Canto LXXVII

AND this day Abner lifted a shovel. . . . .

instead of watchin’ it to see if it would

take action

Von Tirpitz said to his daughter.. as we have elsewhere

recorded / he said: beware of their charm

But on the other hand Maukch thought he

would do me a favour by getting me onto the commission

to inspect the mass graves at Katin,

le beau monde gouverne

if not toujours at any rate it is a level of

some sort whereto things tend to return

Chung

in the middle

whether upright or horizontal

“and having got ‘em (advantages, privilege)

there is nothing, italics nothing, they will not do

to retain ‘em’

yrs truly Kungfutseu

Entered the Bros Watson's store in Clinton N. Y.

preceded by a crash, i.e. by a

huge gripsack or satchel

which fell and skidded along the 20 foot aisle-way

and ceased with a rumpus of glassware

(unbreakable as it proved)

and with the enquiry: WOT IZZA COMIN'?

I'll tell you wot izza comin'

Sochy-lism is a-comin'

(a.d. 1904, somewhat previous but effective

for immediate scope

things have ends (or scopes) and beginnings. To

know what precedes and what follows

will assist yr/ comprehension of process

vide also Epictetus and Syrus

As Arcturus passes over my smoke-hole

the excess electric illumination

is now focussed

on the bloke who stole a safe he cdn't open

(interlude entitled: periplum by camion)

and Awoi's hennia plays hob in the tent flaps

k-lakk.....thuuuuuu

making rain

uuuh

2, 7, hooo

der im Baluba

Faasa ! 4 times was the city remade,

now in the heart indestructible

4 gates, the 4 towers

(Il Scirocco è geloso)

men rose out of χθόνος

Agada, Ganna, Silia,

and Mt Taishan is faint as the wraith of my first friend

who comes talking ceramics;

mist glaze over mountain

“How is it far, if you think of it?’

Came Boreas and his kylin

to brreak the corporal's heart

Bright dawn on the sht house

next day

with the shadow of the gibbets attendant

The Pisan clouds are undoubtedly various

and splendid as any I have seen since

at Scudder's Falls on the Schuylkill

by which stream I seem to recall a feller

settin’ in a rudimentary shack doin’ nawthin'

not fishin', just watchin’ the water,

a man of about forty-five

nothing counts save the quality of the affection

mouth, is the sun that is god's mouth

or in another connection (periplum)

the studio on the Regent's canal

Theodora asleep on the sofa, the young

Daimio's “tailor's bill’

or Grishkin's photo refound years after

with the feeling that Mr Eliot may have

missed something, after all, in composing his vignette

periplum

(the dance is a medium)

“To his native mountain’

Ψυχάριον ὰι βάσταξον νεκρὸν

a little flame for a little

conserved in the Imperial ballet, never danced in a theatre

Kept as Justinian left it

Padre José had understood something or other

before the deluxe car carried him over the precipice

sumne fugol othbaer

learned what the Mass meant,

how one shd/ perform it

the dancing at Corpus the toys in the

service at Auxerre

top, whip, and the rest of them.

[I heard it in the s.h. a suitable place

to hear that the war was over]

the scollop of the sky shut down on its pearl

καλλιπλόκαμα Ida.

With drawn sword as at Nemi

day comes after day

and the liars on the quai at Siracusa

still vie with Odysseus

seven words to a bomb

100

dum capitolium scandet

the rest is explodable

Very potent, can they again put one together

as the two halves of a seal, or a tally stick?

Shun's will and

105

King Wan's will

were as the two halves of a seal

½s

in the Middle Kingdom

Their aims as one

110

directio voluntatis, as lord over the heart

the two sages united

and Lord Byron lamented that he (Kung)

had not left it in metric

“halves of a seal,’

115

Voltaire choosing almost as I had

to finish his “Louis Quatorze’

and as to the distributive function

1766 ante Christum

it is recorded, and the state can lend money

120

as proved at Salamis

and for notes on monopoly

Thales; and credit, Siena;

both for the trust and the mistrust;

“the earth belongs to the living’

