No More Learning

88. Peeeeacock: The Peacock poem was published in Poetry, May 1914. It may have been based on the peacock luncheon W. S. Blunt gave the committee of poets who vis~ ited him to pay homage on January 18, 1914 (Y eats, Moore, Manning, Masefield, Plarr, Flint, Aldington, and Pound), memori? alized by a photo [see NS Life, 239]. Pound attempts to give the impression both of Yeats's Irish brogue and his highly mannered way of reading. See HK, A Colder Eye [po 55], for connection with Pennell's Life of Whistler [pp. 301, 306] for the reading which includes a proposal for "a great pea- cock ten feet high. "
89. aere perennius: L, "more enduring than bronze" [Horace, Odes III, 30].
90. Stone Cottage: Coleman's Hatch, Ash? down Forest, in Sussex, where the events reflected in these anecdotes took place-a kind of hilaritas [Pai, 4. 1, 79]? Pound's early idea of it was not promising: "My stay in Stone Cottage will not be the least profit- able. I detest the country. Yeats will amuse me part of the time and bore me to death with psychical research the rest. I regard the visit as a duty to posterity" [L, 25]. But he ended up liking it.
91. Wordsworth: Part of Pound's secretarial duties included reading to Yeats, whose eyes were very weak. Yeats wrote to his father: "I have just started to read through the whole seven volumes of Wordsworth" [The Letters of w. B. Yeats, 590]. But Pound did the reading.
92. Ennemosor on Witches: The History of Magic, by Joseph Ennemoser, trans. from German by William Howitt, 1854. The book had an appendix by Mary Howitt which con?
tained "the most remarkable and best au- thenticated stories of apparitions, dreams, second sight,. . . divinations, etc. ": in a word, the kind of stuff Yeats, in those years, would have liked best.
93. Doughty: Charles Montagu D. , 1843? 1926, English traveler and writer; author of Arabia Deserta (1888) and an epic poem, The Dawn in Britain (J906). Pound said of Arabia Deserta: "Doughty's volume is a bore, but one ought to read it" [GK, 267].
94. Summons . . . : During WWI a summons, later withdrawn, was served on both Doro- thy and Pound for being aliens in a prohi? bited area. Stone Cottage was on the coast.
95. The eyes . . . sea: Reprise of eyes-eidos- sea lyric at 81/520.
96. und . . . Greis: G, "and the ladies say to me you are an old man. " Pound's version of one of the Anacreontea, which usually goes: "Oft am I by the women told, Poor Ana? creon, thou grow'st old" [Cowley].
97. Anacreon: Greek lyric poet, fl. 525 B. C. 98. novecento: I, "of the 20th century. "
99. quattrocento: I, "of the fifteenth century. "
100. Tirol: The Tyrol. Herr Bacher's father is the 20th? century sculptor of Madonnas
102. Senate: Pound's mother once visited the United States Senate to listen to the proceedings [NS, Life, 3].
103. Westminister: Here, the House of Par? liament.
104. Senator Edwards: Ninian E. , 1775? 1833, U. S. Senator from Illinois. He was first appointed governor of the Illinois Terri- tory (1809) and then served as one of its first senators when it became a state. His memorable tropes have not yet been identi- fied.
T
[74:496].
. . .
"That is
101. "Das heis'
Walter Square. " A place in Bozen, a German-speaking town in the Tyrol, named after Walther von der Vogelweide. It was called Bolzano after it was ceded to Italy in 1919.
I. Si tui! . . . : P, "If all the grief and the tears /. . . . Recurrent refrain [80:424].
2. Angold: J. P. A. , 1909? 1943, British poet who died in actio"n as a pilot in the RAF in 1943. The London Times carried his neero? logy January 14, 1944, MSB note: Got word Angold had been shot down. E. P. working on Angold's economics. Ango1d had con?
tributed in the early 30s to the New English Weekly on economic matters.
: G,
called
CANTO LXXXIV
Sources
Time, Oct. I, Oct. 8, July 30, Aug. 27, 1945; The Republic, Armed Services edition (P. 29), 425; Dante, Pur XXVI; the Bible, Micah 4. 5; EP CON, 279, 20.
Background
EP, SP, 300; H. A. Giles, A History o f Chinese Literature, Lon?
don and New York, 1901; Dial, LXXI, 4, Oct. 1921; Daphne Fielding, Those Remarkable Cunards, Atheneum, 1968; Anne Chisholm, Nancy Cunard, New York, Knopf, 1979 [AC, Nancy].
