“A”-19
12
Feb.-29 May 1966
Kenneth
Cox describes the form of this movement as a prelude of eight quatrains
followed by 72 strophes of 13 lines each, except for the last which has 12
lines. Throughout LZ uses a two-count (word) line except that the final line of
each strophe is three-count, although there are occasional irregularities.
Based on the numbers 2 and 3, there are 23 (= 8) quatrains of 23
words each, and 23 x 32 (= 72) strophes of 33
(= 27) words each. The final strophe 22 x 3 (= 12) lines and 23
x 3 (= 24) words (Cox 256, 260). Cox also points out (260) that 13, the number
of lines of each strophe, is the unlucky number which will be made good in the
final strophe of 12 lines. More speculatively, Cox argues (258-259) that the
predominate two-count line is meant to suggest the strokes on a violin and that
the progression of the main part of the movement, following the prelude, is
structured on Bach’s chaconne from the Partita No. 2 in D Minor for solo violin
(see 413.1).
408.4 I /
hear back- / stage…: much of “A”-19 concerns a violin competition in which
PZ participated in Genoa, Italy in Sept.-Oct. 1963 (see 412.14). This
prelude section, however, may recall other performances by the young PZ,
possibly his second Carnegie Hall concert on 6 Feb. 1959, which took place
during a snow blizzard, as recounted in the final chapter of Little (see 433.27f).
409.7 No
ill-luck / if bonding…: through 411.24 taken largely or entirely from
various poems of Stéphane Mallarmé (1842-1898), from which LZ freely chooses
and traduces words and phrases of the French text (Cox 261-263). This is among
LZ’s most wildly improvisational efforts, freely skipping about the French text
deploying a combination of translation and homophonic suggestion. Although no
doubt incomplete, the following are what seem to me the most obvious stanzas or
passages from which LZ is improvising:
409.8-18: if bonding / tohu bohu / horsehair mends / azure mane / flogs cold / races rut / shards the
/ perverse desolate / with pride / who cure / misfortune, from “Le Guignon” (The Jinx):
Au-dessus du bétail ahuri des humains
Bondissaient en clarté les sauvages crinières
Des mendieurs d’azur le pied dans nos chemins.
Un noir vent sur leur marche éployé pour bannières
La flagellait de froid tel jusque dans la chair,
Qu’il y creusait aussi d’irritables ornières.
[…]
Vexés ne vont-ils pas provoquer le pervers,
Leur rapière grinçant suit le rayon de lune
Qui neige en sa carcasse et qui passe au travers.
Désolés sans l’orgueil qui sacre l’infortune,
Et tristes de venger leurs os de coups de bec,
Ils convoitent la haine, au lieu de la rancune.
409.18-23: Place / it futile range /
less discreet / than her / lips dawned / on china, from “Placet
Futile” (Futile Petition):
Princesse! à jalouser le destin d’une
Hébé
Qui poind sur cette tasse au baiser de vos lèvres,
J’use mes feux mais n’ai rang discret que d’abbé
Et ne figurerai même nu sur le Sèvres.
409.24: benign day’s / first kiss,
from “Apparition” (Apparition):
—C’était le jour béni de ton premier
baiser.
409.26-30: the lips / not drinking /
yet where / to tarry / is breath, from “Tombeau”
(Tomb):
À ne surprendre que naïvement d’accord
La lèvre sans y boire ou tarir son haleine
Un peu profond ruisseau calomnié la mort.
409.32: the martyr’s assay, from (?)
“L’Azur” (The Azure):
—Le Ciel est mort. —Vers toi, j’accours!
donne, ô matière,
L’oubli de l’Idéal cruel et du Péché
A ce martyr qui vient partager la litière
Où le bétail heureux des hommes est couché,
409.34-410.3: may be / soul owned / by
time / illumine itself / primordial elect / penchant salute, from “Cantique de Saint Jean” (Canticle of
Saint John):
Mais selon un baptême
Illuminée au meme
Principe qui m’élut
Penche un salut.