125

interest on all it creates out of nothing

the buggering bank has; pure iniquity

and to change the value of money, of the unit of

money

METATHEMENON

130

we are not yet out of that chapter

Le Paradis n'est pas artificiel

Κύθηρα, Κύθηρα,

Moving ὑπὸ χθονὸς enters the hall of the records

the forms of men rose out of γέα

135

Le Paradis n'est pas artificiel

nor does the martin against the tempest

fly as in the calm air

“like an arrow, and under bad government

like an arrow’

140

“Missing the bull's eye seeks the cause in himself’

“only the total sincerity, the precise definition’

and no sow's ear from silk purse

even in that case...

the clouds over Pisa, over the two teats of Tellus, γέα

145

“He won't” said Pirandello “fall for Freud,

he (Cocteau) is too good a poet.’

Well, Campari is gone since that day

with Dieudonné and with Voisin

and Gaudier's eye on the telluric mass of Miss Lowell

150

“the mind of Plato... or that of Bacon” said Upward

seeking parallel for his own

“Haff you gno bolidigal basshunts?....

Demokritoos, Heragleitos” exclaimed Doktor Slonimsky 1912

So Miscio sat in the dark lacking the gasometer penny

155

but then said: “Do you speak German?’

to Asquith, in 1914

“How Ainley face work all the time

back of that mask’

But Mrs Tinkey never believed he wanted her cat

160

for mouse-chasing

and not for oriental cuisine

“Jap'nese dance all time overcoat” he remarked

with perfect precision

“Just like Jack Dempsey's mitts” sang Mr Wilson

165

so that you cd/ crack a flea on eider wan

ov her breasts

sd/ the old Dublin pilot

or the precise definition

bel seno (in rimas escarsas, vide sopra)

170

2 mountains with the Arno, I suppose, flowing between them

so kissed the earth after sleeping on concrete

bel seno Δημήτηρ copulatrix

thy furrow

in limbo no victories, there, are no victories--

175

that is limbo; between decks of the slaver

10 years, 5 years

“If he wd/ only get rid of Ciano” groaned the admiral

“people who are used to take orders” he said

when the fleet surrendered

180

“I would do it” (finish off Ciano) “with a pinch of

insecticide.’

said Chilanti's 12 year old daughter.

Sold the school-house at Gais,

cut down the woods whose leaves served for bedding cattle

185

so there was a lack of manure...

for losing the law of Chung Ni,

hence the valise set by the alpino's statue in Brunik

and the long lazy float of the banners

and similar things occurred in Dalmatia

190

lacking that treasure of honesty

which is the treasure of states

and the dog-damn wop is not, save by exception,

honest in administration any more than the briton is truthful

Jactancy, vanity, peculation to the ruin of 20 years’ labour

195

bells over Petano ...are softer than other bells

remembering Alice and Edmée

till the dog Arlechino makes his round

blanket holding the hills’ form in cloudy aurora

καὶ ′Ιδα, θέα faces Apollo

200

E la Miranda was the only one who changed personality

changing her roles

Which fact, it wd/ seem, escaped most, if not all, of the critics

“If you had a f....n’ brain you'd be dangerous’

remarks Romano Ramona

205

to a by him designated c.s. in the scabies ward

the army vocabulary contains almost 48 words

one verb and participle one substantive ὕλη

one adjective and one phrase sexless that is

used as a sort of pronoun

210

from a watchman's club to a vamp or fair lady

And Margherita's voice was clear as the notes of a clavichord

tending her rabbit hutch,

O Margaret of the seven griefs

who hast entered the lotus

215

“Trade, trade, trade..” sang Lanier

and they say the gold her grandmother carried under her

skirts for Jeff Davis

drowned her when she slipped from the landing boat;

doom of Atreus

220

(O Mercury god of thieves, your caduceus

is now used by the american army

as witness this packing case)

Born with Buddha's eye south of Mason and Dixon

as against:

225

Ils n'existent pas, leur ambience leur confert

une existence...and in the case of

Emanuel Swedenborg....’do not argue’

in the 3rd sphere do not argue

above which, the lotus, white nenuphar

230

Kuanon, the mythologies

we who have passed over Lethe

there are in fact several coarse expressions used in the

army and Monsieur Barzun had, indubitably, an idea, about anno

domini 1910 but I do not know what he his done with it

235

for I wd/ steal no man's raison

and old André

preached vers libre with Isaiaic fury, and sent me to old Rousselot

who fished for sound in the Seine

and led to detectors

240

“an animal” he said “which seeks to conceal the

sound of its foot-steps’

L'Abbé Rousselot

who wrapped up De Sousa's poems (fin oreille)

and besought me to do likewise returning them

245

lest his housekeeper know that he had them.

