Early Writings (Pound, Ezra)

by POUND, EZRA

  18 Père Henri Jacques: According to Pound, “a French priest (as a matter of fact he is a Jesuit)” (SL, 180).

  19 sennin on Rokku: Sennin is the Japanese word for Chinese hsien, a genie or genies; literal Chinese translation of sennin means hermit or philosopher who has attained immortality by resisting desire. Rokku is a wrongly transcribed Japanese translation of a Chinese place-name, either a mountain or an island, according to Pound (SL, 180).

  20 Polhonac: Viscount Heraclius III of Polhonac, a twelfth-century nobleman, persuaded by Guillaume St. Leidier to sing to his wife a seduction song written by and for the troubadour poet. The husband did not know he was assisting in the seduction of his wife.

  21 Gyges: Bodyguard of King Candaules who killed the king and married the queen at her bequest.

  22 Garonne: River in Provence recalled from Pound’s 1919 walking tour.

  23 “Salve regina”: “Hail! ... hail Queen!”

  24 Adige: Italian river that rises in the Alps and flows into the Adriatic.

  25 Stefano: Stefano de Verona, fifteenth-century painter of the Madonna in hortulo.

  THE FIFTH CANTO

  Published as “The Fifth Canto” as part of “Three Cantos,” Dial (LXXI. 2, August 1921). Reprinted in Poems 1918—1921 (New York: Boni and Liveright, 1921).

  1 Ecbatan: See Fourth Canto, note 16.

  2 Iamblichus: Fourth-century Greek Neoplatonic philosopher of light, which denoted oneness for him, the principle from which the plurality of things derives.

  3 “ciocco”: Log. The ancient game of striking a burning log and counting the sparks that fly up was used in fortune-telling.

  4 “Et omniformis”: “And omniform” from “Omnis intellectus est omniformis”: (“Every intellect is capable of assuming every shape,” the caption to item 10 in Ficino’s Opera Omnia II. In Canto III, Pound implies that he came across the quotation in John Heydon’s Holy Guide.

  5 “Da nuces!”: “Give nuts!” Distributing nuts in the street to celebrate a marriage was a Roman custom.

  6 Atthis: Atthis betrayed her lover, Sappho.

  7 Mauleon: Thirteenth-century professional soldier and poet, patron of Poicebot and other troubadours.

  8 Poicebot: Gausbetz de Puegsibot (F. Poicebot), a monk who became a troubadour, roaming for sexual adventure. He discovers his wife similarly drifting when she offers herself to him in a brothel, equaling his own betrayal.

  9 romerya: Provençal, romeria, “pilgrimage” or, figuratively, “roaming.”

  10 Lei fassar... del: Provençal wrongly transcribed for se laisset ad el (“yielded herself to him”).

  11 Pieire de Maensac: Two brothers, Peire and Austors, toss a coin as to who will win the castle and who will become a troubadour. The story illustrates the theme of possessiveness versus the unencumbered life.

  12 dreitz hom: Upstanding fellow or “right man.”

  13 John Borgia: Giovanni Borgia, son of Pope Alexander VI and Vanozza Catanei, and younger brother of Cesare and Lucrezia Borgia. He was murdered on June 14, 1497, in Rome, his body thrown into the Tiber.

  14 Varchi: Benedetto Varchi, sixteenth-century Italian classical scholar and historian who wrote a history of Florence in which he criticizes the ruling Medici family.

  15 “SIGA MAL AUTHIS DEUTERON!”: “Silence once more a second time,” lines from Aeschylus’s Agamemnon mixed together.

  16 “Se pia? /O impia?”: “Whether noble / Or Ignoble.” Varchi, III.

  17 Lorenzaccio: Abusive name for Lorenzo de Medici used by his contemporaries and frequently by the historian Varchi.

  18 O si credesse: “Or himself believed.”

  19 Caina attende: “Caina is waiting.” Words addressed to Dante in Inferno, V, by Francesca da Rimini to transmit to her husband, Gianciotto Malatesta, who murdered her and her lover, his own brother Paolo.

  20 SIGA, SIGA!: “Silence, silence.”

  21 Schiavoni ... Borgia: Giorgio of the Slavonians, member of a colony of Dalmatian refugees that Pope Sixtus IV allowed to settle in Rome, saw the body of Giovanni Borgia, duke of Gandia, thrown into the Tiber on June 14, 1497.

  22 Barabello: Society poet Baraballo of Gaeta, given a white elephant by Leo X, which balked at crossing a bridge when he attempted triumphantly to ride into Rome.

  23 Mozarello ... ending: Giovanni Mozzarello was a young Mantuan poet and scholar appointed governor of the fort of Mondaino near Rimini; resentful residents pushed him down a well with his mule. A month later both were found drowned.

