No More Learning

104. So that . . . margin: The source of these three lines is not known. They are not in Apollonius [cf. HK, "Under the Larches of Paradise," Gnomon] .
105. a touchstone: As A. approached Rome, he was warned to keep away because Nero would doubtless have him imprisoned or put to death, as he did with other philoso-
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phers, so that young men were left without a teacher. A. said: "Well, of all the blessings which have been vouchsafed me by the gods . . . this present one . . . is the great? est . . . : for chance has thrown in my way a touchstone to test these young men . . . to prove . . . which of them are philosophers"
[ibid. , 335].
106. yiY. p ~ciaavo,: H, "for a touchstone" [ibid. , 434]. the remainder of the Greek line, if it occurs anywhere, must be part of a sentence that contains a transitive verb. KCt()CXpOV is an adjective in the objective case. It means, "pure, bright, clear. " The other words may mean, "and far from anything
mortal. "
107. "Hie sunt leones": L, "here are lions. " After Rome, A. traveled toward Gibraltar: "the extremity of Libya. . . furnishes a haunt to lions" [ibid. , 467].
. . .
[ibid. ]. And going west, right would be north.
109. Heliad's poplar: "At Gadeira/' A. and Damis visited a shrine shaded by two trees: "they were a cross between the pitch tree and the pine, and formed a third species; and blood dripped from their bark, just as gold does from the HeJiad poplar" [ibid. 473] .
110. their pillars: They came then to a tem- ple to Hercules: "the pillars in the temple were made of gold and silver smelted togeth- er . . . and their capitals were inscribed with letters which were neither Egyptian nor Indi- an" [ibid. ]. Pound identifies the letters as Sumerian.
1 1 I . OE ? . ? 1 T p a T T o v U L : H , " f o r t h e d o e r s o f holiness" [ibid. , 503].
112. yiiv . . . o,UtjJIY. An: H, "and the sea is all safe. " A. said: "let us not forget that the whole earth affords secure ground for the doers of holiness, and that the sea is safely traversed not only by people in ships but even by people attempting to swin" [ibid. ].
113. v. 17: Bk. V, chap. 17 of The Life of Apollonius [ibid. , 501].
114. Musonius: A philosopher of Babylon whom Nero threw into prison "for the crime of being a sage. " A. was told his story as a warning to himself as he approached Rome [ibid. , 431]. Some years later at Athens, A. "met Demetrius the philosopher for after the episode of Nero's bath and of his speech about it [91:92], Demetrius continued to live at Athens. " Demetrius told of how he, trying to console Musonius "took his spade and stoutly dug it into the earth. " The
phrase "raiSed our stele," not in the source, is a metaphor for "done honor to" [ibid. , 505].
115. Five, twenty two: This chapter of The Life o f Apollonius tells the story of a young man who spent his fortune on building a huge house with gardens and colonades but spent nothing on education. A. asked him whether men should be valued for them- selves or for their wealth. Said the young man, "their wealth, for wealth has the most influence. " A. finally says: "My good boy, it seems to me that it is not you that own the house, but the house that owns you. " A. 's
sentiment rhymes exactly with the preach~ ments of Kung and Mencius. The first two characters are the core of the Kung adage, "Humane men use wealth to develop them~ selves; inhumane men use themselves to de~ velop wealth" [55:9]. Fa 1-5 ("use") and ts 'ai2 ("wealth") are the core of the message to "King Huey" [Cf. 62 above].
116. 29-: At Alexandria A. had conversa- tions with Vespasian, whose idea about wealth was the opposite of the young man of chapter twenty-two. V. used wealth to develop himself and others. In chap. 29, V. says to A. : "For I was never the slave of wealth that I know of even in my youth"
[ibid. , 529].
117. Chung: [M1504], "the mean" or "bal- ance. " Pound translated the Chinese classic Chung Yung [The doctrine of the mean] as The Unwobbling Pivot [CON, 95-188]. In discussing the duties of an ernperor, A. told
Vespasian that Nero ? "disgraced the empire by letting the strings go too slack and draw- ing them too tight. " V. thought this over and asked: "Then you would like a ruler to observe the mean? " A. 's answer was emphat- ic: "Not I but God himself, who has defined equity as consisting in the mean" [ibid. , 527].
118. VESPASIAN: [78:55]. Titus Flavius Vespasianus, A. D. 9~79, Roman emperor (69-79). He made his way in the world by sheer work and talent. After the murder of Nero in 68, Galba succeeded and ruled a few months until he was killed and Otho suc- ceeded. Meanwhile, Vitellius was proclaimed emperor by the armies in the north. He ruled until Otho was routed, but support for him melted away when Vespasian's troops from the east arrived. Vespasian asked A_ whether he should be emperor and A. said he should. He seized Egypt, received help from his friends in Italy, and arrived in Rome in A. D. 69. His troops located Vitellius in hiding and killed him [ibid. , 537-553].