“Un curé déguisé” sd/ Cocteau's of Maritain

“Me parait un curé déguisé” A la porte

“Sais pas, Monsieur, il me parait un curé déguisé.

“Thought” said M. Cocteau “that I was among men of letters

250

and then perceived a group of mechanics and garage assistants.’

“As long as Daudet is alive they will never have him

in the Académie Goncourt’

sd/ La Comtesse de Rohan, and Mr Martin

we believe did a similar wrong to his party

255

“30,000, they thought they were clever,

why, Hell / they cd/ have had it for 6000 dollars,

and after Landon they picked Wendell Willkie

Roi je ne suis, prince je ne daigne

Citizen of Florence, ed/ not receive noble titles

260

but carry the arms to this day

who resisted at Arbia when the fools wd/ have burnt down

Florence “in gran dispitto” “men used to obeying orders’

“there was also the King who signed those decrees’

se casco, non casco in ginocchion'

265

--niggers comin’ over the obstacle fence

as in the insets at the Schifanoja

(del Cossa) to scale, 10,000 gibbet-iform posts supporting

barbed wire

“St. Louis Till” as Green called him. Latin!

270

“I studied latin” said perhaps his smaller companion.

“Hey Snag, what's in the bib!'?

what are the books of the bib!'?

Name ‘em! don't bullshit me!’

“Hobo Williams, the queen of them all’

275

“Hey / Crawford, come over here /’

Roma profugens Sabinorum in terras

“Sligo in heaven” murmured uncle William

when the mist finally settled down on Tigullio

But Mr Joyce requested sample menus from the leading hotels

280

and Kitson had tinkered with lights on the Vetta

Mist covers the breasts of Tellus-Helena and drifts up the Arno

came night and with night the tempest

“How is it far, if you think of it?”

If Basil sing of Shah Nameh, and wrote

285

Firdush’ on his door

Thus saith Kabir: “Politically” said Rabindranath

“they are inactive. They think, but then there is

climate, they think but it is warm or there are flies or

some insects’

290

“And with the return of the gold standard” wrote Sir Montagu

“every peasant had to pay twice as much grain

to cover his taxes and interest’

It is true that the interest is now legally lower

but the banks lend to the bunya

295

who can thus lend more to his victims

and the snot press and periodical tosh does not notice this

thus saith Kabir, by hypostasis

if they can take Hancock's wharf they can take your cow

or my barn

300

and the Kohinoor and the rajah's emerald etc.

and Tom wore a tin disc, a circular can-lid

with his name on it, solely:

for Wanjina has lost his mouth,

For nowt so much as a just peace

305

That wd/ obstruct future wars

as witness the bombardment at Frascati after the armistice

had been signed

who live by debt and war profiteering

Das Bankgeschäft

310

“....of the Wabash cannon ball’

in flat Ferrarese country seemed the same as here under Taishan

men move to scale as in Del Cossa's insets

at Schifanoja under the Ram and Bull

in the house-boats bargaining half a day for ten bob's worth

315

of turquoise

mind come to plenum when nothing more will go into it

the wind mad as Cassandra

who was as sane as the lot of ‘em

Sorelia, mia sorella,

320

che ballava sobr’ un zecchin'

bringest to focus

ch'êng ch'êng

Zagreus

325

CANTO 77 Explication

1 - middle 7 - not

2 - precede one's own

3 - follow spirit

and

330

4 - how (is it) sacrifice

far is

5 - dawn flattery

6 - mouth bi gosh

To sacrifice to a spirit not one's own is flattery (sycophancy).

335

8 - halves of a
tally stick

9 - direction

of one's willl

10-perfect or

focus

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—
Ezra Pound

The Pisan Cantos, 1948