410.4-7: silk / play to / the balm /
of time, from “Quelle soie aux baumes
de temps” (What silk steeped in the balms of time):
Quelle soie aux baumes de temps
Où la Chimère s’exténue
Vaut la torse et native nue
Que, hors de ton miroir, tu tends!
410.10-13: bird one / hears once / of
all / alive, from “Petit Air II”
(Little Air II):
Voix étrangère au bosquet
Ou par nul écho suivie
L’oiseau qu’on n’ouït jamais
Une autre fois en la vie.
410.13-14: comber / naked jubilation, from “Petit Air” (Little Air):
Tel fugace oiseau si plonge
Exultatrice à côté
Dans l’onde toi devenue
Ta jubilation nue.
410.16-17: cinder sparing / the fire,
from “Toute l’âme résumée” (The
entire soul evoked):
Atteste quelque cigare
Brûlant savamment pour peu
Que la cendre se sépare
De son clair baiser de feu
410.19: idleness offense, from “Las de l’amer repos où ma pareses offence”
(Weary of bitter sleep in which my indolence offends).
410.20-24: woman / child broth /
quarryman cut out / for his / marriage, from “La femme de l’ouvrier” (The Workman’s Wife):
La femme, l’enfant, la soupe
En chemin pour le carrier
Le complimentent qu’il coupe
Dans l’us de se marier.
410.25-29: cobbler / who’d recreate /
shoes (feet / if you / will revive, from “Le savetier” (The Shoemaker):
Il recréerait des souliers,
O pieds! si vous le vouliez!
410.32-36: eye separate / him from / his togs / so he / walk naked god, from “La marchande d’habits” (The Old-Clothes
Woman):
Le vif oeil don’t tu regardes
Jusques àleur contenu
Me sépare de mes hardes
Et comme un dieu je vais nu.
410.36-411.3: song of / his wood /
the truth / of a / face, from “Feuillet
d’album” (Album Leaf):
Tout à coup et comme par jeu
Mademoiselle qui voulûtes
Ouïr se révéler un peu
Le bois de mes diverses flûtes
Il me semble que cet essai
Tenté devant un paysage
A du bon quand je le cessai
Pour vous regarder au visage (this
stanza qtd. Bottom 231)
411.3: of / it hymn / work patience /
atlas herb / science ritual…, through 411.24 from “Prose (Pour Des Esseintes)” (Prose (for Des Esseintes)):
Car j’installe, par la science,
L’hymne des cœurs spirituels
En l’œuvre de ma patience,
Atlas, herbiers et rituels. […]
while insensible / authority trouble /
to humiliate / ore and motility / their impalpable / conscionable double / when
no / eye’ll hallucinate / air with / divisions:
L’ère d’autorité se trouble
Lorsque, sans nul motif, on dit
De ce midi que notre double
Inconscience approfondit
Que, sol des cent iris, son site
Ils savent s’il a bien été,
Ne porte pas de nom que cite
L’or de la trompette d’Été.
Oui, dans une île que l’air charge
De vue et non de visions
Toute fleur s’étalait plus large
Sans que nous en devisions. […]
(this stanza qtd. Bottom 231)
sage / sprig the / litigious who / tease
but / till the / blossom grow / too large / for their reasons:
Oh! sache l’Esprit de litige,
À cette heure où nous nous taisons,
Que de lis multiples la tige
Grandissait trop pour nos raisons
409.9 tohu
bohu: Heb. without form and void; see Genesis 1:2 and Jeremiah 4:23. In Fr.
means hubbub or disorder (Cox 260).
409.10 horsehair:
from which violin bows are made.
410.8 anti-matter:
a hypothetical form of matter that is identical to physical matter except that
its atoms are composed of antielectrons, antiprotons and antineutrons (AHD).
411.27 Don / Quixote:
protagonist of Don Quixote by Miguel
Cervantes (1547-1616).
