Early Writings (Pound, Ezra)

by POUND, EZRA

  35 Pier Francesca: Piero della Francesa (1420-1492), Italian painter well known for his geometrical compositions and as a colorist. Pisanello: Antonio Pisano (1397?-1455), Veronese painter and medalist. Pound included the reproduction of a letter seal by Pisanello as the frontispiece of his Guide to Kulchur (1938). Pound refers to him again in Cantos XXVI and LXXIV. Achaia: The name originally of the two territories to the north and south of ancient Greece, but later taken to mean the entire country.

  36 The passage, attributed to a pseudonymous Persian (most likely Pound), reads, “What do they know of love, and what can they understand? If they cannot understand poetry, if they have no feeling for music, what can they understand of this passion, in comparison with which the rose is coarse and the perfume of violets a clap of thunder?”

  37 diabolus in the scale: Medieval music theorists called the augmented fourth the “devil in music.”

  38 ANAN-GKE: Necessity.

  39 NUKTOS AGALMA: “Jewel of the Night.” From the Greek pastoral poet Bion’s address to the Evening Star.

  40 TO AGATHON: The good.

  41 irides: Plural of “iris,” referring to both the flower and the membrane of the eye. Iris was also the messenger of the gods, whose sign to men was the rainbow.

  42 diastasis: Separation or dilation.

  43 anæsthesis: Loss of feeling or sensation.

  44 Cytheræan: Aphrodite, who is said to have landed on the island of Cythera after her birth from the sea.

  45 apathein: Greek, “impassivity” or “indifference,” as of the gods to men.

  46 susurrus: A whispering or rustling sound.

  47 Moluccas: Spice-producing Moluccan Islands in the Malay Archipelago.

  48 Simoon: Hot, dry sand-wind that sweeps across the African and Asian deserts in the spring and summer.

  49 Coracle: Small boat used in ancient Britain made by covering a wicker frame with hide or leather.

  50 Luini: Bernardino Luini (c. 1480-1532), Lombard painter known for religious frescoes and secular paintings.

  51 Anadyomene: “Foam-born,” the epithet of Aphrodite.

  52 Reinach: Salomon Reinach (1858-1932), French art historian and archaeologist. His Apollo (1904) is a study of ancient sculpture.

  THE CANTOS (1917-1922)

  THREE CANTOS OF A POEM OF SOME LENGTH CANTO I

  First published in Poetry in June 1917 as “Three Cantos. I”; reprinted in Quia Pauper Amavi (London: Egoist Press, 1919) but later modified. The version appearing here is from Poetry. In February 1917, Pound sent “Three Cantos” to Alice Corbin Henderson, associate editor of Poetry then living in Sante Fe, New Mexico. She forwarded them to Harriet Monroe with a covering letter that reads in part: “really hate to let them go. I really like them tremendously.... Of course they are erudite—but there is life—and a poet’s life—in it & through it all—considerable vision and depth—and beauty of style. You need to read it several times—at least I did.” Monroe’s reply, dated March 19, 1917, begins, “I read two or three pages of Ezra’s Cantos and then took sick—no doubt that was the cause. Since then I haven’t had brains enough to tackle it.” A month later (she had loaned them to Robert Frost), she finished them, although she was not pleased: “erudition in seventeen languages,” she complained. But they began to appear over the next three months, beginning in June 1917. For the Corbin/Monroe exchange, see Letters of Ezra Pound to Alice Corbin Henderson, ed. Ira B. Nadel (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1993), 193-95.

  1 Sordello: Robert Browning’s long narrative poem (1840) based on events in the life of the Mantua-born Provençal troubadour Sordello (1180?-1255), who, at the court of Count Ricciardo di San Bonifazzio, fell in love with the count’s wife and abducted her at the request of her brothers. He was forced to flee with her to Provence, where he later performed military and diplomatic service for Charles I of Anjou, Naples, and Sicily. His reward was five castles, which he returned. He appears in Dante’s Purgatorio as a too zealous patriot. Browning’s Sordello is dramatized history with the narrator a character who confronts the struggles between the Guelphs and Ghibellines in thirteenth-century Florence.

  2 intaglio method: A form of engraving or printing in which ink is forced into incised lines on a plate, the surface is wiped clean, dampened paper is placed on top, and the paper and plate are then run through a press. An impression from the design yields an image in relief. From the Italian intagliare, to cut or incise.

  3 Beaucaire’s: A city in southern France visited by Pound during his 1912 walking tour.

  4 Altaforte: The castle of Bertran de Born.

  5 Alcazar: A Spanish fortress or palace.

  6 Cardinal ... Dante: Peire Cardinal, troubadour poet (fl. 1210-1230); Pound wrote in The Spirit of Romance that “in so far as Dante is a critic of morals Cardinal must be held as his [Dante’s] forerunner.”

