By the 2d century the worship of Mithra had spread
throughout
the Roman Empire, as it was popular with the Roman legions.
A-Companion-to-the-Cantos-of-Ezra-Pound-II
A graphic image of divine order operating in the material world-a miracle which can be seen occasionally in such a thing as the "down" on a swan.
Allen Upward had written: "He who has watched the iron crumbs drawn into patterns by the magnet; or who in the
Milano (15th-century)" [cf. 8 Gerhart Munch (g canto) [cf. 2
CANTO LXXV
Sources
Virgil, Aeneid VI; EP, GK, 203, 151-152,ABCR, 54.
Background
EP, Townsman, 1 (Jan. 1938), p. 18; R. Murray Schafer, Ezra Pound and Music, New Directions, New York, 1977,348-399 and
passim.
Exegesis
EH, Pai, 10-2,295-296; WB, Pai, 10-3, 594; Stephen 1. Adams, "The Soundscope of The Cantos," Humanities Assoc. Review, 28 (Spring 1977), 167-188.
Glossary
2. Gerhart: G. Munch, German (Dresden) pianist, composer, and arranger who during the 1930s spent a lot of time in Rapallo, where he played concerts with Olga Rudge. He arranged Janequin's Le Chant des Oiseaux, along with other old music that appealed to Pound [GK, 151-153]. Along with Antheil [74:64], Pound considered Munch in the vanguard of the moderns.
3. Buxtehude: Dietrich B. , 1637-1707, German composer and organist who influ~ enced the work of Bach.
4. Klages: Ludwig K. , 1872-1956, German anthropologist to whom Munch addressed a number of letters. Klage's major work in five volumes, Der Geist als Widersacher der Seele [The intellect as adversary of the soul], had an influe. nce upon Munch's work. His name and ideas came to Pound via Munch [EH, Pai, 10-2, 295-296]. Not to be confused with Charles Klages a 19th-century French composer and guitarist.
S. Stiindebuch: G, "collection" [GK, 203]. The word, not to be found in most German dictionaries, occurs in the title of a book of Jost Amman's illustrations to the songs of Hans Sachs [WB,Pai, 10-3,594].
6. -not of one _. . : Pound wrote of the Janequin piece: "The gist, the pith, the unbreakable fact is there in the two pages of violin part __ . [heard] not one bird but a lot of birds as our violinist said on first playing it" [Townsman, 1 (Jan. 1938), p. 18; Adams, 182]_
7. The handwritten words say: (Sidelights from Salassi: La canzone da Ii ucelli (I, "the song of the birds"). Fatto del Violino
(I, "made for the violin"). Francesco da Milina (S cento) ([F. da Milano] I, "Fran-
1. Phlegethon: The river of fire in Hades [25 :46]. The fiaming river flows around the walls of a mighty city, from which the groans and screams of the inhabitants are heard by Aeneas [Aeneid V i]. Horror- stricken, he asks the Sibyl (his guide) what
they are. She says that they come from the judgment hall of Rhadamanthus, who brings to light crimes done in life. In the depths under the city, guarded by the Hydra, are the Titans and such condemned men as Salmoneus, Sisyphus, Tantalus, and Ixion.
frostwork on the window pane has appre- hended the unknown beauty of the crystal's law, seems to me to have an idea more wholesome to our frail imaginings of the meaning of the Mystery of Life" [Upward, The New Word, 222; cited by Knox, Pai, 3-1,81].
504. Swansdown: In "Her Triumph," by Ben Jonson, we read: I'Ra' you felt the wool of beaver / Or swan's down ever? I Or have smelt 0 ' the bud 0 ' the briar? 1Or the nard in the fire? " [from A Celebration of Charis: in Ten Lyric Pieces (1624)]. All are examples of miracles of creation [DD, Ezra Pound, 78].
50S. Lethe: The river of forgetfulness in Hades.
The Sibyl then leads the hero toward the Elysian Fields, where the inhabitants are dancing and singing and where "Orpheus struck the chords of his lyre, and called
cesco of
below]).
above]. [per metamorfosi] (I, "by meta- morphosis").
forth ravishing sounds. " _ Pound Allied fire-bombing o f Dresden "the fiaming river" [HK].
said the suggested
8_ Milano: Francesco da M. , 1497-ca. 1543, Italian lutist and composer known as "11 divinio" t o his devotees. His version o f Janequin's "Song of the Birds" became the basis for Munch's [cf. 2 above] version for violin and piano, which became a favorite item for the Rapallo concerts. The violin line by Munch, the basis of the canto, became for Pound a prime example of the mutual support song and music could give each other: "Clement Janequin wrote a chorus, with words for the singers of the different parts of the chorus. These words would have no literary or poetic value if you took the music away but when Francesco da Milano reduced it for the lute the birds were still in the music. And when Munch transcribed it for modern instruments the birds were still there. They ARE still there in the violin parts" [ABCR, 54]. Pound connects the dynamic form in Janequin to "swansdown" and "the rose in the steel dust," which ended Canto 74: "If F. Di Milano . . . chiselled down Dowland's and Janequin's choral words. _. I have a perfect right to HEAR Janequin's intervals, his melodic conjunctions from the violin solo. . . . The forma, the immortal concetto, the concept, the dynamic form which is like the rose pattern driven into the dead iron-filings by the magnet, not by material contact. . . . Cut off by the layer of glass, the dust and filings rise and spring into order. . . . Thus the forma, the concept rises from the death. . . . Janequin's concept takes a third life in our time. . . . And its ancestry I think goes back to Arnaut Daniel and to god knows what 'hidden antiquity'" [GK, 151-152]. The reader should pause for thought: Canto 75 is an exemplum of the forma or the dynamic form of The Cantos as
a whole as well as a transitional move out of hell [cf. 1 above] toward paradiso terrestre.
