The cantos of ezra pound [from The Cantos of Ezra Pound (1972)]



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[Page 148]
4301 After Ignez was murdered.

4302 Came the Lords in Lisboa

4303 a day, and a day

4304 In homage. Seated there

4305 dead eyes,

4306 Dead hair under the crown,

4307 The King still young there beside her.

4308 Came Madame

4309 Clothed with the light of the altar

4310 And with the price of the candles.

4311 "Honour? Balls for yr. honour!

4312 Take two million and swallow it."

4313 Is come Messire Alfonso

4314 And is departed by boat for Ferrara

4315 And has passed here without saying "O."

4316 Whence have we carved it in metal

4317 Here working in Caesar's fane:

4318 To the Prince Caesare Borgia

4319 Duke of Valent and Aemelia

4320 ... and here have I brought cutters of letters

4321 and printers not vile and vulgar

4322 (in Fano Caesaris)

4323 notable and sufficient compositors

4324 and a die-cutter for greek fonts and hebrew

4325 named Messire Francesco da Bologna

4326 not only of the usual types but he hath excogitated

4327 a new form called cursive or chancellry letters

4328 nor was it Aldous nor any other but it was

4329 this Messire Francesco who hath cut all Aldous his letters

4330 with such grace and charm as is known

4331 Hieronymous Soncinus 7th July 1503.

4332 and as for text we have taken it


[Page 149]
4333 from that of Messire Laurentius

4334 and from a codex once of the Lords Malatesta ...

4335 And in August that year died Pope Alessandro Borgia,

4336 Il Papa mori.


Explicit canto

XXX

[Page 151]

ELEVEN NEW CANTOS

XXXI-XLI

[Page 153]


XXXI


4337 Tempus loquendi,

4338 Tempus tacendi.

4339 Said Mr Jefferson: It wd. have given us

4340 time.

4341 "modern dress for your statue.....

4342 "I remember having written you while Congress sat at An-

4343 napolis,

4344 "on water communication between ours and the western

4345 country,

4346 "particularly the information....of the plain between

4347 "Big Beaver and Cayohoga, which made me hope that a canal

4348 ......navigation of Lake Erie and the Ohio. You must have had

4349 "occasion of getting better information on this subject

4350 "and if you have you wd. oblige me

4351 "by a communication of it. I consider this canal,

4352 "if practicable, as a very important work.

4353 T.J. to General Washington, 1787

4354 ..... no slaves north of Maryland district....

4355 ..... flower found in Connecticut that vegetates when suspended

4356 in air ...

4357 ... screw more effectual if placed below surface of water.

4358 Suspect that a countryman of ours, Mr Bushnell of Connecticut

4359 is entitled to the merit of prior discovery.

4360 Excellency Mr Adams. Excellency Dr. Franklin.

4361 And thus Mr Jefferson (president) to Tom Paine:

4362 "You expressed a wish to get a passage to this country

4363 in a public vessel. Mr. Dawson is charged with orders

4364 to the captain of the 'Maryland' to receive and accommodate

4365 you

4366 with passage back, if you can depart on so short a warning....


[Page 154]
4367 in hopes you will find us returned to sentiments

4368 worthy of former time..... in these you have laboured as

4369 much as any man living. That you may long live to

4370 continue your labours and to reap their fitting reward....

4371 Assurances of my high esteem and attachment."

4372 "English papers ... their lies.....

4373 in a few years ... no slaves northward of Maryland ...

4374 "Their tobacco, 9 millions, delivered in port of France;

4375 6 millions to manufacture

4376 on which the king takes thirty million

4377 that cost 25 odd to collect

4378 so that in all it costs 72 millions livres to the

4379 consumer......

4380 persuaded (I am) in this branch of the revenue

4381 the collection absorbs too much.

4382 (from Paris, 1785)

4383 ......for our model, the Maison Quarrée of Nismes.....

4384 With respect to his motives (Madison writing) I acknowledged

4385 I had been much puzzled to divine any natural ones

4386 without looking deeper into human nature

4387 than I was willing to do.

4388 (in re/Mr Robert Smith)

4389 So critical the state of that country

4390 moneyed men I imagine are glad to place their money abroad.

