Canto VIII

THESE fragments you have shelved (shored).

“Slut! ” “Bitch! ” Truth and Calliope

Slanging each other sous les lauriers:

That Alessandro was negroid. And Malatesta

5

Sigismund:

Frater tamquam

Et compater carissime: tergo

...hanni de

..dicis

10

...entia

Equivalent to:

Giohanni of the Medici,

Florence.

Letter received, and in the matter of our Messire Gianozio,

15

One from him also, sent on in form and with all due dispatch,

Having added your wishes and memoranda.

As to arranging peace between you and the King of Ragona,

So far as I am concerned, it wd.

Give me the greatest possible pleasure,

20

At any rate nothing wd. give me more pleasure

or be more acceptable to me,

And I shd. like to be party to it, as was promised me,

either as participant or adherent.

As for my service money,

25

Perhaps you and your father wd. draw it

And send it on to me as quickly as possible.

And tell the Maestro di pentore

That there can be no question of

His painting the walls for the moment,

30

As the mortar is not yet dry

And it wd. be merely work chucked away

(buttato via)

But I want it to be quite clear, that until the chapels are ready

I will arrange for him to paint something else

35

So that both he and I shall

Get as much enjoyment as possible from it,

And in order that he may enter my service

And also because you write me that he needs cash,

I want to arrange with him to give him so much per year

40

And to assure him that he will get the sum agreed on.

You may say that I will deposit security

For him wherever he likes.

And let me have a clear answer,

For I mean to give him good treatment

45

So that he may come to live the rest

Of his life in my lands —

Unless you put him off it —

And for this I mean to make due provision,

So that he can work as he likes,

50

Or waste his time as he likes

(aff atigandose per suo piacere o no

non gli manchera la provixione mai)

never lacking provision.

sigismundus pandolphus de malatestis

55

In compo Illus. Domini Venetorum die 7

aprilis 1449 contra Cremonam

. . . . . and because the aforesaid most illustrious

Duke of Milan

Is content and wills that the aforesaid Lord Sigismundo

60

Go into the service of the most magnificent commune

of the Florentines

For alliance defensive of the two states,

Therefore between the aforesaid Illustrious Sigismund

And the respectable man Agnolo delia Stufa,

65

ambassador, sindic and procurator

Appointed by the ten of the baily, etc., the half

Of these 50,000 florins, free of attainder,

For 1400 cavalry and four hundred foot

To come into the terrene of the commune

70

or elsewhere in Tuscany

As please the ten of the Baily,

And to be himself there with them in the service

of the commune

With his horsemen and his footmen

75

(gente di covallo e da pie) etc.

Aug. 5 1452, register of the Ten of the Baily.

From the forked rocks of Penna and Bali, on Carpegna

with the road leading under the cliff,

in the wind-shelter into Tuscany,

80

And the north road, toward the Marecchia

the mud-stretch full of cobbles.

Lyra:

“Ye spirits who of olde were in this land

Each under Love, and shaken,

85

Go with your lutes, awaken

The summer within her mind,

Who hath not Helen for peer

Yseut nor Batsabe.”

With the interruption:

90

Magnifico, compater et carissime

( Johanni di Cosimo)

Venice has taken me on again

At 7,000 a month, fiorini di Camera.

For 2,000 horse and four hundred footmen,

95

And it rains here by the gallon,

We have had to dig a new ditch.

In three or four days

I shall try to set up the bombards.

Under the plumes, with the flakes and small wads of colour

100

Showering from the balconies

With the sheets spread from windows,

with leaves and small branches pinned on them,

Arras hung from the railings; out of the dust,

With pheasant tails upright on their forelocks,

105

The small white horses, the

Twelve girls riding in order, green satin in pannier’d habits;

Under the baldachino, silver’d with heavy stitches,

Bianca Visconti, with Sforza,

The peasant’s son and the duchess,

110

To Rimini, and to the wars southward,

Boats drawn on the sand, red-orange sails in the creek’s mouth,

For two days’ pleasure, mostly “la pesco,” fishing,

Di cui in the which he, Francesco, godeva molto.

To the war southward

115

In which he, at that time, received an excellent hiding.

And the Greek emperor was in Florence

(Ferrara having the pest)

And with him Gemisthus Plethon

Talking of the war about the temple at Delphos,

120

And of poseidon, concret Allgemeine,

And telling of how Plato went to Dionysius of Syracuse

Because he had observed that tyrants

Were most efficient in all that they set their hands to,

But he was unable to persuade Dionysius

125

To any amelioration.

And in the gate at Ancona, between the foregate

And the main-gates

Sigismundo, ally, come through an enemy force,

To patch up some sort of treaty, passes one gate

130

And they shut it before they open the next gate, and he says:

“Now you have me,

Caught like a hen in a coop.”

And the captain of the watch says: “ Yes Messire Sigismundo,

But we want this town for ourselves.”

135

With the church against him,

With the Medici bank for itself,

With wattle Sforza against him

Sforza Francesco, wattle-nose,

Who married him (Sigismundo) his (Francesco’s)

140

Daughter in September,

Who stole Pèsaro in October (as Broglio says “bestialmente”),

Who stood with the Venetians in November,

With the Milanese in December,

Sold Milan in November, stole Milan in December

145

Or something of that sort,

Commanded the Milanese in the spring,

the Venetians at midsummer,

The Milanese in the autumn,

And was Naples’ ally in October,

150

He, Sigismundo, templum ædificavit

In Romagna, teeming with cattle thieves,

with the game lost in mid-channel,

And never quite lost till’ 50,

and never quite lost till the end, in Romagna,

155

So that Galeaz sold Pèsaro “to get pay for his cattle.”

And Poictiers, you know, Guillaume Poictiers,

had brought the song up out of Spain

With the singers and viels. But here they wanted a setting,

By Marecchia, where the water comes down over the cobbles

160

And Mastin had come to Verucchio,

and the sword, Paolo il Bello’s,

caught in the arras

And, in Este’s house, Parisina

Paid

165

For this tribe paid always, and the house

Called also Atreides’,

And the wind is still for a little

And the dusk rolled

to one side a little

170

And he was twelve at the time, Sigismundo,

And no dues had been paid for three years,

And his elder brother gone pious;

And that year they fought in the streets,

And that year he got out to Cesena

175

And brought back the levies,

And that year he crossed by night over Foglia, and...

—
Ezra Pound

A Draft of XXX Cantos, 1930