  7 Arnaut: Arnaut Daniel, the twelfth-century Provençal poet favored by Pound, and the subject of a lecture in The Spirit of Romance. Daniel supposedly invented the sestina. See SR, 22-38 and Pound’s essay “Arnaut Daniel,” in LE, 109-48.

  8 font: Fount. At the end of Book the Second of Sordello, the troubadour, despairing of his vocation, throws his crown of laurels into a fount at Mantua.

  9 Can Grande: C. G. della Scala (1291-1329), lord of Verona and greatest member of the Ghibelline family that ruled Verona from 1277 to 1387. He was a friend and protector of Dante’s and appears in Pound’s Canto LXXVIII.

  10 Lo soleils plovil: “The sun rains,” from the final line of Arnaut Daniel’s “Lancan son passat li giure.”

  11 Darts... “Lydiae”: Catullus compares his own lake, Lago di Garda, to the Lydian waters surrounding Sappho’s island of Lesbos.

  12 lemures: “Specters of the night.”

  13 Glaukopos: Epithet for the goddess Athena, traditionally translated as “blue-eyed,” “gray-eyed,” or “glare-eyed.” Alan Upward in The New Word (1910), a work known to Pound, explains it as evoking the blinking, glinting light of an owl’s eye or olive leaf.

  14 apricus: “Drenched with sunlight.”

  15 Asolo: Setting for Browning’s “Pippa Passes,” and later the writer’s residence.

  16 Dogana’s curb: At the edge of the chief Venetian customs house on the Grand Canal.

  17 Florian’s: Famous café on the south side of the Piazza San Marco, Venice. Cited later in Canto LXXVI.

  18 pre-Daun Chaucer: The Book of Daun Burnel the Ass by Nigel Wircker (c. 1130-1200).

  19 hagoromo: Japanese; title of a classical, one-act Noh play. The hagoromo is a “feather mantle” or magical cloak of a Tennin or nymph who leaves it hanging on a bough where it is found by a priest. The hagoromo is cited in Cantos LXXIV, LXXIX, and LXXX.

  20 Uc St. Circ: Attributed author of commentary to several of Bertran de Born’s poems (see “Near Perigord,” note 3).

  21 Puvis: Pierre Puvis de Chavannes (1824-1898), French muralist. His work is in the Sorbonne and Panthéon in Paris.

  22 Panisks: Small woodland Pans, half human and half goat.

  23 Maenads: Frenzied female spirits who participate in the forest rites of Dionysus.

  24 Ficinus: Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499), under the patronage of Cosimo de’ Medici, translated many Greek classics into Latin, including Plato’s dialogues and the writings of Plotinus.

  25 Shang: A Chinese dynasty.

  26 Kwannon: Japanese goddess of mercy, who can also appear as the armed goddess of war. Spelled “Kuanon” in later editions.

  27 Guido: Guido Cavalcanti (c. 1250-1300), Tuscan poet and friend of Dante favored by Pound. See “Cavalcanti,” LE, 149-200, and Pound’s poem “To Guido Cavalcanti,” as well as his translation “Sonnets and Ballate of Guido Cavalcanti,” in Pound, Poems and Translations, ed. Richard Sieburth (2003), 183-227.

  28 Or San Michele: The loggia of Or San Michele in Florence contained a painted Madonna that in 1292 supposedly began to perform miracles.

  29 leapt: Refers to Cavalcanti supposedly el
uding an attack by Betto and his company by overleaping one of the high marble tombs in the cemetery of the Church of Santa Reparata.

  30 phantastikon: In March 1913, Pound told Harriet Monroe that the term was “what Imagination really meant before the term was debased—presumable by the Miltonists, tho’ probably before them. It has to do with the seeing of visions.”

  31 Simonetta . . . Aufidus: Simonetta was the wife of Giuliano de’ Medici, supposed model for Botticelli’s Venus. Aufidus: Stream identified with the male zephyr in Botticelli’s painting.

  32 Mantegna: Italian painter Andrea Mantegna (1431-1506).

  33 Casella: Musician who set Dante’s poem to music.

  CANTO II

  Published in Poetry (X, July 1917) as “Three Cantos. II”; reprinted in Quia Pauper Amavi (London: Egoist Press, 1919).

  1 Leave Casella: In Purgatorio 11.2, Cato admonishes Dante for lingering with Casella, reminding Dante that he must move forward up the mountains.

  2 Mantuan palace: Palace of the Gonzaga family.

  3 Joios, Tolosan: Minor troubadours whose poetry Pound discovered in the “Chansonnier du Roi” in the Bibliothèque Nationale in 1912.