412.14 PAGANINI
PRIZE: the following through 416.15 replicates the
announcement and rules, including typos and awkward translation, for the annual
Premio Paganini violin competition in which PZ, aged 19, participated in
Sept.-Oct. 1963, placing fourth (Ahearn 141). The competition was founded in
1954 and takes place in Nicolò Paganini’s hometown of Genoa, the winner giving
a performance on 12 Oct., the day of the Columbus celebrations, with Paganini’s
favorite violin, the "Guarneri del
Gesù," also known as the “Cannone.”
412.37 Porpora
(Carisch): Nicola Porpora (1686-1768), Italian composer; Carisch is a major
producer of sheet music.
413.1 Bach Ciaconna: the final movement of the
Partita No. 2 in D Minor for solo violin; ciaconna or chaconne is a form with
origins in rustic dance that evolved into a slow, stately composition.
413.2 Paganini
Capriccio n. 23: the 24
“Caprices” (1820) by Paganini (1782-1840) are considered among the most technically
difficult compositions for solo violin.
413.4 Paganini
/ two “Capricci” / (excluded the / one n. / 23): see 413.2.
413.8 Prokofieff
/ Scherzo: Sergei Prokofieff
(1891-1953), Russian composer. Scherzo is a lively movement, usually in minuet
form.
413.20 PAGANINI
Concerto / in D / Major first tempo:
Violin Concerto No. 1 (1817).
415.33 Palazzo
Tursi: built in 1565 on Genoa’s Via Gibraldi, it is now the town hall and
has on display three letters by Christopher Columbus and Paganini’s favorite
violin (see 417.16), which he willed to the city. Both were natives of Genoa.
415.34 October
/ 12 in / the evening / on occasion…: 12 October is the date when
Christopher Columbus first landed in the New World in 1492; annually celebrated
in Genoa.
416.11 Teatro
Comunale / dell’ Opera: in Genoa.
416.16 love’s
labour’s lost / we (?) four / indeed confronted…: from Shakespeare, Love’s Labour’s Lost V.ii.383-389:
Rosaline: In courtesy gives
undeserving praise.
We four indeed confronted were with four
In Russian habit: here they stay’d an hour,
And talk’d apace; and in that hour, my lord,
They did not bless us with one happy word.
I dare not call them fools; but this I think,
When they are thirsty, fools would fain have drink.
416.27 spit in / the hole, / man, and / tune again: from Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew III.i.41 (qtd. Bottom 395).
417.10 concours: Fr. contest or
competition.
417.13 segretly: conflated Italian-English:
It. segreto = secret.
417.14 let
4.th / play the / Paganini’s violin:
that is, PZ was allowed to play on Paganini’s favorite violin, the "Cannone" (see note at 415.14).
418.1 Whitman
on / Jenny Lind / for “all / her blandishments…: Jenny Lind (1820-1887) an
enormously popular singer from Sweden, who toured the U.S. under the sponsorship
of P.T. Barnum (see 12.189.24). In one of his Letters from Paumanok in the New
York Evening Post (15 Aug. 1851), Walt Whitman remarked: “The Swedish Swan, with all
her blandishments, never touched my heart in the least. I wondered at so
much vocal dexterity; and indeed
they were all very pretty, those leaps and double somersaults. But even in the grandest religious airs […]
executed by this strangely overpraised woman in perfect scientific style, let
the critics say what they like, it was a failure; for there was a vacuum in the
head of the performer” (Rieke identifies the source as a clipping; “Quotation
and Originality” 99).
418.18 tanglewoods:
the Tanglewood estate in Lenox, Massachusetts became the summer home of the
Boston Symphony Orchestra and also established a music center for young
professional musicians.
418.25 TV Day
/ Nippon:
418.29 “Rondeau”:
or rondo is a musical form in which one section intermittently recurs.
