : [79:40J.
39. simplex . . . : L, "plain in her neatness" [Horace, Odes 1, 5J .
40. Legge: James L. , 1815-1897, Scottish missionary and sinologist; editor of The Chinese Classics, a translation with critical and exegetical notes, prolegomena, and copious indexes, in 7 vols. (London: 1861- 86), of which Vol. 1 contains the Confucian
1872-1950,
French
!
f
48. Loring: Frederic Wadsworth L. , 1848- 1871, American poet and journalist.
49. Santayana: George S. ,
Madrid, Spain, but moved with his family to the U. S. in 1872. He graduated from Harvard in 1886 and taught philosophy there from 1889 to 1912, except for a year at Cambridge and the Sorbonne.
After 1912 he became an expatriate recluse and lived mostly in Italy. His early works, The Sense o f Beauty, 1896, and The Life o f Reason, 5 vols. , 1905-1906, were traditional. But he developed new theories in the 1920s and 30s in such works as The Realms of Being, 4 vols. ; The Realm of Truth, 1937; and The Realm of Spirit, 1940. He appears to have been an avowed materialist, but his doctrines
about faith and the "essences" are difficult to fit into so restricted a mold. He was also a poet whose prose style was called poetic. A novel, The Last Puritan (1935), was a best-seller among the literate. Pound met Santayana in Venice late in 1939 and was much taken with his honesty and corre- sponded with him thereafter [L, 331,333, 318J. Pound prob. read the MS of his memoirs, Persons and Places (Vols. I-II, 1944-1Yt5), sometime in 1940 [81 :37, 40J .
50. Carman: 3liss C. , 1861-1929, Canadian poet and journalist. He spent much time on the open road in the U. S. , singing his poems for food and a place in the barn to sleep.
51. Whitman: In his book Conversations with Walt Whitman, Hartmann mentions "a can of lobster" they ate togeth~r. In a letter to H. , Pound said: "On the strength of the oysters to Walt (who died before the body emerged from the---------------of time) you might git a sandwich" [L, 341J. Pound is telling H. that, because of his meeting with and book about Whitman, he might receive some kind of grant from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences he has just been elected to. He confused the lobster with oysters.
52. Nenni . . . : Pietro N. , 1891-1980, head
1863-1952, b.
? ? 432
80/495-497
80/497-498
433
of the Italian Socialist party, who took an important role in Italian governments after the fall of Mussolini in 1943 [Pai, 6-2, 245], Time [July 2, 1945] carried a note about the government of Feruccio Parri: "Most restive was Vice Premier Nenni, who had hoped to be Premier himself. But liberal philosopher Benedetto Croce had voiced a general opinion: 'Nenni, you cannot be Premier. First, because you are Nenni, second, because you have no idea of admin- istration' " [pp, 34-35] ,
53, Tseng: Tzu Kung, disciple of Confucius who was important in diplomacy. He asked, "What shall we add"," [74:11],
54, Benito: B, Mussolini [41 :2; 74:3], The next 20 lines contain Pound's perception of MussoHni in relation to the people around him who Pound thinks helped destroy a great and idealistic humanitarian.
55. Billyum: W, B. Yeats, who for a while served as senator in the Irish Free State, and flirted, briefly, with the Fascist movement there.
56. 0 woman . . . : First line of a Padraic Colum poem: "0 woman, shapely as the swan, / On your account I shall not die,"
57. Padraic Colum: 1881-1972, an Irish poet Pound much admired,
of
59,Ifaman,,,:Yeatswrotein"APacket for Ezra Pound" [1929]: "My dear Ezra, Do not be elected to the Senate of your coun- try. . . . " This is Pound's response.
60, Palio: I, "horserace" [20:24], Annual event in Siena.
61. "Torre! . . . ": I, "Tower! Tower! Owl! " cries at the horserace. But the words are also names of the districts of the town
[MdeR].
62. giribizzi: I, "fancies. "
63. dove . . . : I, "where is Barilli? "
64, Barilli: Bruno B" 1880-1952, music critic and composer.