  4 “Y a ... em plor”: “And at the first flower I found, I burst into tears.”

  5 Chalus: Where Richard Coeur de Lion was killed.

  6 Dolmetsch: Arnold Dolmetsch (1858-1940), French musician and instrument maker.

  7 “Yin-yo . . . weeping”: Pound’s arrangement of “Song of the Lute” by T’ang poet Po Chi, based on Fenollosa notebooks.

  8 “Rêveuse . . . ” plonge: “Dreamer, so that I plunge,” the first line of Mallarmé’s “Autre Eventail.”

  9 flamma dimanat: “A flame steels down through my limbs,” Catullus, LI.

  10 Viscountess of Pena: Her adventures with Elis of Montfort are told in a razos of Uc de Saint Circ.

  11 bos trobaire: “A good finder of song.”

  12 Gourdon: Pound visited the town of Gourdon in southern France in June 1912.

  13 My cid ... Burgos: Commander or Lord Cid, title given by the Moors to Ruy Diaz (1040?-1099), hero of the Spanish epic El Cid. Burgos, where Diaz lived and is buried, is the capital of Burgos Province in Old Castile. Pound visited the city on his University of Pennsylvania fellowship, and published the article “Burgos, a Dream City of Old Castile” in Book News Monthly (XXV, October 1906), 91-94.

  14 “Afe Minaya!”: Alférez (or Commander) Alvar Fáñez, Christian warrior in El Cid.

  15 Muy velida: “Very beautiful.”

  16 “Y dar ... hierros”: “And the arms and the weapons gave new light.”

  17 Kumasaka’s ghost: Reference to Noh play Kumasaka Pound included in part II of “Noh” or Accomplishment (1916).

  18 Toro, las almenas: Toro is the Spanish city under siege by King Sancho and his advisers El Cid and Conde Ancures, outlined by Lope de Vega in his play Las Almenas de Toro, summarized by Pound in “The Quality of Lope de Vega,” in The Spirit of Romance.

  19 “Mal fuego s’enciende!”: “An ill flame be kindled in her!”

  20 “Que . . . Rainha.”: “Who, after she was dead, was crowned queen.”

  21 Camoens: Luis Vaz de Camões (1524?-1580), Portuguese poet, author of the epic poem Os Lusiadas. See chapter X, “Camoens” in The Spirit of Romance, where Pound states, “Camoens writes resplendent bombast and at times it is poetry” (SR, 216).

  22 Houtmans ... Renaissance: In jail for debt at Lisbon, Cornelis Houtman “planned the Dutch East India Company. When Portugal fell, Holland seized the Oriental trade and soon after Roemer Visscher was holding a salon ... connected [with] the names of Rembrandt, Spinoza [and] Vondel.” Pound, SR, 221.

  23 Gaby wears Braganza: The Braganza house ruled Portugal from 1640 to 1910. “Gaby” refers to Gaby Desbys, stage name of Marie-Elsie-Gabrielle Caire (1880-1920), French dancer and actress famous for her risque performances and jewelry. For a time she was the mistress of King Manuel II of Portugal.

  24 a man: Fred Vance, American painter whose chief work was Christ appearing on the Waters (Salon, Paris, 1903), mentioned in “Redondillas, or Something of That Sort.”

  CANTO III

  Published in Poetry (X, August 1917) as “Three Cantos. III”; reprinted in Quia Pauper Amavi (London: Egoist Press, 1919).

  1 John Heydon: Seventeenth-century English astrologer and alchemist

  2 “Omniformis . . . est”: “Every intellect is capable of assuming every shape,” from De Occasionibus, chapter 13, by the Greek scholar and Neoplatonist Porphyry.

  3 Psellus: Byzantine philosopher, politician, writer, and Neoplatonist who lived from 1018 to 1105.

  4 Ficino: Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499), under the patronage of Cosimo de’ Medici, translated many Greek classics into Latin, among them Plato’s dialogues and the work of Plotinus. Pound refers to him as translating “a Greek that was in spirit anything but ‘classic,’ ” in Gaudier-Brzeska.

  5 Valla: Fifteenth-century Italian humanist and Greek scholar, author of a defense of classical Latin, Elegantiae linguae latinae. His patron was Pope Nicholas V, founder of the Vatican Library.

  6 Sir Blancatz: Blacatz, thirteenth-century poet whose death is lamented by Sordello.

  7 “Nec bonus ... bonus”: “Neither a good Christian nor a good Ciceronian.”

  8 Corpore laniato: “His body torn to pieces.”

  9 Villari: Italian historian Pasquale Villari (1827—1917).

  10 Andreas Divus: Sixteenth-century translator of a Latin version of Homer’s Odyssey (1538); Pound picked up the translation in Paris. The work would form part of the revised Canto I of The Cantos. For an account of Pound’s reading discovery, see LE, 259-67.