9. >K fl : Prob. early bone inscription form for fJ( [53:42,43]: "make it new" [DG].
? 390
76/452
76/452
391
CANTO LXXVI Sources
Cavalcanti, "Donna mi prega," LE, 163-167; Dante, La Vita Nuova, XXIV; EP, CON, 20, 29, 239; Micah 4. 5; Leviticus 19. 35-36; EP, "Three Cantos," Poetry, June 1917; Homer, Od. I, 4; Dante, Par. VIII, 37; Time, June 4, 1945,36 and June 11, 1945, 50; Herodotus I, 98, Loeb, I; Lyra Graeca I, fr. 1, 184; OBGV, No. 140; Goethe, Faust, pt. 2, Act II, 11. 6819-7004; Ralph Cheever Dunning, The Four Winds, London, 1931; Herman
Suchier, Aucassin und Nicolette, Paderburn, F. SchDningh, 1889; Paracelsus, De generationibus rerum naturalium, Passage, 238; Ford Madox Ford, Provence, London, George Allen & Unwin,
1938.
Background
EP, GK, Ill, 17, 109,328,259, 159; SP, 454,433,322; Townsman, April 1939; SR, 84, 121; MIN, 390; L, 254, 249, 147,282; Henry James Warner, The Albigensian Heresy, New York, Russell, 1967; Gianfranco Ivancich, Ezra Pound's Italy, New York, Rlzzoli, 1978; Aristotle, Politics; Nichomachean Ethics; Marion K. Sanders, Dorothy Thompson, A Legend in Her Time, Boston, Houghton-Mifflin, 1973; Kenneth Quinn, CatuUus, An Interpretation, New York, Barnes & Noble, 1973.
Exegeses
Achilles Fang, "Materials for the Study of Pound's Cantos," Ph. D. dissertation, Harvard University, 1958, II, III, IV [Fang]; Stuart Gilbert, Letters ofJames Joyce, New York, Viking, 1957; Mde R, Discretions, 221; HK, Era, 469; NS, LIfe, 47; EP,Pal, 10-3, 605-618; Shuldiner, Pal, 4-1,72-73; Bowers, Pai, 2-1, 53-66, BK & TCDE, The Explicator, 40 (1981), 43.
Glossary
6. Hamadryas ac Heliades: L, "Hamadryad and Heliads. " The hamadryad [74:148] was a tree nymph. The Heliads were daughters of Helios. They were changed into poplar trees as they mourned for their brother, Phaethon, who was struck dead by a thunder? bolt of Zeus to prevent him from setting the world on fire after he turned out to be too weak to manage the sun chariot of his father, Relios, for one day.
7. Dirce: The wife of Lycus, early mythol? ogical king of the Greek city that later became Thebes. They treated Antiope, the mother of the twins Amphion and Zethus, with such cruelty that she plotted revenge. She, the twins, and a band of herdsmen slew Lycus and tied Dirce by the hair of her head to a bull. The bull dragged her over the ground until she was dead. Pound's imme- diate source was Landor's "With Dirce in one bark conveyed. " The three ladies, Dirce, Ixotta, Guido's donna, are "in the timeless air" because placed there by three poets
[HK].
8. et ! xotta: L, "and Isotta. " Isotta degli Atti [9:59].
9. e che fu . . . : I, "and she who was called Primavera [Spring]"; the lady of Guido Cavalcanti [Dante, La Vita Nuova, XXIV, 20-23] , to whom he addressed a number of ballate.
10. nel c\ivo ed . . . : I, "on the slope and at the trihedral corner": a ,place where three roads cross. Pound traversed such a cross- road daily on his way from Rapallo up to Sant' Ambrogio.
the old road under St. Pantaleo at St. Ambrogio [M de R].
16. Cunizza: C. da Romano [6:34]. In 1265, at age 67, she freed a number of slaves, an act of piety that led Dante to place her in Paradise [74:286].
1. the sun: Apollo, Helios, source of the tensile light descending; metaphor for the divine presence in the world which is some- what obscured to those in the Pisan hell.
2. dove sta memora: I, "where memory liveth" [36:3]. Pound's translation from the Donna mi prega.
3. Signora Agresti: Signora Olivia Rossetti Agresti, daughter of William Michael
Rossetti. Living in Rome, Signora Agresti for years wrote on 20th-century economic problems [Fang, III, 116].