65. calvario: I, "calvary. "
66. prete: I, "priest. "
Italian
76, Tempio, Rimini: [8:43], The facade was damaged in WWII.
77, Mutholini: Said by Sir Robert Mond [78:10].
78, 35 via Balbo: I, "35 Balbo Street. " It appears that Pound met Mond in the draw- ingroom of 35 via Balbo in Rome in 1935,
79, Waterloo: The battle of 12 June 1815 in which Napoleon was defeated by Wellington,
89, Beddoes: Thomas Lovell B" 1803-1849, English poet whom Pound believes is greater than anyone else believes he is ["Beddoes and Chronology," SP, 378-383],
90, luz: Beddoes wrote that, like a seed which can raise up a green herb again, "So is there in such a man, a seed-shaped bone, I Aldabaron, called by the Hebrews Luz, / Which, being laid into the ground, will bear /
After three thousand years the grass of flesh, / The bloody, soul-possessed weed called man" [Death's Jest-Book, Act III, sc. 3, 11. 447-454], According to rabbinical teaching, the "os coccygis" is the only bone in the human body which resists decompo- sition after death, The bone has the shape of a hazelnut (H, k6kkos), The idea that if you could find and destroy the bone Luz, you could condemn a person to perpetual hell, was the reason Amalric [74:104], or in Pound's mind, Erigena, was dug up out of sepulture.
91. Mr Eliot: Prob, a reference to Eliot's question in Ash Wednesday: "And God said / Shall these bones live? Shall these / Bones live? "
92, (T. L. ): Thomas Lovell Beddoes, whose major subject was death.
93, (and pearls): Evokes "Those are pearls that were his eyes," of The Waste Land,
94, croce, , , sol: I, "Cross of Malta, figure like the sun. " Pound considered his eucalyp- tus pip a sort of magic talisman because the markings on it suggested a cat face, a maltese cross, and/or the sun with rays [74:232] ,
95, Ideograms: [77:28, 29]: "How is it far. "
96, "Hot, . . cat": Sound of drill sergeant counting cadence.
97, Prowling night-puss. , , : The remainder of this page and some of the next is a comic interlude addressed to a wandering cat, Pound's favorite animal. The hungry cat climbs into a box that bacon came in, which has its contract number (W-l10090) stamped on it, etc. This passage is just one of
58, Ulster: Northernmost
Ireland, which, being mainly Protestant, did not join the Irish Free State during the revolution.
82. Mosqu: Attempt to get Slavic sound of the name Moscow.
83. Andy Jackson: Andrew J. , 1767-1845, seventh president of the U,S, He was a member of the House of Representatives (1796-1797) and of the U. S, Senate (1797- 1798). He defended New Orleans against the British in 1814, was a two-term president (1828-1836), and led the struggle against the Bank of the United States [37:passim; 88, 89:passim; 103:76],
84, Napoleon: [31 :53],
85. a partial resurrection: These several lines
through luz may concern medieval concep- tions of the Resurrection at the Last Judg- ment as reflected in paintings, theology, and pious belief [cf. Shuldiner, Pai, 4-1, 73-75] ,
86, Cairo: The city in Egypt. Beddoes's song in Death's Jest-Book [see 90 below] entitled "The Song that Wolfram Heard in Hell" has two lines: "Old Adam, the carrion crow,/The old crow of Cairo, ,," [reprinted in The New Book of English Verse, p. 683; Fang, IV, 47],
87, Sadducees: A sect of Jews at the time of Christ. Urban and aristocratic, the Sadducees were firm upholders of the prescriptions of the law and were religiously
province
67. carrocchio: I, "flag car of an army. " Here, the lead float in the parade, in which each city ward has its symbols or flags
[JW]
68. contrade: I, "districts"
69. "non e una . . . ": I (Sienese dialect), "it's not a district, it's a complex. " Siena is divided into 17 contrade [JW] ,
70. arti: I, "guilds. "
71. hamomila de hampo: I (Sienese dialect), "camomile of the fields. "
72, Osservanza: I, the Church of the Obser- vants outside Siena, containing many art works from the Della Robbia family, Some were destroyed in WWII.