4391 Mr Adams could borrow there for us.

4392 This country is really supposed to be on the eve of a XTZBK49HT

4393 (parts of this letter in cypher)

4394 Jefferson, from Paris, to Madison, Aug. 2, 1787

4395 I hear that Mr Beaumarchais means to make himself heard ..

4396 ... turn through the Potomac,.. commerce of Lake Erie....

4397 I can further say with safety there is not a crowned head
[Page 155]
4398 in Europe whose talents or merits would entitle him

4399 to be elected a vestryman by any American parish.

4400 T. J. to General Washington, May 2. '88.

4401 "When Lafayette harangued you and me and John Quincy

4402 Adams

4403 "through a whole evening in your hotel in the Cul de Sac....

4404 ".... silent as you were. I was, in plain truth as astonished

4405 "at the grossness of his ignorance of government and history,

4406 "as I had been for years before at that of Turgot,

4407 "La Rochefoucauld, of Condorcet and of Franklin."

4408 To Mr Jefferson, Mr John Adams.

4409 ... care of the letters now enclosed. Most of them are

4410 of a complexion not proper for the eye of the police.

4411 From Monticello, April 16th. 1811

4412 To Mr Barlow departing for Paris.

4413 ... indebted to nobody for more cordial aid than to Gallatin ...

4414 "Adair too had his kink. He believed all the Indians of

4415 "America to be descended from the jews."

4416 Mr Jefferson to Mr Adams.

4417 "But observe that the public were at the same time paying

4418 on it an interest of exactly the same amount

4419 (four million dollars). Where then is the gain to either

4420 party which makes it a public blessing?

4421 to Mr Eppes, 1813

4422 "Man, a rational creature!" said Franklin.

4423 "Come, let us suppose a rational man.

4424 "Strip him of all his appetites, especially his hunger and thirst.

4425 "He is in his chamber, engaged in making experiments,

4426 "Or in pursuing some problem.

4427 "At this moment a servant knocks. 'Sir,

4428 "'dinner is on the table.'

4429 "'Ham and chickens?' 'Ham!'


[Page 156]
4430 "'And must I break the chain of my thoughts to

4431 to "'go down and gnaw a morsel of damned hog's arse?

4432 "'Put aside your ham; I will dine tomorrow;'

4433 Take away appetite, and the present generation would not

4434 Live a month, and no future generation would exist;

4435 and thus the exalted dignity of human nature etc......

4436 Mr Adams to Mr Jefferson, 15 Nov. 1813.

4437 ".. wish that I cd. subjoin Gosindi's Syntagma

4438 "of the doctrines of Epicurus.

4439 (Mr Adams.)

4440 ".. this was the state of things in 1785 ..."

4441 (Mr Jefferson.)

4442 .. met by agreement, about the close of the session---

4443 Patrick Henry, Frank Lee and your father,

4444 Henry Lee and myself ... to consult .. measures

4445 circumstances of times seemed to call for ...

4446 produce some channel of correspondence ... this was in '73.

4447 Jefferson to D. Carr

4448 .. church of St. Peter.....human reason, human conscience,

4449 though I believe that there are such things....

4450 Mr Adams.

4451 A tiel leis....en ancien scripture, and this

4452 they have translated Holy Scripture ...

4453 Mr Jefferson

4454 and they continue this error.

4455 "Bonaparte ... knowing nothing of commerce....

4456 ... or paupers, who are about one fifth of the whole ...

4457 (on the state of England in 1814).


Hic Explicit Cantus
[Page 157]

XXXII


4458 The revolution," said Mr Adams,

4459 "Took place in the minds of the people."

4460 ........... with sixty cannon, ten tons of powder,

4461 10,000 muskets and bayonets, lead, bed-covers,

4462 uniforms and a colonel, to affirm their neutrality ... the Amphi-

4463 trite

4464 departed the tenth of March to her first destination ...

4465 and a fourth which orders the liquidation

4466 and payment of what remains due to the Merchants of Morea

4467 et des dettes des dites Echelles as you may

4468 read dans les arrêts principaux du Conseil, decembre, 'soixante

4469 six.