4. A1cmene: The wife of Amphitryon [74:144].
S. Dryas: Dryad [3: 11] ; a tree nymph that lived only as long as the particular tree it was associated with.
12. sotto Ie . . . : I, "under our cliffs. "
13. Sigismundo: S. Malatesta [8:5].
14. Aurelia to Genova: L, "The Aurelian [way]," the highway that runs along the coast from Rome to Pisa and thence to Genoa.
11. periplum: H, [59 :10].
"circumnavigation"
18. she who said . . . mould: Caterina Sforza Riiirio (1463-1509),' daughter of Galeazzo Maria Sforza and wife of both Girolamo Riario and Giovanni de' Medici. As Countess of ForE she was noted for her ruthlessness and celebrated by Machiavelli [Discourses, 1II, 6] for foiling the Orsi conspiracy. Leaving her small children as hostages, she entered Ravaldino promising to hand over the fortress. Mounting the walls, she exposed her genitalia and announced that she still had "the mould for casting more children" [Richard Taylor, letter, 19 April 1983].
19. Ussel: Town near Ventadour in S cen- tral France, described in standard handbooks as one of the wettest regions of France and the source of many rivers. It is the district of Provence Pound walked through in 1911
[GK, Ill].
20. cette . . . venggg: [ce mauvais vent] : F,
"that rotten wind" (in Proven<;al accent? ).
21. Tolosa: L, "Toulouse," city on the Garonne. It was earlier called Tolosa, "a beautiful old city, built entirely of red brick" [Fang, II, 224].
22. Mt Segur: [23:25] Site of a castle in Provence, the last stronghold of the Albigen- sians, who were finally destroyed in the cru- sade of the 1240s.
23. Mithras: [Mithra]: Ancient Persian god of light and therefore associated with Helios and other sun gods in the Middle East.
By the 2d century the worship of Mithra had spread throughout the Roman Empire, as it was popular with the Roman legions. Mithra- ism was based on an ethic of loyalty, a cult of mystery, rituals of blood baptism, and a
15. la vecchia
. . .
: I, "old woman,"
Here,
17. qua . . . scalza: I, and the barefoot girl. "
"here at the
corner
? ? 392
sacred banquet. Christianity was its mortal enemy and forced the adherents of Mithra to seek refuge in Manichaeism [23:28], a label that "suited well the purpose of the Church, because the name 'Manichaen' had had for centuries sinister associations, aroused the utter detestation of the orthodox and brought down upon those accused of it the severest penalties of Church and State"
[Warner, The Albigensian Heresey, 91.
24. il triedro: I, "the juncture of three
roads. "
25. Castellaro: [74:300].
26. Scirocco: I, a hot southeast wind off the Mediterranean.
27. la scalza: I, "the barefooted girl. "
28. 10 son' la luna: I, "I am the moon" [74:137; 80/500].
29. the huntress: Prob. a statue of Diana which Pound remembers.
76/452-453
76/453-454
47. Willy: Henri Gauthier? Villars [78:70].
48. Teofile's: Pierre Jules TMophile Gautier handed on to his daughter, Judith Gautier, certain bric? a-brac [80:213] which wasseen by literary people who visited her apart? ment, where she lived "with her monkeys, her bibelots (Chinese, Hindu, and pre? historic) and her cats" [Fang, II, 193].
49. COcleau's: Jean Cocteau, 1891-1963, French poet, playwright, and man of letters considered by Pound to be a 20th-century genius [74:246; NB: "Cocteau in his fumoir with his discs and his radio," SP, 454], And, "The livest thing in Paris 1933 was Jean Cocteau. A dark inner room, no clatter of outside Paris" [SP,433].
SO. Eileen: Eileen Agar, an artist from London Mayfair society living in Europe. She took up with Josef Bard, the husband of Dorothy Thompson. After assignations with her, Josef divorced Dorothy (who went on to marry Sinclair Lewis) and married Eileen. The "trick sunlight" is an effect she obtained by placing light behind yellow curtains [M de R] .
51. b . . . . h: The line mimics the rhythm of 30/148 [30: 10].
52. la pigrizia: I, "sloth. "
53. ground and the dew: May refer to sleeping conditions Pound endured in the "cage" at Pisa. The forced inactivity may have induced lethargy or "sloth. "
54. Chung: [MI504], "Middle. " So trans. by Pound in explication [77/476]. With ynng, he trans. "unwobbling pivot. " In Townsman [April 1939, 12] he applied the word to money as "pivot: . . . the moment in fact that there is a cornman denominator of exchange, that moment the denominator, the measure, i. e. money becomes the PIVOT of all social action. Only a race of slaves and idiots will be inattentive thereafter to the said pivot. "
55. three weeks: Chung Yung, III, says: "Center oneself in the invariable: some have managed to do this, they have hit the true
393 center, and then? Very few have been able
to stay there" [CON, 105]. Even for 3 weeks is implied.
56. government . . . it:
coming in conjunction with chung must refer to Shun [Chun], who "took hold of their two extremes, determined the Mean, and employedit in his government of other people" [IV, 103].
57. Ideogram: Ch'eng [M381]. Pound gives the sense of this character as "Sincerity" and adds: "The precise definition of the word, pictorially the sun's lance coming to rest on the precise spot verbally. The righthand half of this compound means: to perfect, bring to focus" [CON, 20].