419.2 Pythagoreans’
Four / justice the / first perfect…: four is the number of justice for the
Pythagoreans, the highest virtue.
419.7 holy
holy / tetraktys…: 1+2+3+4=10; see 15.368.30. The
tetraktys was for the numerological Pythagoreans the source of all. The
tetraktys arranged as dots form a perfect triangle with four on each side—the
Triangle of Four at 419.26, thus “four really ten” (419.23-24):
•
• •
• •
•
• •
• •
In Pythagorean cosmology, of which the tetraktys is a
sacred representation, fire is at the center (419.25). LZ refers here to the
Pythagorean prayer to the tetraktys: “Bless
us divine number, thou that generatest
gods and men! O holy, holy tetraktys,
thou that containest the root and source
of eternally flowing creation. For number begins
with the profound, the pure unity
until it comes to the holy four;
then it begets the mother of all,
the all-encompassing, the all-bounding, the first born, the never-swerving,
never tiring holy ten, the keyholder
of all.”
419.30 The /
Golden Words / and you / shall know /
nature is / one…: the Golden
Words or Verses of Pythagoras are
a poeticized set of moral aphorisms ascribed to Pythagoras; there are various
versions and sources, but it appears LZ is using the translation of Thomas
Davidson:
These precepts having mastered, thou
shalt know
The system of the never-dying gods
And dying men, and how from all the rest
Each thing is sundered, and how held in one:
And thou shalt know, as it is right thou shouldst,
That nature everywhere is uniform,
And so shalt neither hope for things that lie
Beyond all hope, nor fail or any truth.
420.13 Demetrius
‘Egypt / . . singing harmonies / of seven vowels / hymning gods’…: through
420.36 from Demetrius, On Style (De Elocutione), important treatise on
rhetoric from the 1st or 2nd century BC, but otherwise nothing is known of Demetrius;
not to be confused with Demetrius Phalereus (c.345-283 BC), although this is a
common enough mistake:
“In Egypt the priests, when singing
hymns in praise of the gods, employ the seven vowels, which they utter in due succession; and the sound of these
letters is so euphonious that men listen
to it in preference to flute and lyre. To do away with this concurrence,
therefore, is simply to do away entirely with the music and harmony of
speech.—But perhaps this is not the right time to enlarge on these matters.
It is the concurrence of long
vowels which is most appropriately employed in the elevated style, as in the
words: ‘that rock he heaved uphillward’ (anô
hôtheske, Homer Odyssey 11.595).
The line, it may be said, is longer through the hiatus, and has actually
reproduced the mighty heaving of the stone. The words of Thucydides ‘that it
may not be attached to the mainland’ (mê
hêpeiros) furnish a similar example (Thucydides Bk. 6.1.2). Diphthongs also may clash with diphthongs, e.g. ‘the place
was colonised from Corcyra; of Corinth, however, was its founder’ (Kerkuraioi oikistês, Thucydides
Bk.1.24.2).
Well then, the concurrence of
the same long vowels, and of the same diphthongs, contributes to elevation of
style. On the other hand, the concurrence of different vowels produces, through
the number of sounds employed, variety
as well as elevation, an instance
being the word hêôs. In the word oiên
not only are the letters different
but also the breathings, one being rough
and the other smooth, so that there
are here many points of unlikeness.
In songs, too, trills can be
made on one and the same long letter, songs
being piled (so to say) on songs, so
that the concurrence of like vowels
may be regarded as a small part of a
song and as a trill.—These remarks must suffice on the question of hiatus and of
the kind of composition appropriate to the elevated style” (Para. 71-74; trans.
W. Rhys Roberts).
421.1 ‘Die
Elenden / sollen essen’ / Bach’s first / music (Leipzig Cantorate): Cantata
No. 75, first performed 30 May 1723 (the title means “the wretched shall eat”);
the first cycle of cantatas Bach composed in his position as Cantor of Saint
Thomas School, the most important musical position in Leipzig, which included
responsibility for the music at the four main churches of the city. This cycle
was performed at the Nikolaikirche (Terry 149).