  24 Sanazarro: Late-fifteenth-century poet of Naples.

  25 Al poco . . . d’ombra: “In the small hours with the darkness describing a huge circle” (Dante, Rime 1).

  26 Navighero: Early-sixteenth-century Venetian poet who wrote in Latin and Italian. Praised by his peers for poetry in the school of Martial, he became so indignant at the remarks that he burned all his work.

  27 “O empia . . . deliberazione”: “Whether noble or ignoble, certainly a resolute and terrible decision.” Varchi, III.

  28 Ma si morisse!: “But if he were killed.” Words of Lorenzo as reported by Varchi.

  THE SIXTH CANTO

  The first two-thirds were published as “The Sixth Canto” as part of “Three Cantos,” in the Dial (LXXI. 2, August 1921). Reprinted as “The Sixth Canto” in Poems 1918-1921 (New York: Boni and Liveright, 1921). Pound revised the Canto for its publication in 1925, considerably cutting sections but recalling passages in Canto LXXVI and other Pisan Cantos.

  1 Guillaume: William IX, seventh count of Poitou. He participated in the First Crusade with a large retinue of women.

  2 Louis, French King: Louis VII of France married Eleanor of Aquitaine on July 25, 1137, in Bordeaux.

  3 “E quand lo reis ... faschée”: “And when King Louis heard it he was much riled.”

  4 Gisors: Commanding fortress on the river Epte in Normandy.

  5 Vexis: Territory along the border of Normandy and France, long in dispute.

  6 Si tuit... Del mon: “If all griefs and the laments and the pain of men.” Pound would reuse the phrase in Canto LXXX.

  7 Alix: Daughter of Louis and Eleanor, but Pound’s source is in error since Alix could not have married her half brother Richard, son of Henry and Eleanor. It was Adelaide who was betrothed to Richard. Pound quoted from a text in which the scribe wrongly recorded the name of Alix instead of Adelaide.

  8 Frederic ... Malek Kamel: Frederick II in 1229 successfully negotiated with Malek-el-Kamel, thirteenth-century sultan of Cairo and nephew of Saladin, for the restoration and access to Christian sites in the Holy Land for the clergy. Crusader forces in the Holy Land influenced the decision of Malek to agree to the accord.

  9 Henry and Saladin: Henry refers to the Holy Roman emperor Henry VI, who reigned from 1191 to 1197. In 1193, he was given the captured king Richard I of England, Richard Coeur de Lion, by Leopold V of Austria, with whom he quarreled on the Third Crusade. Saladin: Muslim warrior who lived from 1138 to 1193, great opponent of the Crusades and self-proclaimed sultan of Egypt, who defeated the Christian Crusaders at the battle of Hat-ten (near Tiberius) in 1187 and, after a three-month siege, captured Jerusalem.

  10 Tancred: Likely Tancred of Lecce, who illegally assumed the crown of Sicily (1190-1194); his death favored the success of Henry VI’s second expedition in 1194.

  11 Need not wed Alix: Richard refused to marry his betrothed, Adelaide, who was made pregnant by her guardian, Henry II. At the same time, the French king demanded the return of either the princess or the fortress of Gisors. Estranged from his father, Richard sided with Philip II, the French king, who realized the necessity of dissolving the engagement between Richard and Adelaide. The marriage contract was annulled at Messina in 1191. Pound incorrectly states the date as 1190.

  12 Correze, Malemort: Ruins of Malemort Castle, which Pound and his wife, Dorothy, visited after passing the marsh of the river Corrèze on their walking tour of Provence in July 1919. In the late twelfth century, it became the res
idence of Lady Audiart (Na Audiart) of Malemort, subject of a poem by Bertran de Born, translated by Pound in Personae.

  13 Domna jauzionda: “Radiant lady,” from a line in a poem by Bernart de Ventadour to Eleanor on her return to Provence after her separation from Louis VII.

  14 “Is shut by Eblis in”: Magarida of Torena married Eblis III of Ventadour in 1148; he shut her up in a dungeon out of jealousy and repudiated her in 1150 to marry Alice of Montpellier.

  THE SEVENTH CANTO

  Published as “The Seventh Canto” as part of “Three Cantos,” in the Dial (LXXI. 2, August 1921). Reprinted as “The Seventh Canto” in Poems 1918—1921 (New York: Boni and Liveright, 1921).

  1 “Man destroying and city-destroying,” a repetition of the traditional puns on the name of Helen of Troy that Pound extends to Eleanor. The line suggests the origin of literature inspired by Helen’s beauty, namely The Iliad and The Odyssey.

  2 “Si pulvis nullus”: “If no dust.” This follows from the line just above, “Marble narrow for seats,” which refers to Ovid, who in Ars amatoria advises the reader to follow a shapely girl into the theater and sit near her, where they will be forced, because of the seats, to squeeze together. Ovid goes on to say that if a speck of dust should “fall onto your lady’s lap, flick it off with your fingers; if there be no speck of dust, well flick it off anyway” (Ars amatoria, I).