58. Kung fu Tseu: "K'ung" [M3720]: Confucius. The "fu Tseu" means _"Master"
[13:1; 53:78].
59. Chung Ni: A courtesy name for K'ung [53:148], whom Pound reveres for his work on the histories of China, especially the Chou dynasty, and for his work in recover-
ing and making a collection of the best odes.
60. each one . . . god: From a conflation of the biblical "in nomine Dei sui" [Micah 4. 5] and Gavin Douglas's trans. of Virgil's inferretque deos Latio: "the lateyn peopil taken has their name / bringing his gods into Latium / saving the bricabrac. " Pound gives seven different versions of Micah's words: "each one in his god's name" [74/435]; "each in the name of its god" [74/441]; "in the name of its god" [74/443]; and at 78/479,79/487, and 84/540 [Fang, III, 76].
61. Gibraltar: The scenario of Pound's visit to the synagogue is given at 22/104? 105.
62. @$8. 50 . . . : Half of 17 shekels [74:338].
63. meteyard: AS, metgeard. A yard or rod used as measure.
64. Leviticus: Third book of the Pentateuch or so-called Law of Moses [74:205].
65. chapter XIX: Lev. 19. 35-36 [King James] reads: "Ye shall do no unrighteous.
30. tempora . . . mores: L, time. . . customs" [NB: Tempora! 0 Mores! "].
[ages] , Cicero, "0
31. Babylonian wall: The subject of a poem by Dunning [see essay by Pound on Dunning with a selection of his poetry in Pai, 10? 3, 605? 618].
32. memorat Cheever: L, "Cheever remem* bers. " Refers to Ralph Cheever Dunning, ca. 1865-1930, American poet born in Detroit who lived his last 25 years in Paris. His output was small but Poetry published whatever he sent. Pound praised his work and published it in Exile. He appeared also in transatlantic review and transition. His The Four Winds, 1925, received the Levinson Prize. H. Monroe wrote a short eulogy in 'Poetry, January 1931. The title poem of The Four Winds has this stanza: "My garden hath a wall as high / As any wall of Babylon, / And only things with wings shall spy / The fruit therein or feed thereon. "
33. very confidentially: From popular song of 1930s prob. heard over loud speaker: "Ain't she sweet? See her corning down the
"time
street / I ask you very confidentially / Ain't she sweet? "
34. Dieudonne: Dieudonet, a famous London chef. His restaurant, called "Dieudonne," in the St. James district of London, was frequented by Pound and other literary figures, 1910? 20 [74:178; 77:78].
35. Mouquin: A New Y ork restaurant famous at the turn of the century [74:186] ,
36. Voisin: A famous restaurant in Paris at 261 Rue St. Honore and 16 Rue Cambon.
37. Nevsky: The Nevsky Prospect is a long, fashionable avenue along which there used to be numerous pastry shops, such as Andrejew, Filippow, and Dominique.
38. The Greif: A hotel with restaurant and cafe (called Grifone in Italian) at Bolzano in the Italian Tyrol.
39. SchOners: [SchOner]: A restaurant at 19 Siebensterngasse, Vienna [74:184].
40. Taverna: Pass. the Taverna Romola Remo at 5, IV Resselgasse, Vienna.
41. Robert's: A New York restaurant at 33 West 55th St. which Pound visited with e e cummings in 1939 [Fang, 11, 321].
42. La Rupe: Prob. the Rupe Tarpeia [74:395] in the garden of the Casa Tarpeia On the southern hill called Monte Caprino in Rome. Fang says: "As it is not certain that there was a restaurant or cafe on the Tarpeian Rock, it is possible that there was
one [elsewhere] named after it" [11,319].
43. finito: I, "finished. "
44. Pre Catalan: [Pre-Catelan]: Restaurant du Pre-Catelan, an eating place " o f the highest class" on the right bank of the Bois de Boulogne [Fang, II, 3 0 9 ] .
45. Armenonville: Pavillon d'A. A high class restaurant in Paris located between the Porte Maillot and the Jardin d'Acclimation.
46. Bullier: The Bal Bullier at 33, avenue de l'Observatoire in the Latin Quarter of Paris. It was noted as a student resort [cf. Bouiller at74:176].
Fang says
this line
? 394
ness in judgment, in meteyard, in weight, or
in measure. I Just balances, just weights, a just ephah, and a just hin, shall ye have. "
66. Zion: The hilltop site of the temple and the royal residence of King David and his successors, The Jews regard Zion as the symbolic center of Jewish national culture, government, and religion [74:97].
67. Don Fulano: S, used as is "John Doe" in English.
68. Caio e Tizio: I, like Don Fulano: "John Doe and Richard Roe. "
69. Why not rebuild it: Pound's interpreta- tion of a passage from the Analects. He wrote: "The inhabitants of Lou wished to put up a new public granary. " Someone asked "Isn't the old one still good enough? Is there any need of a new one which will cost much sweat to the people? " Kung endorsed this man's idea [GK, 17]. Pound's own translation of the passage [CON, 239] has the man say: "What about repairing the
old one? Why change and build'" Thus, "rebuild" suggests "repair the old one" rather than "build anew,"
70. Snag: Nickname of one of the prisoners at the DTC [74:119].
71. ante mortem no scortum: L, "before death no prostitute. " Prob. the black murderer was under sentence of death and demonstrated his knowledge of Latin by this ironic statement.