119. form6 . . . : S, "I made new records. " Source unknown. The phrases summarize the reign of Vespasian, who set about restor- ing the state and its finances and gave an example of frugal living which contrasted greatly with the life of Nero.
120. BUT . . . Greece: Later on V. wrote A. many letters inviting him to attend his court at Rome. But A. refused because V. had taken away the freedom of the Greeks be- cause of their "factitiousness. " Thus, A. wrote to Vespasian: "You have taken such a dislike to the Hellenes, that you have en-
her sex" [Mead, A of T, 54]. She prob. exercised some restraint upon "the dark and jealous temper of her husband, but in her son's (Caracalla's) reign, she administered the principal affairs of the Empire. . . . She was the patroness of every art, and the friend of every man of genius. " She had both the background and the reasons: "for the beautiful daughter of Bassianus, priest of the sun at Emesa, was an ardent collector of books from every part of the world. . . . It was at her request that Philostratus wrote the Life of Apollonius" [ibid. 55]. N. B. : Tyana is pronounced with the accent on the first syllable [Surette, Poi, 2-2, 337-338].
124. TWV ? ? ? nailiwv: H, "of his own chil- dren. " In convincing V. he should be emper~ or, A. said: "If however he accepts the throne, he will have the devoted service of his own children" [P, Life, 549].
125. uno TO'~ 8eoZ" H, "by the gods. " This phrase occurs a few lines after the first one, when A. says: "For myself I care little about constitutions, seeing that my life is governed by the gods" [ibid. ]. The sense of A. 's page- long speech adds up to a lack of interest in abstract theory.
126. Ideograms: 1 1-5 jen2 [M30l6 and M3097], "one man. " A. said to V. : "For just as a single man pre~eminent in virtue transforms a democracy into the guise of a government of a single man who is the best; so the government of one man, if it provides all round for the welfare of the community, is popular government" [ibid. ]. The immedi- ate reason for the phrase came from a visit to S1.
Elizabeths of a Confucian scholar, Carson Chang. Pound said to him that 4 Confucians working together could save China. Chang replied, "Four? One is enough" [Poi, 3-3, 326].
127. V. 35: Bk V. , chap. 35 contains the materials of the 3 foregoing glosses.
12S. E1Tt . ? ? eipnaeTO! L: H, "that he should say what he really thinks. A. 's idea of "a man of philosophic habit" [P, Life, I, 553].
129. ei . . . ~KEtC H, "if you were the ten-
: "But
promontory of
lOS. Calpis
Europe, known as Calpis, stretches along the inlet of the ocean on the right hand side"
the
slaved them . . . .
with my company? Farewell" [ibid. , 567].
121. ANTONINUS: A. Pius [78:56].
122. lex Rhodi: L, "law of Rhodes. "
123. Daughter . . . TY ana: Julia Domna, wife of Emperor Septimius Severus, was one of the most remarkable women of the classi- cal world: "She possessed, even in an ad- vanced age, the attractions of beauty . . . and strength of judgment, seldom bestowed on
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ant of my breast. " V. "listened gladly" to all A. had to say and then said: "if you were the tenant of my breast, you could not more accurately report my inmost thoughts"
[ibid. J.
130. & do not mow: A. 's final advice to V. was: "mow not down the loftier stalks which overtop the rest for this maxim of Aristotle's is unjust; but try rather to pluck disaffection out of men's hearts! ) [ibid. , 553? 555J.
and offered sacrifice to Amasis . . . and con- veyed him up country into Egypt with pip- ings, hymns and songs composed in his honor" [ibid. , 569-571 J.
136. enhVTc{J &80VT? C;: H, "in his honor. " 137. Amasis: "Historically, Amasis I, Egyp?
tian pharoah and founder of the XVIIIth Dynasty (c. 1700 B. C. ), is famous as the king who finally delivered Egypt from the Hyksos [cf. 44 aboveJ . . . who overran Egypt somtime around 2100 B. C. " [Neault, Poi, 4-1, 27-28J. In A History of Egypt, Budge records the destruction caused by the Hyksos and the great good done by Amasis. Says Neault: "like Apollonius, Amasis be? comes an embodiment of the moral precept, reaffirmed in Apollonius's identification of
the lion, that was characteristic of an era of immanent gods when men lived in harmony withnature" [ibid. J.