Exegeses
Achilles Fang, "Material for the Study of Pound's Cantos," Ph. D.
dissertation, Harvard University, 1958, Vols. lII, IV; Tay,Pai, 4? 2 & 3, 549; Bosha,Pai,4? 1,99;Peck,Pai, 1? 1, 7? 9; BoshaPai, 11? 2, 284. 286; DP, Barb, 291? 292; CE, Ideas, 151? 153; LL, Motive, 79? 80.
Glossary
3. re8V1/KE: H, "He is dead. "
4. tui! . . . bes: P, good" [80:424].
"all the
worth, all the
5. Bankhead: John Hollis B. , 1872? 1946,
? 464
U. S. Senator from Alabama (1930. 1946). Pound thought highly of him because he was a believer in the efficacy of a stamp scrip and proposed it in a Senate bill [SP, 300]. Pound heard the remarks on his 1939 visit. The mule is likely Roosevelt.
6. Borah: William Edgar B. , 1865. 1940, U. S. Senator from Idaho (1907. 1940). A leading spokesman on foreign affairs. Pound's offer to do what he could to help keep the U. S. out of the war elicited this response [Bosha, Pai, 11. 2, 284. 286].
7. ye spotted lambe . . . delight: Source unknown.
8. Roy Richardson: Captain in charge of prisoner training, DTC, Pisa.
9. Demattia . . . Crowder: Presumably both "blacke and white" trainees at the DTC, the white ones named first and the "(dark)" ones later. One of the black soldiers prob. looked like Henry Crowder, a black jazz musician with whom Nancy Cunard [80:43] had a violent and scandalous love affair (1928. 1935). Nancy's mother and many others disowned her because of it, but Pound defended both her and Crowder [AC, Nancy, 118. 171, 176? 182, passim]
10. Slaughter: A major in the cadre at Pisa [78:44].
II. Mr. Coxey: Jacob Sechler C. , 1854? 1951, American reformer. Time [Oct. I, 1945] reported about him: "'General' of the famed tatterdemalion army of unem~ ployed that marched from Ohio on Washing? ton in 1894, still full of fight at 91, gave a Chicago isolationist gathering something to wrestle with: 'The Government takes 20% out of your salary to pay you interest on the 10% you have deducted from your salary to buy bonds. . . .
Then they have to tax the people so the Government can pay interest to the banks, so the banks will support Gov? ernment bonds upon which money is issued' " [p. 46].
12. Sine: Sinclair Lewis, 1885? 1953, Ameri? can novelist. Time [Oct. 8, 1945, 100] car?
84/537? 538
84/538? 539
465
ried a review of his Cass Timberlane which dealt with Lewis's whole work.
13. Bartok: Bela B. , 1881? 1945, Hungarian composer, pianist, and collector of folk mu~ sic. Time carried an obit [ibid. , 74].
14. Mr. Beard: Charles Austin B. , 1874? 1948, American historian. The line in ques- tion here occurred in the Armed Services edition (P. 29) of The Republic: "Beard: But all the democracies have new deals or man- aged economies of one kind or another. If any government keeps control over its own currency, it will in practice, more or less manage its economy" [p. 425].
15. Mr John Adams: During the controver? sies when some politicians and the press wanted war with France, Adams's foreign policy was to keep talking and keep out of war, a quite unpopular stance that helped defeat him in his bid for a second term [70:9, 10]. The idea is also (in Adams letter to B. Rush August 28, 1811) against banks of discount [71 :35; 94:10].
16. Carrara: Source of marble near Pisa [74:80]. MSB note: "Brancusi went down to buy marble. Found it all monopolized by some company. He noticed how they had
destroyed the mountains. "
17. Garonne: River [4:41].
18. Spagna: I, "Spain. "
19. T'ao Ch'ien: A. D. 365-427, called T'ao Yuan-ming when young, he was the most famous Middle Kingdom poet of his time. He left official life, for which he was un? fitted, to return to his home, children, and gardens. His "Peach-blossom fountain" is an allegory that tells of how a fisherman lost his way and came into a beautiful land "of fine houses, of rich fields, of fine pools . . .
[where] young and old alike appeared to be contented and happy" [Giles, Chinese Liter? ature, 130. 131]. The beautiful land is the land of his youth now lost forever, or the Old Dynasty.
20. Ho Ci'u: Prob. the town named SitS on a river in Shansi Province [53:121]. The ChI'
nese word for river is Ho. David Gordon has a note saying this town in old China is known only because of the event described: where it is described is not known.
21. Kv8y/po SEW';: H, "Fearful Cythera. " A
30. Yin: [53:48].
31. humanitas: L, "humaneness. "
32. jen2 : C, [82:37], "humaneness. "
33. Xaire: H, "Hail! "
34. Alessandro: A. Pavolini, secretary of the Fascist Republican party of the government established at Salo in 1943 [Tay, Pai, 4? 2 & 3,549].