  3 e li mestiers ecoutes: “And harken to the crafts” or “to the mysteries.”

  4 y cavals armatz: “And horses in armor,” a quotation from a line by Bertran de Born.

  5 “ciocco”: “Log,” alluding to Dante’s image of the souls rising like sparks from the Fifth Circle to the Sixth in Inferno to mark the move from a medieval chronicle to the “imaginative vision” of Dante underscored by Pound in The Spirit of Romance (157).

  6 Un peu moisi ... baromètre: “A little musty ... the floor being below garden level . . . Against the wainscot ... a wicker armchair ... an old piano ... and under the barometer.” From Flaubert’s Un Coeur Simple.

  7 con gli occhi onesti e tardi . . . Grave incessu: “With eyes honest and slow,” from Dante, Purgatorio, VI, referring to Sordello; “solemn movement,” from Inferno, IV, referring to Homer, Horace, and Ovid as they approach Dante and Virgil in the poem.

  8 lone, dead the long year: Cf. Pound’s poem “Ione, Dead the Long Year” in Personae, a lyrical elegy to the French-born dancer Jeanne Heyse, who used the professional name lone de Forest. She committed suicide in Chelsea on August 2, 1912. She reappears in “Dance Figure,” also in Personae.

  9 Liu Ch’e’s lintel: Reference to a Chinese poem by the emperor Liu Ch’e in which the emperor’s dead mistress transforms into a dead leaf clinging to a threshold; Pound elevates her to the lintel.

  10 Elysée: Hôtel de l’Elysée in Paris, where Pound had stayed and would await the arrival of Joyce in July 1920.

  11 Erard: Famous French manufacturer of pianos. The following description is that of Frizt-René Vanderpyl’s Paris apartment. Vanderpyl was an avant-garde Dutch novelist and poet Pound knew in Paris, and appears in Canto LXXIV.

  12 Smaragdos, chrysolitos; De Gama: Emeralds, topazes from Propertius, Elegies II; Vasco da Gama, late-fifteenth-century Portuguese navigator and explorer who discovered the sea route to India via Africa.

  13 Le vieux commode en acajou: “The old mahogany chest.” The French should properly read “La vieille commode.”

  14 ‘Eλἑναυς, ἕλανδρoς, ἐλἑπτoλiς: “ship-destroying and city-destroying.”

  15 e quel remir: “And that I may gaze upon her,” from Arnaut Daniel’s poem “Doutz brais e critz,” about his love for the wife of Guillem de Bouvila.

  16 Nicea: Reference to the dancer lone de Forest with parallels to the graceful statue of Nike of Samothrace at the Louvre. See note 8 above.

  17 “Toc”: Sham or ugly; French patois.

  18 O voi che ... barca: “Oh you in the dinghy astern there,” Pound’s translation from Dante Paradiso, II, where Dante addresses the reader, who has been following the course of his “big ship,” his epic.

  19 Sicheus: Murdered husband of Dido, queen of Carthage, visited by Aeneas, who becomes her lover but leaves to sail for Italy. In her grief at this second loss, Dido commits suicide (Aeneid, I).

  20 Lorenzaccio: Name of abuse for Lorenzo de’ Medici, used by his contemporaries and often used by the historian Varchi. Appears earlier in Canto V. The allusion is to Inferno, III, and the spirits of those “who were never alive” and whose “blind life is so abject that they / are envious of every other fate” (Dante, Inferno, III: 64, 47-48).

  21 Ma si morisse!: “But if he were killed!” Words of Lorenzo as reported by Varchi. Pound, however, has substituted ma (“but”) for o (“or”).

  22 E biondo: “He is blond,” Inferno, XII. Reference to the blond head of Obizzo d’Este, one of the most vengeful tyrants of thirteenth-century Italy.

  EIGHTH CANTO

  Published as “Eighth Canto,” in the Dial (LXXII. 5, May 1922), the poem was revised in 1923 and reprinted with revisions as Canto II in A Draft of XVI Cantos (Paris: Three Mountains Press, 1925).

  1 Sichaeus: See Canto VII, note 19.

  2 triremes: Ancient galley having three banks of oars.

  3 Tyro: Daughter of Salmoneus, who fell in love with the divine river Enipeus. Poseidon (“Neptunus”) took on the river’s form and raped her, protected by a dark wave.

  4 Lir: Old Celtic sea god. Pound regarded seals as Lir’s daughters. In ancient mythology, the seal is the animal most closely linked with Proteus. Reference in the next line is to Picasso’s seal-like eyes.

  5 Eleanor, ἐλἑναυς and ἐλἑπτoλiς: “ship-destroying and city-destroying.” Eleanor is Helen of Troy, archetypal femme fatale.