421.30 mention distinguée: Fr. with
distinction.
421.14 I / had
no / patience with / another who forecast / me hungry…: probably EP, who
not only warned LZ about the professional hazards of being a poet, but claimed
his Cantos were intended as “the tale
of the tribe” (Guide to Kulchur 194),
a phrase he ascribes to Rudyard Kipling, although better known in Mallarmé’s
formulation from “Le Tombeau d’Edgar Poe”: “donner
un sens plus pur aux mots de la tribu” (to purify the language of the
tribe).
421.27 Sun no
/ hay State / exchanges’ rolling: this may be a condensed parody of Pound’s
“Sun up; work / sundown; to rest…” section of Canto 49 (Cantos 245), although it also has the look of a homophonic
translation.
421.37 Le Livre / de Mallarmé…:
Le “Livre” de Mallarmé gathers
together Stéphane Mallarmé’s highly fragmentary notes for his ultimate but
never realized project to create “The Book,” intended to fulfill Mallarmé’s
prophetic claim that “everything in the world exists in order to end up as a
book,” from “The Book: A Spiritual Instrument” (1895) (see 423.12). The
surviving notes, about 200 pages, edited with a lengthy introductory discussion
by Jacques Scherer, were published by Gallimard in 1957, and this volume, as
indicates (421.31-34), was given to LZ by PZ (Rieke 188).
422.2 professor
by / subsistence hazard…: like LZ, Stéphane Mallarmé (1842-1898) supported
himself by teaching English most of his life. The mention of “hazard” most
likely refers to Mallarmé’s last major work, the typographically innovative “Un
Coup de Dés” (first published 1897), whose full title and key words are “Un
coup de dés jamais n’abolira le hazard” (A throw of the dice never abolishes
chance).
422.16 a
stretto: It. draw together or draw close; a musical term for the
overlapping of fugal subjects or motifs, an intensifying of the contrapuntal
density that usually indicates the fugue’s conclusion.
422.21 Pegasus
/ from Medusa: when Perseus decapitated Medusa, the winged horse Pegasus
sprang forth from her bloody neck. Pegasus has associations with inspiration
because Athena tamed and presented him to the Muses. The winged Pegasus was
also a prominent logo for Mobile Oil Company.
422.23 his /
century’s dice…: see note at 422.2
423.12 ‘What
book? / what book? / entire enough / to take / the place / of all / the books…:
through 423.21 from Jacques Scherer’s forward to Le “Livre” de Mallarmé (see 421.37): “Mallarmé cherchait visiblement la structure d’un livre. Quel livre? Quel livre assez total, assez
parfait pour tenir lieu de tous les autres livres et du monde meme? Ce ne
pouvait être, de toute évidence, que le Livre, l’Œuvre, la somme à laquelle il
disait avoir travaillé une bonne partie de son existence et que la mort
l’empêcha d’achever” (3).
423.22 . .
Piece or / that play / with concert…: through 423.34 from Le “Livre” de Mallarmé (see 421.37) Folio 171(A) [underlining mine not
Mallarmé’s]:
Pièce
│ ou
cette représentation avec concert
dialogue poème
et symphonie
pour
scène et orch
—occupe le fond de l’Œ [Oeuvre]—
vers
et come publiIée en livre
journal
et vers
s’adapte – à un journal régulier
une fois pour toutes, et,
toutes les questions traitées,
Par quelqu’un qui les réduit à son
chapeau façon de tout
rendre
vierge – ce qui est exté-
rieur au poéme
___ et comme publication
c’est, par fragments de
423.36 Eureka: long speculative,
cosmological essay (1848) by Edgar Allen Poe (1809-1849). Mallarmé was a great admirer
as well as translator of Poe.