35. Fernando: F. Mezzasoma, minister of popular culture of the Salo RepUblic. After Mussolini was executed, Mezzasoma and Pa- volini were shot along with 13 others. They were later hanged head down, with Musso- lini, in Milan [ibid. ].
36. e il Capo: I, "and the leader. " Mussolini.
37. Pierre: P. Laval, 1883. 1945, premier of Vichy France [1942. 1945].
38. Vidkun: V. Quisling, 1887? 1945, Nor? wegian politician who collaborated in the German conquest of Norway (1940) and be? came head of the government under the Ger- man conquest of Norway (1940) and be? came head of the government under the German occupation.
39. Henriot: Philippe H. , French Fascist journalist and radio propagandist who was appointed to a ministerial post in the Vichy government during the German occupation of France in WWIl. Shot by French Resis?
T
recurrent
musical figure
[76: 106;
80: 129].
22. Carson: Prob. E. G. Carson, a miner whom the Pound family knew ca. 1910.
23. MyoId great aunt: Aunt Frank, who owned the Hotel "Easton" at 24 E 47th street and managed it after the death of "Amos" but did not have much financial success at it [74:461].
24. Tangiers: [74:160].
25. Natalie: N. C. Barney [80:220]. In reo
marks about her Pensees d'une amazone, Pound wrote: "[They] contain possibly sev? eral things not to be found in the famous Lettres addressed to that allegory, and at least one sublime sentence running I think 'Having got out of life, oh having got out of it perhaps more than it contained'" [Dial, LXXI, 4, Oct. 1921,458].
26. cielo di Pisa: I, "sky of Pisa. "
27. Wei: (Wei Tzu), 12th century B. C. , vis. count of the principality of Wei. He was the stepbrother of Cheou-sin, last sovereign of the Yin dynasty [53:56]; Wei became so disgusted with the cruelty of his kinsman that he retired from the court and left the kingdom.
28. Chi: (Chi Tzu). Viscount of the princi? pality of Chi, 12th century B. C. Uncle of Cheou-sin, last sovereign of the Yin dynasty_ Because he protested against the practices of the emperor, Chi was put into prison.
29. Pi? kan: (Pi Kan) 12th century B. C. , uncle of Cheou-sin, last emperor of the Yin dynasty. When Pi? kan objected to the ex? cesses of Cheou-sin, the emperor had him disembowelled on the spot. Analects XVII, 16: "The Viscount of Wei retired. TheVis? count of Chi became a slave. Pikan protested and died . . . Kung? Tze said: Yin had three men (with a capital M)" [CON, 279].
tance on 4. 1,99].
28 June
1944 [Bosha, Pai,
40. Imperial Chemicals: The British chemi? cal combine. The one who went out of in- dustrials was Wm. C. Bullitt, 1891? 1967 [RO]. He became an assistant to Cordell Hull and served as ambassador to the USSR and then to France, 1936? 1941. After this he enlisted in the French army and served as a major during 1944? 1945. The implication seems to be that, as an inside wealthy Yale man, he knew the depression was coming and sold all his stocks. He is contrasted with Dorothy Pound, who sold her stocks in a munitions company not to save money but so as not to be mixed up with the killing.
? ? ? 466
84/539-540
85/543 467
MSB note: She inherited the stock. Refused to have blood money.
41. quand . . . escalina: P, "when you come to the top of the stair" [Pur. XXVI, 146]. Part of the appeal of Arnaut Daniel. It is followed up: "In the time to come remem~ ber my pain. Then he dived back into the fire that refines them. " Eliot used the verse in the notes to The Waste Land.
42. 'haas: H, "custom, usage, character" [Peck, Pai, 1-1, 7-9; DP, Barb, 291-292].
MSB note: EP translates as gradations.
43. ming2 : C, [M4534]. Defined by Pound as the light descending from both sun and moon, thus intelligence [74:88; CON, 20]. MSB note: Distinctions in clarity means "degrees of decency in action. "
44. John Adams: [31:15].
45. Brothers Adam: Prob. Samuel Adams and John Adams, commonly known as "the brace of Adamses," as at 64/360 [EH].
46. Chung': C, [MI504], "center, balance" as in Chung Yung.
47. Micah: Hebrew prophet who flourished ca. 700 B. C. Micah 4. 5: "Everyone in the name of his god. " A passage Pound quotes in various ways: 74/435; 74/441; 74/443; 76/454; 78/479; 79/487.
48. Kumrad Koba: Joseph Stalin [74:34]. Koba, "the bear," andlor "the indomitable," [Pai, 11-2,285] was his boyhood nickname. "Kumrad" is borrowed from e.