4470 armes et autres ustenciles qui ne peuvent être que pour

4471 le compte du gouvernement ... Monsieur Saint-Libin

4472 très au fait des langues du Pays, connu des Nababs

4473 especially Hyder Ali

4474 ... pour l'exciter, et à tailler des croupières to the Anglois ...

4475 peu délicat sur les moyens.... to break up our bonds

4476 with the Portagoose.... and as for the Amphitrite, M'lorrd

4477 she fits under Beaumarchais' supervision, her cargo

4478 mainly munitions.......

4479 Witnesses will some of them prove that he (Burr) had

4480 no interest in the Ohio canal....

4481 coram non judice

4482 as usual where an opinion is to be supported right or wrong,

4483 dwells on smaller objections and passes over the solid.

4484 Oryzia mutica, the upland or mountain rice ...

4485 seed of perennial succory.... very famous turnip of Sweden....

4486 I pray you place me rectus in curia in this business

4487 with the Emperor (Alexander) and to assure him


[Page 158]
4488 that I carry into my retirement the highest veneration ... for his

4489 dispositions to better at least in some degree the

4490 condition of man oppressed....

4491 If you return to us, to bring me a couple

4492 of shepherd dogs, true-bred......much desired that war be

4493 avoided.

4494 type-founding to which antimony is essential, I therefore place

4495 Mr Ronaldson in your hands.

4496 ... be avoided, if circumstances will admit ...

4497 for civilizing the indians, great improvement on the

4498 ancient ineffectual ... which began with religious ministrations.

4499 The following has been successful. First, to raise cattle

4500 whereby to acquire a sense of the value of property ...

4501 arithmetic to compute that value, thirdly writing, to

4502 keep accounts, and here they begin to labour;

4503 enclose farms, and the women to weave and spin ...

4504 fourth to read Aesop's Fables, which are their first delight

4505 along with Robinson Crusoe. Creeks, Cherokees, the latter

4506 now instituting a government.

4507 ... and as many, just as respectable, swore to the contrary

4508 all of whom present at the sermon....

4509 ... deem it necessary to keep them down by hard labour, poverty,

4510 ignorance,

4511 and to take from them, as from bees, so much of their earnings

4512 as that unremitting labour shall be necessary to obtain a

4513 sufficient surplus

4514 barely to sustain a scant life. And these earnings

4515 they apply to maintain their privileged orders in splendour and

4516 idleness

4517 to fascinate the eyes of the people ... as to an order of superior

4518 beings ... June 12, '23 to Judge Johnson ...

4519 whether in a stye, stable or state-room,

4520 let everything bend before them and banish whatever might

4521 lead them to think ... and thus are become as mere animals....


[Page 159]
4522 Cannibals of Europe are eating one another again....

4523 out of his case, to say what the law in a moot case would be,

4524 Judge Marshall is irregular....

4525 ... animal is entirely without thought

4526 if deprived of that organ ...

4527 Mr. Adams to Mr. Jefferson ...

4528 .. whether in a stye, a stable or in a stateroom....

4529 Louis Sixteenth was a fool

4530 The King of Spain was a fool, the King of Naples a fool

4531 they despatched two courriers weekly to tell each other, over a

4532 thousand miles

4533 what they had killed ... the King of Sardinia

4534 was, like all the Bourbons, a fool, the

4535 Portuguese Queen a Braganza and therefore by nature an idiot,

4536 The successor to Frederic of Prussia, a mere hog

4537 in body and mind, Gustavus and Joseph of Austria

4538 were as you know really crazy, and George 3d was in

4539 a straight waistcoat,

4540 there remained none but old Catherine, too lately picked up.........

4541 by which we are in the constant practice of changing the

4542 characters and propensities of the animals we raise for

4543 our purposes....

4544 a guisa de leon

4545 The cannibals of Europe are eating one another again

4546 quando si posa.
[Page 160]

XXXIII


4547 Quincey Nov. 13, 1815

4548 .... Is that despotism

4549 or absolute power... unlimited sovereignty,

4550 is the same in a majority of a popular assembly,

4551 an aristocratical council, an oligarchical junto,

4552 and a single emperor, equally arbitrary, bloody,

4553 and in every respect diabolical. Wherever it has resided

4554 has never failed to destroy all records, memorials,

4555 all histories which it did not like, and to corrupt

4556 those it was cunning enough to preserve.....

