The Cantos

[luka]

cf Canto LXXVIII 'and as for the solidity of the white oxen in all this/perhaps only Dr Williams (Bill Carlos)/will understand its importance'

 

[luka]

 

[luka]

i'm assuming the guard roosts look something like this for moon for example. a hut on stilts.

 

[luka]

A lizard upheld me

cf Canto LXXXIII, 'When the mind swings by a grass-blade/an ant's forefoot shall save you' and Canto CXVI

 

[luka]

all this at ground level, in the dust, the sparrows, the mint, the lizard, Pisa in the distance etc and the the mind among these things and at their mercy

 

[luka]

Carrara, Tuscan city famous for its marble quarries

 

[Benny Bunter]

Amazing work, Luka! Going down to the bar on the corner in a minute to crack this open again.

One small gap to fill: yesterday I noticed that "when the cat walked the top bar of the railing" from this canto echoes the beginning of Canto XXXIX, the one I posted a few pages back set in Circe's island:

"Desolate is the roof where the cat sat,
Desolate is the iron rail that he walked
And the corner post whence he greeted the sunrise."

Although I'm not sure yet what it might mean

 

[luka]

Yeats talks about how when he visited Pound in Rapallo he found he was feeding all the stray cats every evening. if those places are desolate it means the cats is dead and no longer occupies his favourite spots.

 

[luka]

Kuanon =

Guanyin - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

also appearing in XC, CX (according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cultural_references_in_The_Cantos )

 

[luka]

 

[Benny Bunter]

That line from the Canto XXXIX did strike me as strange as, although there were obviously lions on Circe's island, I was picturing a smaller domesticated or stray cat. (and the canto project notes avoid explaining it)

 

[luka]

That line from the Canto XXXIX did strike me as strange as, although there were obviously lions on Circe's island, I was picturing a smaller domesticated or stray cat. (and the canto project notes avoid explaining it)

i think the simple explanation is that this line doesn't take place on Circe's island

 

[Benny Bunter]

Probably the most obvious reference in the whole thing but something else we haven't mentioned yet - "with a bang, not a whimper" - near the beginning, one of TS Eliot's most quoted lines from The Hollow Men. Even I recognised that one and I'm not even familiar with that poem.

 

[luka]

Linus, Cletus, Clement - early saints and popes whose intercession is sought in Roman Mass. Pound here attends Mass and sees the priest's robe like a great scarab

 

[Benny Bunter]

So "yet say this to Possum" is referring to Eliot too I suppose, from old possum's book of practical cats (which I actually did read some of when I was little now I remember it)

 

[Benny Bunter]

@jenks and @woops have got Cantos notes. Will they chip in?

 

[Benny Bunter]

We're still only 4 pages in 🤯

 

[Benny Bunter]

The contempt that comes into his voice when he starts talking about usury and stuff is still there from the earlier cantos - "local loan lice"

 

[luka]

The contempt that comes into his voice when he starts talking about usury and stuff is still there from the earlier cantos - "local loan lice"

it's the same contempt any tenant feels for a landlord or any other parasite that leeches off him

 

[luka]

'bloodsuckers of The Poor' as Papa Wu says