72. progress: Note repetition of this line.
73.
Milano (15th-century)" [cf. 8 Gerhart Munch (g canto) [cf. 2
CANTO LXXV
Sources
Virgil, Aeneid VI; EP, GK, 203, 151-152,ABCR, 54.
Background
EP, Townsman, 1 (Jan. 1938), p. 18; R. Murray Schafer, Ezra Pound and Music, New Directions, New York, 1977,348-399 and
passim.
Exegesis
EH, Pai, 10-2,295-296; WB, Pai, 10-3, 594; Stephen 1. Adams, "The Soundscope of The Cantos," Humanities Assoc. Review, 28 (Spring 1977), 167-188.
Glossary
2. Gerhart: G. Munch, German (Dresden) pianist, composer, and arranger who during the 1930s spent a lot of time in Rapallo, where he played concerts with Olga Rudge. He arranged Janequin's Le Chant des Oiseaux, along with other old music that appealed to Pound [GK, 151-153]. Along with Antheil [74:64], Pound considered Munch in the vanguard of the moderns.
3. Buxtehude: Dietrich B. , 1637-1707, German composer and organist who influ~ enced the work of Bach.
4. Klages: Ludwig K. , 1872-1956, German anthropologist to whom Munch addressed a number of letters. Klage's major work in five volumes, Der Geist als Widersacher der Seele [The intellect as adversary of the soul], had an influe. nce upon Munch's work. His name and ideas came to Pound via Munch [EH, Pai, 10-2, 295-296]. Not to be confused with Charles Klages a 19th-century French composer and guitarist.
S. Stiindebuch: G, "collection" [GK, 203]. The word, not to be found in most German dictionaries, occurs in the title of a book of Jost Amman's illustrations to the songs of Hans Sachs [WB,Pai, 10-3,594].
6. -not of one _. . : Pound wrote of the Janequin piece: "The gist, the pith, the unbreakable fact is there in the two pages of violin part __ . [heard] not one bird but a lot of birds as our violinist said on first playing it" [Townsman, 1 (Jan. 1938), p. 18; Adams, 182]_
7. The handwritten words say: (Sidelights from Salassi: La canzone da Ii ucelli (I, "the song of the birds"). Fatto del Violino
(I, "made for the violin"). Francesco da Milina (S cento) ([F. da Milano] I, "Fran-
1. Phlegethon: The river of fire in Hades [25 :46]. The fiaming river flows around the walls of a mighty city, from which the groans and screams of the inhabitants are heard by Aeneas [Aeneid V i]. Horror- stricken, he asks the Sibyl (his guide) what
they are. She says that they come from the judgment hall of Rhadamanthus, who brings to light crimes done in life. In the depths under the city, guarded by the Hydra, are the Titans and such condemned men as Salmoneus, Sisyphus, Tantalus, and Ixion.
frostwork on the window pane has appre- hended the unknown beauty of the crystal's law, seems to me to have an idea more wholesome to our frail imaginings of the meaning of the Mystery of Life" [Upward, The New Word, 222; cited by Knox, Pai, 3-1,81].
504. Swansdown: In "Her Triumph," by Ben Jonson, we read: I'Ra' you felt the wool of beaver / Or swan's down ever? I Or have smelt 0 ' the bud 0 ' the briar? 1Or the nard in the fire? " [from A Celebration of Charis: in Ten Lyric Pieces (1624)]. All are examples of miracles of creation [DD, Ezra Pound, 78].
50S. Lethe: The river of forgetfulness in Hades.
The Sibyl then leads the hero toward the Elysian Fields, where the inhabitants are dancing and singing and where "Orpheus struck the chords of his lyre, and called
cesco of
below]).
above]. [per metamorfosi] (I, "by meta- morphosis").
forth ravishing sounds. " _ Pound Allied fire-bombing o f Dresden "the fiaming river" [HK].
said the suggested
8_ Milano: Francesco da M. , 1497-ca. 1543, Italian lutist and composer known as "11 divinio" t o his devotees. His version o f Janequin's "Song of the Birds" became the basis for Munch's [cf. 2 above] version for violin and piano, which became a favorite item for the Rapallo concerts. The violin line by Munch, the basis of the canto, became for Pound a prime example of the mutual support song and music could give each other: "Clement Janequin wrote a chorus, with words for the singers of the different parts of the chorus. These words would have no literary or poetic value if you took the music away but when Francesco da Milano reduced it for the lute the birds were still in the music. And when Munch transcribed it for modern instruments the birds were still there. They ARE still there in the violin parts" [ABCR, 54]. Pound connects the dynamic form in Janequin to "swansdown" and "the rose in the steel dust," which ended Canto 74: "If F. Di Milano . . . chiselled down Dowland's and Janequin's choral words. _. I have a perfect right to HEAR Janequin's intervals, his melodic conjunctions from the violin solo. . . . The forma, the immortal concetto, the concept, the dynamic form which is like the rose pattern driven into the dead iron-filings by the magnet, not by material contact. . . . Cut off by the layer of glass, the dust and filings rise and spring into order. . . . Thus the forma, the concept rises from the death. . . . Janequin's concept takes a third life in our time. . . . And its ancestry I think goes back to Arnaut Daniel and to god knows what 'hidden antiquity'" [GK, 151-152]. The reader should pause for thought: Canto 75 is an exemplum of the forma or the dynamic form of The Cantos as
a whole as well as a transitional move out of hell [cf. 1 above] toward paradiso terrestre.