138. keeping the Nile . . . : Then A. set out for Ethiopia "to visit the naked sages. " Through parable A. warned his many fol? lowers so that many remained behind: "but the rest, ten in number, I believe, offered prayer to the gods . . . departed straight for the pyramids, mounted on camels and keep- ing the Nile on their right hand" [P, Life, I, 573J.
139. flil . . . rEK1): H, "one penny begets an- other penny. "
140. book Six, chap. 2: In this chapter, A. praises the wisdom of the Egyptians and Ethiopians in their trading practices: "con- trast our Helenes: they pretend they cannot live unless one penny begets another, and unless they can force up the price of their goods by chaffering or holding them back"
[P, Life, II, 7J.
141. 'H",,,, ME/lVOVC: H, "Memnon of the Dawn. " The statue was famous, "for when the sun's rays fell upon the statue, and this happened exactly at dawn . . . the lips spoke immediately the sun's rays touched them. . . . They . . . offered a sacrifice to . . . Memnon of the Dawn, for this the priests recommended them to do, explaining that
the one name was derived from the words signifying 'to burn and be warm' and the other from his mother" [ibid. , 15? 17J.
142. I/Ivxil . . . TLfl1)TEOV: This sentence does not appear in the source nor in any other of Pound's known sources. As written, it neither construes nor scans. The first two words in reverse order-ae&vlYro<" ljJvxi7, "im- mortal soul"-do appear in the Life [po 404J. If we read \WOiOLV for ~WOiOlV, we could read "living things" or "the living. " Perhaps "the immortal soul which must be honored among the living" is as close as one can come. The Tt, although strangely placed, could function as an interrogative even though neuter.
would not have forgotten" [Strickland, Queens, I03J. Strickiand's note says that the story got into the record by a man who lived 150 years after the siege of Acre.
147. via Padua: From Cyprus, Edward re- turned to England through Italy. At Padua he was honored by being made a member of the legal faculty of the university [T. F. Tout, Edward the Exile, London, 1903, 86J [BKJ.
148. thunderbolt: "At this juncture the life of Edward was preserved in a manner that he considered most miraculous. As he was sit- ting with his queen on a couch, in their palace at Bourdeaux, a flash of lightning killed two lords who were standing directly behind them, without injuring the royal pair" [Queens, 105J. The date was 1273, however.
149. Federico Secondo: Frederick the Sec- ond, I, 1272-1337, known as F. of Aragon [25:14], was king of Sicily 1296? 1337. AI? though he was second, he called himself "the Third" because he was the third son of King Peter. His rule was tumultuous, as Sicily was subjected to the power plays of popes as well as the kings of France and Spain. But Frederick, a wise ruler, was devoted to jus- tice and beloved of his people. In The Can- tos he should not be confused with Freder- ick, king of Sicily (1198? 1212), celebrated by Pound as author of The Book of the Falcon [97:272J; or Frederick II of Prussia [32:38; 62: 117] ; or Frederick II, holy Ro-
man emperor, 1215-1250.
150. Alfonso: A. X, 1221? 1284, king of Castile (1252-1284) and brother of Eleanora [cf. 145 aboveJ. Although his reign was plagued by political and military turmoil, he is known for his advancement of culture, and for being the Justinian of Spain because he was largely responsible for Las Siete Parti- das, a compilation of the legal knowldege of his time. A collection of poems for music is
also attributed to him.
151. St Louis: Louis IX, 1214? 1270, king of France (1226? 1270), was the son of Blanche
131. Ideogram: Wang2
[M7037], "king. "
132. ? AA1)vi~ovTC<"": H, "over Greeks those who can speak Greek. " A. 's advice to V. included the idea that a ruler sent to rule a province should speak the language of that province: "I mean, that over Hellenes should be set men who can speak Greek, and Romans . . . " [ibid. , 557J.
133. Euphrates . . . : Said A. to V. : "0 king, Euphrates and Dian . . -. are at your door . . . call them in . . . for they are both of them wise men" [ibid. , 535J. The king did, but A. was being devious for he wanted the king to see what bad advisers they had been: "You, my sovereign, have learned from these your good~for. nothing predecessors how not to rule" [ibid. , 53'7]. But later, with the emper? or not present, Euphrates attacked A. , "in his anger resorting to coarse insults" [ibid. , 565], thus proving himself a "schnorrer. "
Pen 3 Justice:
145. Acre, again: City where the crusaders headquartered at times [6:IOJ. The first Acre Pound associates with Eleanor of Aquitaine [7:IJ who landed there ca. 1150.
146.