4557 If the troops cd. be fed upon long letters, I believe the gent. at

4558 the head of that dept. (in this country) wd. be the best

4559 commissary on earth. But till I see him determined to act,

4560 not to write; to sacrifice his domestic ease to the duties

4561 of his appointment, and apply the resources of this country,

4562 wheresoever they are to be had, I must entertain a different

4563 opinion of him.

4564 T.J. to P. Henry, March '79.

4565 .....over five and twenty millions of people, when four and

4566 twenty millions and five hundred thousand of them can

4567 neither read nor write ... as impracticable as it wd. be over

4568 elephants in the Menagerie at Versailles.

4569 Napoleon has invented a word, Ideology, which expresses my

4570 opinion.

4571 .....how far advanced we were in the science of aristocracy since

4572 the stallions of Theognis ... Have not Chancellor Livingston

4573 and Major General Humphries introduced an aristocracy

4574 of Merino sheep ... entailed upon us and forever.... of land

4575 jobbers and stock jobbers to endless generations.
[Page 161]
4576 AGATHOS, eternal and self-existent

4577 J. A. 1815

4578 .. multiplication of officers and salaries merely to make par-

4579 tisans....

4580 That this possessor be kalos k'àgathos, theocrat, baron, bojar or

4581 rich man matters very little.

4582 .. difference ascribed to our superiority in taking aim when we

4583 fire ..

4584 "I speak of the Grand Duke of Tuscany (T. J. to J. A. '77)

4585 somewhat avaricious in his nature ... crowns lying dead in

4586 his coffers,... application perhaps from Dr. Franklin wd. be

4587 prudent to sound well before hand...."

4588 (Condorcet has let the cat out of the bag. He has made precious

4589 confessions. I regret that I have only an English translation

4590 of his "Outline of the Historical View of the Progress of

4591 the Human Mind." But in pages 247, 248 and 249 you will

4592 find it frankly acknowledged that the philosophers of the

4593 eighteenth century adopted all the arts of the Pharisees.

4594 ....was in the minds of the people, and this was effected from

4595 1760 to 1775 in the course of fifteen years .. before Lex-

4596 ington.....

4597 removal wd. be necessary to more able commissaries rather than

4598 to a more plentiful country. (T. J. on provisions.)

4599 Bonaparte, Poor Devil! what has and what will become of him

4600 .... Cromwell, Wat Tyler, Jack Cade, i.e. to a bad end.

4601 And Wellington, envied, despised by all the barons, earls,

4602 viscounts, as an upstart, a parvenue elated over their heads.

4603 (Mr Adams to Thomas Jefferson.)

4604 Litterae nihil sanantes....whether serpents' teeth sprang up men ..

4605 cannot appease my melancholy commiseration for our


[Page 162]
4606 armies in this furious snow storm (Quincey, November

4607 15th.)

4608 But two things I did learn from him (Plato): That Franklin's

4609 idea of exempting husbandmen and mariners etc. from the

4610 depredations of war was borrowed from him

4611 and (secondly) that sneezing is a cure for the hickups.

4612 but to keep in countenance the funding and banking system ...

4613 orations, prayers, sermons ... not that they loved General

4614 Washington, but merely to disgrace the old Whigs ...

4615 $75,000 equal to 1,000 specie. (Feb. 1781) settler will be worth

4616 to the public 20 times as much every year, as in our old

4617 plan he would have paid in a single payment.

4618 limits of his individuality (cancels) and develops his power as

4619 a specie. (Das Kapital) denounced in 1842 still continue

4620 (today 1864) report of '42 was merely chucked into the

4621 archives and remained there while these boys were ruined

4622 and became fathers of this generation ... for workshops

4623 remained a dead letter down to 1871 when was taken from

4624 control of municipal ... and placed in hands of the factory

4625 inspectors, to whose body they added eight (8) assistants

4626 to deal with over one hundred thousand workshops and

4627 over 300 tile yards.