  6 Schoeney’s daughters: Schoeneus was father of Atalanta, who, like Helen, caused many deaths through her beauty. Pound misremembers Arthur Golding’s spelling; Schoenyes is his translation of Ovid.

  7 Scios; Naxos: Scios is ancient Chios or modern Scio, an Aegean island; Naxos is the largest island of the Cyclades in the Aegean and a center of Dionysian worship.

  8 young boy: Allusion to the young god Bacchus, originally a Cretan god of wine, fertility, and ecstasy, whose cult rose to challenge Apollo.

  9 King Pentheus: Grandson of Cadmus. Refusing to worship Dionysus, he was torn to pieces by Dionysus’s followers, the Maenads.

  10 Acoetes: Pilot of the ship taking Dionysus to Naxos. He alone of the crew believed in the god and was spared. He emerges as one of the key early figures of The Cantos, along with Odysseus.

  11 Lyaeus: Name means “deliverer from care”; applied to Dionysus as the god of wine.

  12 Olibanum: Frankincense. Romans believed Bacchus responsible for the use of incense in ritual.

  13 Lycabs: Crew member of Odysseus’s, as is Medon, mentioned a few lines later.

  14 dory: A kind of fish.

  15 Tiresias: Theban seer. In Euripides’s Bacchae, he appears with Cadmus on the way up the mountains to join a group of women in an orgy and to worship the god of wine and fertility.

  16 Cadmus: Son of Phoenician king Agenor. His sister was Europa, carried off by Zeus, who abducted her in the form of a bull. Sent by his father to find her, Cadmus wandered as far as the oracle at Delphi, where he was given directions that led to the finding of Thebes.

  17 Ileuthyeria fair Dafne: A conflation of Eileithyia, the goddess of childbirth, with the Greek, Eleutheria (“freedom”), a marine organism of the genus of bisexual jellyfish. Dafne is the daughter of Peneus, a river god. In flight from Apollo, Dafne was transformed into a laurel tree, which Pound altered to coral.

  18 So-shu: Corruption of the Japanese name for Chinese Han Dynasty poet Ssu-ma Hsiang-ju.

  19 Hesperus: Evening star sacred to Aphrodite. Pound associated Hesperus with nuptial hymns of Sappho and Catullus.

  20 Proteus: Sea god with the power of metamorphosis and knowledge of the past and the future
. In Aristophanes’s The Frogs, Dionysus and his servant descend into Hades to search for a good poet but are greeted by the thunderous sound of frogs, which they try to drown out.

  PROSE

  WHAT I FEEL ABOUT WALT WHITMAN

  Written in 1909 and in manuscript at the Beinecke Library, Yale University; transcribed from the manuscript and first published in American Literature (XXVII, 1, March 1955, 56-61). Reprinted in Selected Prose 1909—1965, ed. Cookson. Pound’s ambivalent relationship with Whitman is expressed in this essay, in which Pound struggles between his distaste for the expansive self of Whitman and the recognition that Whitman “is America.” Pound’s 1913 poem, “A Pact,” reprinted in Lustra, confirms his treaty with Whitman, which this early essay grudgingly acknowledges. As Pound wrote to his father in 1913, “Whitman is a hard nutt [but] Leaves of Grass is the book” (SL, 21).

  1 Carmen-Hovey period: Bliss Carmen (1861—1929), Canadian poet who moved to New York and was an editor-writer for the Independent and the Atlantic Monthly, and edited, in ten volumes, The World’s Best Poetry; Richard Hovey (1864-1900), American poet and philosopher best known for the long Launcelot and Guenevere: A Poem in Dramas (1891ff.). With Bliss Carmen, he wrote three series of books under the title Songs from Vagaondia (1893, 1896, 1900) that expressed male comradeship and an early American bohemianism.

  2 Patriam quam odi et amo: Fatherland, partly hateful and loving.

  3 Marcel Schwob: Schwob (1867-1905), French Symbolist writer best known for the Double Heart (1891) and Imaginary Lives (1896), a work admired by Borges.

  THE WISDOM OF POETRY

  First published in The Forum (New York, XLVII, 4, April 1912, 497-501); reprinted in Cookson, SP, 329-32. The Forum (1910- 1916) was a monthly New York magazine devoted to literary, political, and intellectual issues published by Mitchell Kennerly, in which several poems by Pound appeared in 1910 and 1911. He referred to “The Wisdom of Poetry” as a “vitriolic essay” in a letter to Margaret Cravens. See Ezra Pound and Margaret Cravens: A Tragic Friendship, 1910-1912, ed. Omar Pound and Robert Spoo (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1988, 55). Pound in this essay challenges a scientific approach to art with an understanding of poetry as liberating the “world’s consciousness,” while identifying the many uses of poetry.