  11 “Down to the ships”: Pound’s version of Divus, which, with the lines that follow, would form the opening of the revised Canto I.

  12 ell-square pitkin: “Little pit.” A Poundian neologism.

  13 ingle: Chimney corner, from the Scottish inglenook.

  14 Venerandam ... est: “Worthy of veneration, golden-crowned and beautiful whose dominion is the walled cities of all sea-set Cyprus.” From G. Dartona’s Latin version of the second hymn to Aphrodite bound into Pound’s copy of Andreas Divus.

  15 orichalci: “Of copper.”

  16 Argicida: Slayer of Greeks, reference to Aphrodite’s favoring the Trojans, especially Aeneas, over the Greeks.

  THE FOURTH CANTO

  First appeared in a private edition of forty copies in October 1919 as The Fourth Canto and then publicly in June 1920 under the same title in the Dial (LXVIII, June 1920) and then in Poems 1918-1921 (New York: Boni and Liveright, 1921).

  1 ANAXIFORMINGES: From “Anaxiphormigges hymnoi,” “Hymns that are lords of the lyre,” the beginning of Pindar’s “Olympian Ode II,” emphasizing the power of poetry and recorded words. Aurunculeia!: Bride praised in Catullus’s Epithalamium, LXI.

  2 Cadmus of Golden Prows: Eponymous hero and founder of Thebes.

  3 Ityn, Ityn!: Son of Procne and Tereus, king of Thrace. Procne killed her son Itys to cook and feed him to Tereus after she had discovered that he had raped Philomela, her sister, and cut out her tongue so that she could not tell anyone what happened. To escape the wrath of Tereus, Procne and Philomela turned into a swallow and a nightingale.

  4 Cabestan: Guillems de Cabestanh, an ascetic troubadour who in Celtic legend became the lover of Lady Seremonda, wife of Ramon, lord of the castle of Rossillon, whom he served. Raymon killed Cabestanh and served his cooked heart to Seremonda.

  5 Rhodez: Earlier spelling of Rodez, a small town with a cathedral on a plateau overlooking the river Aveyron. Pound visited the town in July 1912.

  6 Actaeon: The hunter who accidentally came upon the naked Diana while she was bathing. She changed him into a stag, in which form he was pursued and killed by his own companions and dogs.

  7 Vidal: Troubadour poet Peire Vidal of Tolosa. He dressed in wolf-skins to court his lady, Loba of Penautier. “Loba” means she-wolf. Like Actaeon, in pursu
it of his love, Vidal became the prey of his own hounds. Pound translates the legend from the Provençal in SR, 178.

  8 Pegusa: A lake (see Ovid, Metamorphosis, V). Gargaphia: Pool where Artemis annually renewed her virginity. Salmacis: Spring near Halikarnassos belonging to the water nymph Salmacis (see Ovid, Metamorphosis IV).

  9 e lo soleils plovil: “Thus the light rains,” from Pound’s version of Arnaut Daniel’s “on soleills plovil.”

  10 Ply over ply: A recurrent simile in Pound’s poetry and prose, found in Browning’s Sordello V, 161-172, and in a number of Chinese poets Pound translated. The phrase also echoes Mallarmé’s “pli selon pli” in “Rémemoration d’amis belges” and “Autre Éventail, ” where it describes the unfolding and folding of a fan.

  11 Takasago: Japanese Noh play named after a legendary pine tree growing on the shore of Takasago Bay in southern Honshu. Like Fenollosa, Pound understood the play as a parallel to Greek drama.

  12 Ise: Bay famous for its pine grove at Ano, mentioned near the end of the Japanese Noh play Tamura.

  13 Hymenaeus! ... Hymenaee!: “Hymen, hail! Hymen, hail Hymen!” from Catullus, LXI. Hymen is the god of marriage, whose color is saffron.

  14 Aurunculeia: A bride praised in Catullus, Epithalamium, LXI.

  15 So-Gioku: Japanese form of the name of fourth-century Chinese poet Sung Yü.

  16 Ecbatan: City of Ecbatana on the Iranian plateau in northern Media, founded according to Herodotus by Deioces as the capital of the Median Empire. Meticulously mapped out to correspond in every detail with the plan of the universe, the city was an archetype of the perfectibility of human order, uniting nature and civilization.

  17 Danae: Daughter of Acrisius, king of Argus, imprisoned at the top of a bronze tower by her father because an oracle said his daughter’s son would kill him. There, she was visited by Zeus in a shower of golden light that poured into her lap. As a result, Danae bore him a son, Perseus, who did indeed accidentally kill his grandfather.