4628 Rogier (minister) told me that this government (Brussels) had

4629 been intending to introduce such a law but found itself

4630 (re/ child labour not limited to 12 hours per day) always

4631 blocked by the jealous uneasiness that met any law tamp-

4632 ering with the absolute freedom of labour.

4633 Lord H. de Walden from Brussels. 1862

4634 They (the owners) denounced the inspectors as a species of

4635 revolutionary commissar pitilessly sacrificing the unfortunate


[Page 163]
4636 labourers to their humanitarian fantasies (re/ the law

4637 of 1848).

4638 that no factory-owner shall sit as a magistrate in cases concern-

4639 ing the spinning of cotton ... (Factory Act of John

4640 Hobhouse)

4641 nor shall his father, brother, or son.

4642 And if the same small boys are merely shifted from the spinning

4643 room to the weaving room or from one factory to another,

4644 how can the inspector verify the number of hours they

4645 are worked? (1849, Leonard Horner).

4646 Case where the jury ('62) was to decide whether soot adul-

4647 terated with 90% of dust and sand was "adulterated-in-

4648 the-legal-sense" soot or in the commercial "real soot." As

4649 friends of commerce decided (the jury decided) it was

4650 "real soot" against the plaintiff with costs.

4651 avénement révolution allemande posait des problèmes nouveaux,

4652 routine commercial être remplacée par création de deux

4653 fonds or et blé destinés au proletariat victorieux (allemand)

4654 to functionaries of legation in Berlin who are members

4655 of the party (1923)

4656 bureaucrat paisible, Van Tzin Vei se montra, tout à fait incap-

4657 able d'assumer le rôle de chef d'une révolution sanguinaire.

4658 (according to Monsieur Bessedovsky)

4659 for ten years our (Russian) ambassadors have enquired what

4660 theories are in fashion in Moscow and have reported their

4661 facts to fit. (idem)

4662 Bills discounted at exhorbitant rates, four times or three times

4663 those offered by the Midland....

4664 150 millions
[Page 164]
4665 yearly, merely in usurious discounts ...

4666 and he even

4667 (to change the subject)

4668 put into the mouths of the directors of the Federal Reserve

4669 banks the words that they should say ... "You have got more

4670 than your share, we want you to reduce, we can not let

4671 you have any more."

4672 (Mr Brookhart)

4673 page 34 of the minutes then they adopted another resolution

4674 page 42 committee of interstate commerce, ask increase

4675 of railroad rates, said to them: wd. suggest, gentlemen,

4676 you be careful not to give out anything about any dis-

4677 cussion of discount rates disturbs everybody immediate

4678 rush never discuss in the newspapers.....

4679 .......& Company's banker was in that meeting, and next day

4680 he was out after a loan of 60 millions, and got it. Swift-

4681 amoursinclair but the country at large did not know it.

4682 The meeting decided we were over-inflated.


[Page 165]

XXXIV


4683 Oils, beasts, grasses, petrifactions, birds, incrustations,

4684 Dr. Mitchell's conversation was various.....

4685 And a black manservant, to embark on a voyage to

4686 Russia ...

4687 Consistent with their peace and their separation from Europe....

4688 English pretensions, exclusive, auf dem Wasser.....(a.d. 1809)

4689 En fait de commerce ce (Bonaparte) est un étourdi," said

4690 Romanzoff ...

4691 Freedom of admission for ships, freedom of departure, freedom

4692 of purchase and sale ...

4693 Are the only members of the corps diplomatique who have any

4694 interest in literature, conversation ..

4695 we talked of Shakespeare, Milton, Virgil and of the Abbé

4696 Delille....

4697 "Monsieur Adams" said the Emperor, "il y a cent ans que je

4698 ne vous ai vu."

4699 June 4th. 1811:

4700 The idea occurred to me of a treaty of commerce.

4701 Told him his government wd. probably make our peace.

4702 "How?" said the ambassador (french).

4703 "By not keeping her word."

4704 And he, Bonaparte, said to Romanzoff:

4705 "After the peace of Tilsit, where cd. I go but Spain?"

4706 For he must always be going.

4707 It is reported that the two empresses will return to the city

4708 As is said to be customary

4709 At least in wars un peu interessantes, which war Alexander


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