“A”-11

Summer 1950, rev. 11 April, 12 May 1951

For “A”-11 LZ adopts the form of Guido Cavalcanti’s ballade, Perch’io non spero di tornar già mai, again as in “A”-9 reproducing precisely the rhyme scheme and line syllable count. T.S. Eliot begins “Ash-Wednesday” (1930) with a rendition of the famous first line: “Because I do not hope to turn again.”

Guido Cavalcanti - Ballata: Perch'io non spero

(Text from EP Translations 120-123)

124.2    River that must turn full after I stop dying: echoes the refrain of Edmund Spenser’s Prothalamion: “Sweete Themmes runne softly, till I end my Song.” Ahearn adds that the river motif is indebted to the pastoral elegy, “Bronx,” by the American poet Joseph Rodman Drake (1795-1820), from which LZ quotes in Anew #15, “No it was no dream of coming death” (CSP 85).

124.7    honor: this terminal word for each stanza was initially suggested by Cavalcanti’s original in which the first stanza ends with onore, although unlike LZ he varies it thereafter. Cf. Baruch de Spinoza’s definition of honor in Ethics III, Definitions of the Emotions 3: “Honour or glory (Gloria) is pleasure accompanied by the idea of some action of ours which we imagine others to praise” (trans. Andrew Boyle). See 13.297.7.

124.9    Whose losses show them rich and you no poorer: Cf. Henry James’ “The Altar of the Dead”: “People weren’t poor, after all, whom so many losses could overtake; they were positively rich when they had so much to give up” (Ahearn 117).

124.10  what stars’ imprint you mirror: Ahearn (123) associates this with Paracelsus, the 16^th century occult philosopher (see 12.134.9): “The starry vault imprints itself on the inner heaven of man” (Paracelsus: Selected Writings 114). For Paracelsus on “the mirrored image he is,” see 12.177.32-178.4.

124.12  purer / Gold than tongues make…: Ahearn (122-123) relates this to Paracelsus’ alchemical interests in the purification of gold as symbolic of a purification of the self, in which case the “tongues” here suggest the purifying flames.

124.18  blest: Spinoza’s given name, Benedict or Baruch, means blest, which is how LZ frequently refers to him; see index. 

124.19  We overcome ills by love: Cf. Spinoza, Ethics III, Prop. 44: “Hatred which is entirely conquered by love passes into love, and love on that account is greater than if it had not been preceded by hatred” (see 12.233.26).

124.21  rod blossoms: Aaron’s rod blossoms to confirm the legitimacy of the House of Levi for the high priesthood in Numbers 17:8: “And it came to pass, that on the morrow Moses went into the tabernacle of witness; and, behold, the rod of Aaron for the house of Levi was budded, and brought forth buds, and bloomed blossoms, and yielded almonds.” The knight and minnesinger Tannhäuser requested absolution from the Pope for dawdling in Venusberg but was refused and told he could not expect forgiveness until the papal staff grew leaves; Tannhäuser leaves in despair and three days later the staff blossoms; the subject of one of Wagner’s operas. Also this phrase echoes the “red blossom” of 8.48.2, 8.105.4.

124.22  in them I flourish: from Spinoza, Ethics V, Prop. 13: “The more an image is associated with many other things, the more often it flourishes. Proof.—The more an image is associated with many other things, the more causes there are by which it can be excited. Q.e.d.” (qtd. Bottom 29); see also quotation at 12.174.22.

125.8    His second paradise: from Paracelsus: “The striving for wisdom is the second paradise of the world” (Selected Writings 65); see 12.146.24.