9. >K fl : Prob. early bone inscription form for fJ( [53:42,43]: "make it new" [DG].
? 390
76/452
76/452
391
CANTO LXXVI Sources
Cavalcanti, "Donna mi prega," LE, 163-167; Dante, La Vita Nuova, XXIV; EP, CON, 20, 29, 239; Micah 4. 5; Leviticus 19. 35-36; EP, "Three Cantos," Poetry, June 1917; Homer, Od. I, 4; Dante, Par. VIII, 37; Time, June 4, 1945,36 and June 11, 1945, 50; Herodotus I, 98, Loeb, I; Lyra Graeca I, fr. 1, 184; OBGV, No. 140; Goethe, Faust, pt. 2, Act II, 11. 6819-7004; Ralph Cheever Dunning, The Four Winds, London, 1931; Herman
Suchier, Aucassin und Nicolette, Paderburn, F. SchDningh, 1889; Paracelsus, De generationibus rerum naturalium, Passage, 238; Ford Madox Ford, Provence, London, George Allen & Unwin,
1938.
Background
EP, GK, Ill, 17, 109,328,259, 159; SP, 454,433,322; Townsman, April 1939; SR, 84, 121; MIN, 390; L, 254, 249, 147,282; Henry James Warner, The Albigensian Heresy, New York, Russell, 1967; Gianfranco Ivancich, Ezra Pound's Italy, New York, Rlzzoli, 1978; Aristotle, Politics; Nichomachean Ethics; Marion K. Sanders, Dorothy Thompson, A Legend in Her Time, Boston, Houghton-Mifflin, 1973; Kenneth Quinn, CatuUus, An Interpretation, New York, Barnes & Noble, 1973.
Exegeses
Achilles Fang, "Materials for the Study of Pound's Cantos," Ph. D. dissertation, Harvard University, 1958, II, III, IV [Fang]; Stuart Gilbert, Letters ofJames Joyce, New York, Viking, 1957; Mde R, Discretions, 221; HK, Era, 469; NS, LIfe, 47; EP,Pal, 10-3, 605-618; Shuldiner, Pal, 4-1,72-73; Bowers, Pai, 2-1, 53-66, BK & TCDE, The Explicator, 40 (1981), 43.
Glossary
6. Hamadryas ac Heliades: L, "Hamadryad and Heliads. " The hamadryad [74:148] was a tree nymph. The Heliads were daughters of Helios. They were changed into poplar trees as they mourned for their brother, Phaethon, who was struck dead by a thunder? bolt of Zeus to prevent him from setting the world on fire after he turned out to be too weak to manage the sun chariot of his father, Relios, for one day.
7. Dirce: The wife of Lycus, early mythol? ogical king of the Greek city that later became Thebes. They treated Antiope, the mother of the twins Amphion and Zethus, with such cruelty that she plotted revenge. She, the twins, and a band of herdsmen slew Lycus and tied Dirce by the hair of her head to a bull. The bull dragged her over the ground until she was dead. Pound's imme- diate source was Landor's "With Dirce in one bark conveyed. " The three ladies, Dirce, Ixotta, Guido's donna, are "in the timeless air" because placed there by three poets
[HK].
8. et ! xotta: L, "and Isotta. " Isotta degli Atti [9:59].
9. e che fu . . . : I, "and she who was called Primavera [Spring]"; the lady of Guido Cavalcanti [Dante, La Vita Nuova, XXIV, 20-23] , to whom he addressed a number of ballate.
10. nel c\ivo ed . . . : I, "on the slope and at the trihedral corner": a ,place where three roads cross. Pound traversed such a cross- road daily on his way from Rapallo up to Sant' Ambrogio.
the old road under St. Pantaleo at St. Ambrogio [M de R].
16. Cunizza: C. da Romano [6:34]. In 1265, at age 67, she freed a number of slaves, an act of piety that led Dante to place her in Paradise [74:286].
1. the sun: Apollo, Helios, source of the tensile light descending; metaphor for the divine presence in the world which is some- what obscured to those in the Pisan hell.
2. dove sta memora: I, "where memory liveth" [36:3]. Pound's translation from the Donna mi prega.
3. Signora Agresti: Signora Olivia Rossetti Agresti, daughter of William Michael
Rossetti. Living in Rome, Signora Agresti for years wrote on 20th-century economic problems [Fang, III, 116].
4. A1cmene: The wife of Amphitryon [74:144].
S. Dryas: Dryad [3: 11] ; a tree nymph that lived only as long as the particular tree it was associated with.
12. sotto Ie . . . : I, "under our cliffs. "
13. Sigismundo: S. Malatesta [8:5].
14. Aurelia to Genova: L, "The Aurelian [way]," the highway that runs along the coast from Rome to Pisa and thence to Genoa.
