No More Learning

32. Quelque toile . . . : F, "on some paint- ing, in the Louvre, on some painting. "
33. Boy in fruit shop . . . : Memory of boy Pound saw in Italy.
. . .
: [113:39].
Pound's
34. "bisogna spired. "
. . .
": I,
"one must
be in-
28. Fear
that demonology was part of a deliberate plot to "scare the hell out of' people, espe- cially the young, in order to maintain con- trol of the minds of men, even though such ethics are against all reason [LE,42-43].
. . .
2. Wyndham Lewis: [16:30]. 3. garofani: I, "carnations. "
1. Muss. : Mussolini.
2. Cuniculi: I, "canals" or "underground passages" [101: 16] .
3. An old "crank": Pound here is thinking of a dead "genius" in Virginia, from whom originates a theory about the origin of a giant footprint. This reminds him of Ode
4. Mozart,
Linnaeus:
[113:5,7].
1.
the Russian "Sputnik" for a while had the whole human race terrified, or seemed to when these lines were written.
The
scientists
:
Atomic
weapons and
theory
FROMCXV Glossary
31. hypostasis: [81:55].
35. William: Yeats. Sligo was one of his favorite Irish scenes.
36. Tigullio: The gulf Rapallo overlooks.
S. Sulmona: [103/736; 105/746]. Birth- place of Ovid in province of Aquila.
6. In meiner Heimat: G, "In my homeland. "
7. living . . . cardboard: Return to theme of early cantos [7:32-37].
CANTOCXVI Glossary
major
245 in the Shih-ching, where an immaculate conception is mentioned: Chian Yuan, wife of the Emperor K'u, becomes pregnant when she steps in the big toe of a giant footprint. She bears 'a son, whom she exposes. The child is saved by a miracle and receives the name, Hou Ch'i (ch'i means "someone ex~ posed"). Ch'i, under the mythical original
? 724
116/795-797, Frags 798
Frags 798-802
725
ruler Yaa, becomes leader of agriculture. At 98/690 he is mentioned as "john barleycorn Je Tzu" and at 105/747 as "Hou Je," with inadvertently exchanged Chinese characters [EH, Letzte, 85].
4. The Madonna . . . : [110: 1,45].
5. (Mucchio di leggi): I, "a haystack of laws. "
a squirrel, Perri [Donald Hall, Paris Review, Summer-Fall 1962, 27].
13. Laforgue: Jules L. , 1860-1887, French symbolist poet. He described the Berlin Aquarium as the symbol of Nirvana: "the mute depths, which only know eternity, for which spring, summer, fall, and winter don't exist" [Maralite legendaire Salome, 1888].
14. Spire: Andre S. [77:134; 81:23]. 15. in proposito: I, "for the intention. " 16. Linnaeus: [113:7].
17. chi crescera . . . : [89:2].
18. terzo: I, "third. "
19. Venere: I, "Venus. "
20. it coheres: [Pai, 2-1, 35; 8-3, 567; 109:17].
21. al poco . . . d'ombra: 1, "In the small hours with the darkness describing a huge circle" [5:53].
22. (Torcello): [110/780].
23. al . . . d'oro: Street in Rapallo
the intersection one can see a cross of blue sky.
24. (Tigullio): [114:36].
a treasure stealer. In solar myth the darkness that steals the day.
7. Hydra: The nine-headed monster slain by Hercules.
8. Paphos: Daughter of Pygmalion and Gala- tea, whose union was blessed by Venus. The city and groves named Paphos are sacred to Venus. Thus a rhyme with usury defiling the bed of "the young bride and her bride- groom" [45/230].
the carillon song at his house at Sant 'Am- brogio in the hills above Rapallo.
22. (videt et urbes): L, "and he sees cities. " 23. salita: I, "hill path. "
6. Litterae . nothing" [33:25].
Notes for CXVII et seq.
25. benedetta: I, "blessed. "
26. Brancusi's bird: A form in a tree on the lawn of St. Elizabeths reminded Pound of the famous statue.
27. Rupe Tarpeia: In ancient Rome, the Tarpeian Rock was the site on the Capitoline Hill from which criminals were thrown to their deaths [74/443].
