Canto X

AND the poor devils dying of cold, outside Sorano,

And from the other side, from inside the château,

Orsini, Count Pitigliano, on the 17th of November:

“Siggy, darlint, wd. you not stop making war on

“insensible objects, such as trees and domestic vines, that have

“no means to hit back... but if you will hire yourself out to a

“commune (Siena) which you ought rather to rule than

“serve…”

which with Trachulo’s damn’d epistle...

And what of it anyhow? a man with a ten acre lot,

Pitigliano... a lump of tufa,

And S. had got back their horses

And the poor devils dying of cold...

(And there was another time, you know,

He signed on with the Fanesi,

and just couldn’t be bothered...)

And there were three men on a one man job

And Careggi wanting the baton,

And not getting it just then in any case.

And he, Sigismundo, refused an invitation to lunch

In commemoration of Carmagnola

(vide Venice, between the two columns

where Carmagnola was executed.)

“anno messo a saccho el signor Sigismundo”

As Filippo Strozzi wrote to Zan Lottieri, then in Naples,

“I think they’ll let him through at Campiglia”

Florence, Archivio Storico, 4th Series t. iii, e

“La Guerra dei Senesi col conte di Pitigliano.”

And he found Carlo Gonzaga sitting like a mud-frog

in Orbetello

And he said:

“aro mio, I can not receive you

It really is not the moment.”

And Broglio says he ought to have tipped Gorro Lolli.

But he got back home here somehow,

And Piccinino was out of a job,

And the old row with Naples continued.

And what he said was all right in Mantua;

And Borso had the pair of them up to Bel Fiore,

The pair of them, Sigismundo and Federico Urbino,

Or perhaps in the palace, Ferrara, Sigismund upstairs

And Urbino’s gang in the basement,

And a regiment of guards in, to keep order,

For all the good that did:

“Te cavero la budella del corpo!”

El conte levatosi:

“Io te cavero to corata a te!”

And that day Cosimo smiled,

That is, the day they said:

“Drusiana is to marry Count Giacomo…”

(Piccinino) un sorriso malizioso.

Drusiana, another of Franco Sforza’s;

It would at least keep the row out of Tuscany.

And he fell out of a window, Count Giacomo,

Three days after his death, that was years later in Naples,

For trusting Ferdinando of Naples,

And old Wattle could do nothing about it.

Et:

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

INTEREA PRO GRADIBUS BASILICAE S. PIETRI EX ARIDA MATERIA

INGENS PYRA EXTRUITUR IN CUJUS SUMMITATE IMAGO SIGIS-

MUNDI COLLOCATUR HOMINIS LINEAMENTA, ET VESTIMENTI

MODUM ADEO PROPRIE REDDENS, UT VERA MAGIS PERSONA,

QUAM IMAGO VIDERETUR; NE QUEM TAMEN IMAGO FALLERET,

ET SCRIPTURA EX ORE PRODIIT, QUAE DICERET:

SIGISMUNDUS HIC EGO SUM

MALATESTA, FILIUS PANDULPHI, REX PRODITORUM,

DEO ATQUE HOMINIBUS INFESTUS, SACRI CENSURA SENATUS

IGNI DAMNATUS;

SCRIPTURUM.

MULTI LEGERUNT. DEINDE ASTANTE POPULO, IGNI IMMISSO,

ET PYRA SIMULACRUM REPENTE FLAGRAVIT.

Com. Pio II, Liv. VII, p. 85.

Yriarte, p. 288.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

So that in the end that pot-scraping little runt Andreas

Benzi, da Siena

Got up to spout out the bunkum

That that monstrous swollen, swelling s. o. b.

Papa Pio Secundo

Æneas Silvius Piccolomini

da Siena

Had told him to spout, in their best bear’s-greased latinity;

Stupro, cæde, adulter,

homocidia, parricidia ac periurus,

presbitericidia, audax, libidinosus,

wives, jew-girls, nuns, necrophiliast, fornicarium ac sicarium,

proditar, raptor, incestuosus, incendiarius, ac

concubinarius,

and that he rejected the whole symbol of the apostles,

and that he said the monks ought not to own property

and that he disbelieved in the temporal power,

neither christian, jew, gentile,

nor any sect pagan, nisi forsitan epicureæ.

And that he did among other things

Empty the fonts of the chiexa of holy water

And fill up the same full with ink

That he might in God's dishonour

100

Stand before the doors of the said chiexa

Making mock of the inky faithful, they

Issuing thence by the doors in the pale light of the sunrise

Which might be considered youthful levity

but was really a profound indication;

105

“Whence that his, Sigismundo’s, fœtor filled the earth

And stank up through the air and stars to heaven

Where — save they were immune from sufferings —

It had made the emparadisèd spirits pewk”

from their jeweled terrace.

110

“Lussurioso incestuoso, perfide, sozzure ac crapulone,

assassino, ingordo, avaro, superbo, infidele

fattore di monete false, sodomitico, uxoricido’

and the whole lump lot

given over to...

115

I mean after Pio had said, or at least Pio says that he

Said that this was elegant oratory “Orationem

Elegantissimam et ornatissimam

Audivimus venerabilis in Xti fratres ac dilectissimi

filii... (stone in his bladder

120

testibus idoneis)

The lump lot given over

To that kid-slapping fanatic il cardinale di San Pietro in Vincoli

To find him guilty, of the lump lot

As he duly did, calling rumour, and Messire Federico d'Urbino

125

And other equally unimpeachable witnesses.

So they burnt our brother in effigy

A rare magnificent effigy costing 8 florins 48 bol

(i.e. for the pair, as the first one wasn’t a good enough likeness)

And Borso said the time was ill-suited

130

to tanta novitá, such doings or innovations,

God’s enemy and man’s enemy, stuprum, raptum

I. N. R. I. Sigismund Imperator, Rex Proditorum.

And old Pills who tried to get him into a front rank action

In order to drive the rear guard at his buttocks,

135

Old Pills listed among the murdered, although he

Came out of jail living later.

Et les angloys ne povans desraciner... venin de hayne

Had got back Gisors from the Angevins,

And the Angevins were gunning after Naples

140

And we dragged in the Angevins,

And we dragged in Louis Eleventh,

And the tiers Calixte was dead, and Alfonso;

And against us we had“this Æneas” and young Ferdinando

That we had smashed at Piombino and driven out of the

145

Terrene of the Florentines;

And Piccinino, out of a job;

And he, Sidg, had had three chances of

Making it up with Alfonso, and an offer of

Marriage alliance;

150

And what he said was all right there in Mantua;

But Pio, sometime or other, Pio lost his pustulous temper.

And they struck alum at Tolfa, in the pope's land,

To pay for their devilment.

And Francesco said:

155

I also have suffered.

When you take it, give me a slice.

And they nearly jailed a chap for saying

The job was mal hecho; and they caught poor old Pasti

In Venice, and were like to pull all his teeth out;

160

And they had a bow-shot at Borso

As he was going down the Grand Canal in his gondola

(the nice kind with 26 barbs on it)

And they said: Novvy'll sell any man

for the sake of Count Giacomo.

165

(Piccinino, the one that fell out of the window).

And they came at us with their ecclesiastical legates

Until the eagle lit on his tent pole.

And he said: The Romans would have called that an augury

E gradment li antichi cavaler romanj

170

davano fed a quisti annutii,

All I want you to do is to follow the orders,

They’ve got a bigger army,

but there are more men in this camp.

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—
Ezra Pound

A Draft of XXX Cantos, 1930