11. periplum: H, [59 :10].
"circumnavigation"
18. she who said . . . mould: Caterina Sforza Riiirio (1463-1509),' daughter of Galeazzo Maria Sforza and wife of both Girolamo Riario and Giovanni de' Medici. As Countess of ForE she was noted for her ruthlessness and celebrated by Machiavelli [Discourses, 1II, 6] for foiling the Orsi conspiracy. Leaving her small children as hostages, she entered Ravaldino promising to hand over the fortress. Mounting the walls, she exposed her genitalia and announced that she still had "the mould for casting more children" [Richard Taylor, letter, 19 April 1983].
19. Ussel: Town near Ventadour in S cen- tral France, described in standard handbooks as one of the wettest regions of France and the source of many rivers. It is the district of Provence Pound walked through in 1911
[GK, Ill].
20. cette . . . venggg: [ce mauvais vent] : F,
"that rotten wind" (in Proven<;al accent? ).
21. Tolosa: L, "Toulouse," city on the Garonne. It was earlier called Tolosa, "a beautiful old city, built entirely of red brick" [Fang, II, 224].
22. Mt Segur: [23:25] Site of a castle in Provence, the last stronghold of the Albigen- sians, who were finally destroyed in the cru- sade of the 1240s.
23. Mithras: [Mithra]: Ancient Persian god of light and therefore associated with Helios and other sun gods in the Middle East.
By the 2d century the worship of Mithra had spread throughout the Roman Empire, as it was popular with the Roman legions. Mithra- ism was based on an ethic of loyalty, a cult of mystery, rituals of blood baptism, and a
15. la vecchia
. . .
: I, "old woman,"
Here,
17. qua . . . scalza: I, and the barefoot girl. "
"here at the
corner
? ? 392
sacred banquet. Christianity was its mortal enemy and forced the adherents of Mithra to seek refuge in Manichaeism [23:28], a label that "suited well the purpose of the Church, because the name 'Manichaen' had had for centuries sinister associations, aroused the utter detestation of the orthodox and brought down upon those accused of it the severest penalties of Church and State"
[Warner, The Albigensian Heresey, 91.
24. il triedro: I, "the juncture of three
roads. "
25. Castellaro: [74:300].
26. Scirocco: I, a hot southeast wind off the Mediterranean.
27. la scalza: I, "the barefooted girl. "
28. 10 son' la luna: I, "I am the moon" [74:137; 80/500].
29. the huntress: Prob. a statue of Diana which Pound remembers.
76/452-453
76/453-454
47. Willy: Henri Gauthier? Villars [78:70].
48. Teofile's: Pierre Jules TMophile Gautier handed on to his daughter, Judith Gautier, certain bric? a-brac [80:213] which wasseen by literary people who visited her apart? ment, where she lived "with her monkeys, her bibelots (Chinese, Hindu, and pre? historic) and her cats" [Fang, II, 193].
49. COcleau's: Jean Cocteau, 1891-1963, French poet, playwright, and man of letters considered by Pound to be a 20th-century genius [74:246; NB: "Cocteau in his fumoir with his discs and his radio," SP, 454], And, "The livest thing in Paris 1933 was Jean Cocteau. A dark inner room, no clatter of outside Paris" [SP,433].
SO. Eileen: Eileen Agar, an artist from London Mayfair society living in Europe. She took up with Josef Bard, the husband of Dorothy Thompson. After assignations with her, Josef divorced Dorothy (who went on to marry Sinclair Lewis) and married Eileen. The "trick sunlight" is an effect she obtained by placing light behind yellow curtains [M de R] .
51. b . . . . h: The line mimics the rhythm of 30/148 [30: 10].
52. la pigrizia: I, "sloth. "
53. ground and the dew: May refer to sleeping conditions Pound endured in the "cage" at Pisa. The forced inactivity may have induced lethargy or "sloth. "
54. Chung: [MI504], "Middle. " So trans. by Pound in explication [77/476]. With ynng, he trans. "unwobbling pivot. " In Townsman [April 1939, 12] he applied the word to money as "pivot: . . . the moment in fact that there is a cornman denominator of exchange, that moment the denominator, the measure, i. e. money becomes the PIVOT of all social action. Only a race of slaves and idiots will be inattentive thereafter to the said pivot. "
55. three weeks: Chung Yung, III, says: "Center oneself in the invariable: some have managed to do this, they have hit the true
393 center, and then? Very few have been able
to stay there" [CON, 105]. Even for 3 weeks is implied.
56. government . . . it:
coming in conjunction with chung must refer to Shun [Chun], who "took hold of their two extremes, determined the Mean, and employedit in his government of other people" [IV, 103].
57. Ideogram: Ch'eng [M381]. Pound gives the sense of this character as "Sincerity" and adds: "The precise definition of the word, pictorially the sun's lance coming to rest on the precise spot verbally. The righthand half of this compound means: to perfect, bring to focus" [CON, 20].
58. Kung fu Tseu: "K'ung" [M3720]: Confucius. The "fu Tseu" means _"Master"
[13:1; 53:78].
59. Chung Ni: A courtesy name for K'ung [53:148], whom Pound reveres for his work on the histories of China, especially the Chou dynasty, and for his work in recover-
ing and making a collection of the best odes.