28. Zagreus: [17:3;77:195].
29. Semele: [92:47].
30. M'amour . . . : F, "My love, my love. "
31. The dreams clash . . . : The last 3 sections of a book by Daniele Vare, erst- while ambassador from Italy to the United States, are entitled "Harvesting of a Dream," "Shadows," and "The Dream Shattered. " The book, The Two Imposters, records the personal memories of an Italian statesman whom Mussolini replaced with younger men. Its title comes from Kipling's "If' ("If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster / And treat those two imposters iust the same") and explains Vare's intent: to show both the triumphs and disasters of Mussolini and his Fascism. Since Pound believed that Fascism promised to result in a corporate state with debt-free money which would result in the creation of a paradiso ten-estre, it is appro- priate that the shattered dream become part
of the tragic ambience of the poem's close.
32. La faillite: F, "bankruptcy. "
33. Francois Bemouard: A publisher and fa- miliar literateur (friend of Remy de Gour- mont, Fritz Vanderpyl, and Pound) in the Paris of the 20s. His firm became bankrupt in 1929 [Sieburth, Pai, 4-2, 3, 329-332].
: L, "literature which heals
7. Justinian's: [94:45].
8. Crystal . . . acorn of light:
Neoplatonic light? philosophy seen through Grosseteste [Pai, 2? 3, 454; 74:249].
9. Twice beauty . . . : Moments of great vision under the elms on the grounds of st. Elizabeths.
10. "plus . . . chien": F, "the more I love dogs. " Mme. Roland [Letzte, 97] had said this, prefaced by "the more I know men" [cf. P ,102].
11. Ariadne: The holy of holies at the cen- ter of the labyrinth.
12. Disney: Walt D. , 1901-1966. Pound, a great movie fan, was fond of any Disney movie. In 1958 he saw the Disney film about
9. To Kai\6v: H, "beauty. " 10. fonnosus . . . decens:
beautiful nor decent. "
L, "is
neither
1. neschek: Heb, "usury" [JW, Later, 181- 182].
2. the serpent: Geryon [14:3; 46:3; 51:13, 16].
3. the defiler . . . race: At the time this was written Pound was aware that he was being attacked for anti? Semitism, which he vigor- ously denied. Thus, he uses the Hebrew word to show that the Jews from the time of Moses had rules against usury. When writers in the New English Weekly and elsewhere in the 1930s were blaming the Jews for money
problems in the Depression, Pound wrote: "Usurers have no race.
How long the whole Jewish people is to be sacrificial goat for the usurer, I know not" [SP, 300]. But in the mid-years at 8t. Elizabeths the record shows clearly that he was anti-Semitic, at least emotionally and at times.
4. rOKo. c:: H, "usury. "
S. hic . . . est: L, "here is the center of evil. "
6. Fafnir: [Fafner]. In Wagner's Ring the giant who turned into a dragon and became
Image from
Fragments of Cantos Addendum for C
where at
11. eel-fisher's . . . : [51:18]. Note that "Addendum for C" and Cantos 45 and 51 were all written about the same time.
12. Xa'Pl1 . . . : H, "Hail! 0 Dione, Hail. " Dione was the mother of Venus.
. . .
14. Sero: L, "late. " [25:40].
15. Spain . . . : The mercury idea is unclear. 16. Finland . . . : The nickel idea is unclear.
17. S . . . R . . . : 8assoon . . . Rothschild [RO].
18. spilla: I, "pin. brooch. " Repeat from 20/93: "With the silver spilla, / the ball as of melted amber, coiled, caught up, and turned / Lotophagoi" [20:58, 59]. The opi- um smokers here are rhymed with the Odys- sean lotus eaters.
19. Jannequin: [75:8].
20. San Pantaleo: A little church in Rapallo
[M de R, Discretions, 117].
21. "e mobile . . . un'e due . . . mobile": I, "[woman] is fickle . . . one and two . . . that the woman is fickle. " From a song in the last act of Verdi's Rigaletta. Pound could hear
13. Light
prayer to the divine, is put in these terms so that it cannot be confused with what dog- matic and/or anthropomorphic religions in? tend when they say God.
clarity:
This impassioned
24. water-bug's:
[91: 105].
? ? 726
Frags 802-803
34. Allegre: A town in S France associated
with Bernart de Ventadorn.
