The Cantos

luka

luka

Well-known member
Linebaugh said:
Had the cantos sitting on my coffee table for about a month and Ill pick it up at random. Every time I think Ive found the pulse I immediately lose it. Not sure what its doing yet.
Click to expand...

It probably is a book which is dependent on its commentaries and interpretations and other secondary sources. It does need that scaffolding. But that's quite an interesting concept in itself. I like reading about the cantos in the way you like reading about Pynchon.
 
luka

luka

Well-known member
Someone has a jibe at Hugh Kenner writing about what Pound had meant to say, but didn't. As opposed to explaining what is actually on the page.
 
C

catalog

Well-known member
RAW has piqued my interest in reading the Cantos. He rates it up there with the Wake.

He said its very funny and was trying to bring the new in the same way. Imagism is it called?

I might try an audio version of it. Was reading some poetry aloud the other day, Bernadette Meyer, and it works alot better for me as voice.
 
luka

luka

Well-known member
I'd be astonished if there is a decent recording of it. You might have to make your own one. Pound has read bits himself and sounds utterly bizarre, bizarre enough to put you off for life if you're overly sensitive
 
C

catalog

Well-known member
The bit of RAW I was listening to where he talks about them also has a mention of how Pound was the sort of troubadour for the whole scene, he 'got' Joyce early on and championed him, encouraged him, got the first serialisation and so on. Worth reading just for that.
 
linebaugh

linebaugh

Well-known member
XXX

Compleynt, compleynt, I hearde upon a day,
Artemis singing, Artemis, Artemis
Against Pity lifted her wail:
Pity causeth the forests to fail,
Pity slayeth my nymphs,
Pity spareth so many an evil thing.
Pity befouleth April,
Pity is the root and the spring.
Now if no fayre creature followeth me
It is on account of Pity,
It is on account that Pity forbideth them slaye.
All things are made foul in this season,
This is the reason, none may seek purity
Having for foulnesse pity
And things growne awry;
No more do my shaftes fly
To slay. Nothing is now clean slayne
But rotteth away.

In Paphos, on a day
I also heard:
…goeth not with young Mars to playe
But she hath pity on a doddering fool,
She tendeth his fyre,
She keepeth his embers warm.

Time is the evil. Evil.
A day, and a day
Walked the young Pedro baffled,
a day and a day
After Ignez was murdered.
Came the Lords in Lisboa
a day, and a day
In homage. Seated there
dead eyes,
Dead hair under the crown,
The King still young there beside her.

Came Madame ‘ΎΓΗ
Clothed with the light of the altar
And with the price of the candles.
“Honour? Balls for yr. honour!
Take two million and swallow it.”
Is come Messire Alfonso
And is departed by boat forFerrara
And has passed here without saying “O”.

Whence have we carved it in metal
Here working in Caesar’s fane:
To the Prince Caesare Borgia
Duke of Valent and Aemelia
... and here have I brought cutters of letters
and printers not vile and vulgar
(in Fano Caesaris)
notable and sufficient compositors
and a die-cutter for greek fonts and hebrew
named Messire Francesco da Bologna
not only for the usual types but he hath excogitated
a new form called cursive or chancellery letters
nor was it Aldous nor any other but it was
this Messire Francesco who hath cut all Aldous his letters
with such grace and charm as is known
Hieronymous Soncinus 7th July 1503.
and as for the text we have taken it
from that of Messire Laurentius
and from a codex once of the Lords Malatesta...

And in August that year died Pope Alessandro Borgia,
Il Papa morì

Explicit canto
XXX
 
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woops

woops

is not like other people
Artemis is the hunter/moon goddess isn't she.

All things are made foul in this season,
This is the reason

is an unusual dead rhyme for pound
 
woops

woops

is not like other people
Madame ‘ΎΓΗ

‘ΎΓΗ: H, hule, "wood", "material", "slime", "shit." Pound says of hule: "...the stuff of which a thing is made, matter as a principle of being."

i've looked it up in my companion, see
 
luka

luka

Well-known member
Some sources say that after Peter became king of Portugal, he had Inês' body exhumed from her grave and forced the entire court to swear allegiance to their new queen: "The king [Peter] caused the body of his beloved Inês to be disinterred, and placed on a throne, adorned with the diadem and royal robes. and required all the nobility of the kingdom to approach and kiss the hem
 
woops

woops

is not like other people
oh and the In Paphos bit is a sketch of the Aphrodite/Apollo/Vulcan love triangle

or rather Aphrodite/Ares/Hephaestus to be strictly Greek and accurate. My mythology must be getting rusty
 
linebaugh

linebaugh

Well-known member
woops said:
Madame ‘ΎΓΗ

‘ΎΓΗ: H, hule, "wood", "material", "slime", "shit." Pound says of hule: "...the stuff of which a thing is made, matter as a principle of being."

i've looked it up in my companion, see
Click to expand...
The copy in my book replaces that upside down L character with the delta symbol.
 
woops

woops

is not like other people
yes there are different conventions i suppose. that character above looks more hebrew
 
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