60. each one . . . god: From a conflation of the biblical "in nomine Dei sui" [Micah 4. 5] and Gavin Douglas's trans. of Virgil's inferretque deos Latio: "the lateyn peopil taken has their name / bringing his gods into Latium / saving the bricabrac. " Pound gives seven different versions of Micah's words: "each one in his god's name" [74/435]; "each in the name of its god" [74/441]; "in the name of its god" [74/443]; and at 78/479,79/487, and 84/540 [Fang, III, 76].
61. Gibraltar: The scenario of Pound's visit to the synagogue is given at 22/104? 105.
62. @$8. 50 . . . : Half of 17 shekels [74:338].
63. meteyard: AS, metgeard. A yard or rod used as measure.
64. Leviticus: Third book of the Pentateuch or so-called Law of Moses [74:205].
65. chapter XIX: Lev. 19. 35-36 [King James] reads: "Ye shall do no unrighteous.
30. tempora . . . mores: L, time. . . customs" [NB: Tempora! 0 Mores! "].
[ages] , Cicero, "0
31. Babylonian wall: The subject of a poem by Dunning [see essay by Pound on Dunning with a selection of his poetry in Pai, 10? 3, 605? 618].
32. memorat Cheever: L, "Cheever remem* bers. " Refers to Ralph Cheever Dunning, ca. 1865-1930, American poet born in Detroit who lived his last 25 years in Paris. His output was small but Poetry published whatever he sent. Pound praised his work and published it in Exile. He appeared also in transatlantic review and transition. His The Four Winds, 1925, received the Levinson Prize. H. Monroe wrote a short eulogy in 'Poetry, January 1931. The title poem of The Four Winds has this stanza: "My garden hath a wall as high / As any wall of Babylon, / And only things with wings shall spy / The fruit therein or feed thereon. "
33. very confidentially: From popular song of 1930s prob. heard over loud speaker: "Ain't she sweet? See her corning down the
"time
street / I ask you very confidentially / Ain't she sweet? "
34. Dieudonne: Dieudonet, a famous London chef. His restaurant, called "Dieudonne," in the St. James district of London, was frequented by Pound and other literary figures, 1910? 20 [74:178; 77:78].
35. Mouquin: A New Y ork restaurant famous at the turn of the century [74:186] ,
36. Voisin: A famous restaurant in Paris at 261 Rue St. Honore and 16 Rue Cambon.
37. Nevsky: The Nevsky Prospect is a long, fashionable avenue along which there used to be numerous pastry shops, such as Andrejew, Filippow, and Dominique.
38. The Greif: A hotel with restaurant and cafe (called Grifone in Italian) at Bolzano in the Italian Tyrol.
39. SchOners: [SchOner]: A restaurant at 19 Siebensterngasse, Vienna [74:184].
40. Taverna: Pass. the Taverna Romola Remo at 5, IV Resselgasse, Vienna.
41. Robert's: A New York restaurant at 33 West 55th St. which Pound visited with e e cummings in 1939 [Fang, 11, 321].
42. La Rupe: Prob. the Rupe Tarpeia [74:395] in the garden of the Casa Tarpeia On the southern hill called Monte Caprino in Rome. Fang says: "As it is not certain that there was a restaurant or cafe on the Tarpeian Rock, it is possible that there was
one [elsewhere] named after it" [11,319].
43. finito: I, "finished. "
44. Pre Catalan: [Pre-Catelan]: Restaurant du Pre-Catelan, an eating place " o f the highest class" on the right bank of the Bois de Boulogne [Fang, II, 3 0 9 ] .
45. Armenonville: Pavillon d'A. A high class restaurant in Paris located between the Porte Maillot and the Jardin d'Acclimation.
46. Bullier: The Bal Bullier at 33, avenue de l'Observatoire in the Latin Quarter of Paris. It was noted as a student resort [cf. Bouiller at74:176].
Fang says
this line
? 394
ness in judgment, in meteyard, in weight, or
in measure. I Just balances, just weights, a just ephah, and a just hin, shall ye have. "
66. Zion: The hilltop site of the temple and the royal residence of King David and his successors, The Jews regard Zion as the symbolic center of Jewish national culture, government, and religion [74:97].
67. Don Fulano: S, used as is "John Doe" in English.
68. Caio e Tizio: I, like Don Fulano: "John Doe and Richard Roe. "
69. Why not rebuild it: Pound's interpreta- tion of a passage from the Analects. He wrote: "The inhabitants of Lou wished to put up a new public granary. " Someone asked "Isn't the old one still good enough? Is there any need of a new one which will cost much sweat to the people? " Kung endorsed this man's idea [GK, 17]. Pound's own translation of the passage [CON, 239] has the man say: "What about repairing the
old one? Why change and build'" Thus, "rebuild" suggests "repair the old one" rather than "build anew,"
70. Snag: Nickname of one of the prisoners at the DTC [74:119].
71. ante mortem no scortum: L, "before death no prostitute. " Prob. the black murderer was under sentence of death and demonstrated his knowledge of Latin by this ironic statement.
72. progress: Note repetition of this line.
73.