35. "es Iaissa cader": P [e. s laissa chazerJ: J
"and let himself fall. "
36. "de joi sas alas": P, "[I see the lark
moving] his wings with joy. " The quotes are from the first stanza of a Ventadorn song
[SR,41].
37. Two mice and a moth: Reaffirming the importance of Gourmont's Physique de l'Amour to Pound's vision.
38. farfalIa: I, "butterfly. " The sou1-in- flight motif given throughout the poem in variolls winged insects from wasps to various other lapidoptera [48: 50-53; 92 :33-3 5] .
39. The kings . . . : The Monarch butterfly;
cf. "the king~wings in migration" [106/754]. This butterfly, which does live on poisonous milkweed, migrates in mid- September, "from artie Canada, along sky-
ways that have been mapped" [DD, Pai, 11-3,390].
40. arcanum: The final mystery in Pound's
religious sense. A place or state about which nothing can be known or said: "the undis- covered country. "
41. I have tried . . . : These lines were added to the poem in the 1975 edition to fill out the final design of 120 cantos. But in future editions they will be left out. Olga Rudge told J. Laughlin emphatically in 1981 that Pound wanted the poem to end in its unfin- ished form with the line: "To be men not destroyers. "
Supplementary Bibliography
Alexander, Michael. The Poetic Achievement ofEzra Pound. London: Faber and Faber, 1979. Anderson, David. Pound's Cavalcanti. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983.
Bacigalupo, Massimo. The Formed Trace: The Later Poetry ofEzra Pound. New York: Col-
umbia University, 1980.
Bell, Ian F. A. Critic as Scientist: The Modernist Poetics ofEzra Pound. London and New
York: Methuen & Co. , 1981.
Bell, Ian F. A. , ed. Ezra Pound: Tactics for Reading. London: Vision Press Ltd. and Barnes and
Noble, 1982.
Bernstein, Michael Andre.
The Tale of the Tribe: Ezra Pound and the Modern Verse Epic.
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980.
Berryman, Jo Brantley. Circe's Craft: Ezra Pound's Hugh Selwyn Mauberley. Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1983.
Bornstein, George. The Postromantic Consciousness of Ezra Pound. University of Victoria, B. C. , Canada, 1977.
Craig, Cairns. Yeats, Eliot and Pound and the Politics ofPoetry. London: Croom Helm Ltd. , 1982.
Davenport, Guy. Cities on Hills: A Study of J-XXX of Ezra Pound's Cantos. Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1983.
D'Epiro, Peter. A Touch ofRhetoric: Ezra Pound's Malatesta Cantos. Ann Arbor: UMI Re- search Press, 1983.
Durant, Alan. Ezra Pound: Identity in Crisis. Brighton, Eng. and Barnes & Noble, USA, 1981. Eastman, Barbara. Ezra Pound's Cantos: The Story ofthe Text. Orono, Maine: The National
Poetry Foundation, 1979.
Flory, Wendy S. Ezra Pound and The Cantos: A Record ofStruggle. New Haven: Yale Univer-
sity Press, 1980.
Froula, Christine. A Guide to Ezra Pound's Selected Poems. New York: New Directions, 1983. Gallup, Donald. Ezra Pound: A Bibliography. Charlottesville: The University Press of Vir-
ginia, 1983.
Gefin, Laszlo K. Ideogram: History of a Poetic Method. Austin: University of Texas Press,
1982.
Harmon, William. Time in Ezra Pound's Work. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press,
1977.
Ivancich, Gianfranco. Ezra Pound in Italy. New York: Rizzoli International Publications, Inc. , 1978.
Kearns, George. Guide to Ezra Pound's Selected Cantos. New Brunswick, N. J. : Rutgers University Press, 1980.
Lewis, Wyndham, ed. Blast 1 & 2. Santa Barbara: Black Sparrow Press, Rpt. , 1981. Lindberg-Seyersted, Brita, ed. Pound/Ford: The Story o f a Literary Friendship. New Y ork:
New Directions, 1982.
Materer, Timothy. Vortex: Pound, Eliot, and Lewis. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1979. Meacham, Harry. The Caged Panther. New York: Twane, 1967.
727
?