73. de la Robbia: [Della Robbia], the Florentine family of SCUlptors and cera- micists. Their terra cotta enamels bear the name "Della Robbia ware. "
74. busted: The church had a Coronation of the Virgin by Andrea della Robbia at the second altar on the left. A postwar report stated: "Direct bomb-hits caused the com- plete collapse of the roof, the vaulting of the nave, the aisles, the Chapels, and the Sac- risty, , , . Fragments of the reliefs by Della Robbia and Cozzarelli have been recovered" [Fang, II, 256], The Della Robbia has since been so finely restored that the lay eye can detect no damage [HK].
75. Li Saou: Li Sao [56:24], Since Pound has confused certain characters, Fang says: "The enigmatic phrase 'and near what? Li Saou' probably means the same as 'near what pine trees? ' [80/512], If so, it may refer to 'The pine at Takasago / grows with the pines of Ise' (4/15) and 'Grow with the Pines of Ise' (21/99)" [IV, 151-152], Lacking any other cue at all, perhaps so.
80, Leave the Duke"
, : [50:28; 79:53].
81. "Will never Lenin [74: 113],
be used
. . .
": Remark
of
conservative, resurrection.
denying immortality
and
88, Mr, Eliot: T, S. Eliot [46: 1],
? 434
80/498-500
80/500-501
435
many human/comic notes all through the poem and especially the Pisan Cantos. They are important as they connect with the paradisal theme of "hilaritas," perhaps most specifically underlined in the Bible with the recurrent refrain "Be glad and rejoice for the Lord is with thee. " But since it's rather officious to keep saying "that's a joke man," I'll take this one liberty and henceforth prac- tice faith and silence.
98. Confucius: One of the three books Pound had at Pisa.
99. kitten on the keys: A popular piano composition of the 20s by Zez Confrey.
100. Calliope: The muse of eloquence and epic poetry, but here, ironically, a steam organ, a musical instrument made up of stearn whistles played on a keyboard. Prob. as with other music or songs referred to in the passage, the lines are prompted by things played over the loudspeaker.
101. Battle Hymn . . . : Pound used this and the phrase "mi-hine eyes hev" as examples in explaining his technique to the DTC censors', who in passing the manuscripts began to suspect (because of his reputation as a spy and traitor) that they contained coded messages for the enemy [King,"Steele,"59J.
102. crooning: In 1945 Rudy Vallee's "crooning" was still pandemic.
109. Ideogram: Ch'iian [MI650J, "dog. " Here Canis Major or Sirius the dogstar.
110. Eos: Dawn or Venus at Dawn [cf. Pai, 5-1,45J.
111. Jones: The lieutenant who was the provost officer at the DTC.
112. man and dog: Prob. the constellation Orion and the dogstar, Sirius, the brightest in the sky.
114. Kuan Chung: Analects XIV, 18, 2: "He said: Kwan Chung. . . aided Duke Hwan as prime minister. . . . But for Kwan Chung we'd be wearing our hair loose and buttoning our coats to the left" [CON, 257J. Legge has a note interpreting this passage: "The sentiment of Confucius is, that but for Kwan Chung, his countrymen would have sunk to the state of the rude tribes about them" [Legge, 202J.
. . .
117. take the sheep "g. r. " is "gentle reader. "
of changed endings we can read: "At St. Bartholomew's I saw myself with the little boy, / Who was nailed to the ground with his arms spread apart / in the form of a cross. He groaned and said, 'I am the moon. ' With his feet on a silver scythe I he seemed to me to have a pitiful look" [cf. Pai, 1-2, 2I0J.
121. S. Bartolomeo: The church in the town of S. B. in GaIda, S Italy.
122. the young Dnmas . . . : When asked if by young Dumas he meant himself, Pound said that he didn't: he meant young Dumas [King, "Steele, " 59J. Says HK: "He told me it was Dumas the younger, who said, 'Je pleure paIce que j'ai des larmes. ' "
123. semina motuum: L, "seeds of motion," A recurrent leitmotif that will occur fre~ quently in later cantos [90:24J.