423.37 ‘each
fractioning / fragment the / ensemble’s rhythm’: from Le “Livre” de Mallarmé
Folio 172 (A), continuing from 171 (A) quoted at 423.22:
la représentation — chacun en
donnant
le rythme d’ensemble — selon sa fraction
Laquelle est — soit 1/8e?
424.3 Wherever / we put / our hats / is our / home:
see 4.12.13; also 423.33.
424.14 Blaise
Pascal’s / candle pleaded…: (1602-1674) from Pascal, Pensées (1669) Sec. I.9: “When we wish to correct with advantage
and to show another that he errs, we must notice from what side he views the
matter, for on that side it is usually true, and admit that truth to him, but
reveal to him the side on which it is false. He is satisfied with that, for he
sees that he was not mistaken and that he only failed to see all sides. Now, no one is offended at not seeing everything;
but one does not like to be mistaken, and that perhaps arises from the fact
that man naturally cannot see everything, and that naturally he cannot err in
the side he looks at, since the perceptions of our senses are always true”
(trans. W.F. Trotter). This is not, however, put in the mouth of a candle; a
paschal candle is put on the altar the day before Easter.
424.21 Leonov
first / to float / in space: Alsksei Leonov in Voskhod 2 on 18 March 1965.
424.27 ‘The
loan / from above / in favor / of all…: through 424.33 from Le “Livre” de Mallarmé Folio 62 (B) [underlining mine not Mallarmé’s]:
c’est comme un emprunt
dessus — si ceci fait
en faveur du monde
— à restituer au
peuple – en exemplaires
à bon marché
avec
mon humble gain —
425.3 ‘Man
/ does not / write with / light on / black crystal / night…: Reike
identifies through 425.11 as from Mallarmé, Quant
au livre, writings on “The Book” that anticipate the notes in Le “Livre” de Mallarmé (Rieke 174). LZ, however, finds these quotations in
Scherer’s discussion and actually very freely selects from both Mallarmé and
Scherer:
“«Tu remarquas, insiste-t-il, on n’écrit
pas, lumineusement, sur champ obscur, l’alphabet des astres, seul, ainsi
s’indique, ébauché ou interrompu; l’homme poursuit noir sur blanc.» L’encre
dont se servent les homes est ténèbre, obscurité; c’est avec ce noir qu’il faut
créer. L’homme trouve ce noir—autre contraste—dans la clareté de sa conscience,
symbolisée par un encrier de verre blanc ou de crystal : «L’encrier, cristal
comme une conscience, avec sa goutte, au fond, de ténèbres relative à ce que
quelque chose soit.» A la constellation céleste correspond la noire écriture
humaine, «pli de sombre dentelle qui retient l’infini». L’écriture est une
création inversée.
En choisissant «la goutte
d’encre apparentée à la nuit sublime» pour satisfaire à son «devoir de tout
recréer», Mallarmé se situe dans la grande tradition mystique de la Nuit qui
s’était épanouie au XIXe siècle dans un certain romantisme et dans les
tendances qui en découlent. A la parole divine : «Que la lumière soit», l’homme
moderne a répondu, revendiquant sa propre existence, par une création d’ombre :
«Que la nuit soit», qui retentit sur «le papier blême de tant d’audace». On
voit que Mallarmé suit ses métaphores. Ce papier blêmissant devant l’audace de
l’homme apporte une nouvelle justification, trop parfaite pour ne pas être
ironique, de la blancheur du support de l’écriture” (50-51).
425.15 ‘white
/ paper support’: see quotation at 425.3.
425.26 ‘crowd
buy’…:
425.31 paschal:
of or pertaining to Passover or Easter; see 424.14.
425.32 ‘The
last / thing settled / writing a / book…: from Pascal, Pensées Sec. I.19: “The last thing one settles in writing a book is
what one should put in first” (trans. W.F. Trotter).
426.3 20th
/ anniversary of / Hiroshima’s “A”: first atomic bomb was dropped on
Hiroshima on 6 August 1945.
426.17 ‘the
book / however seeming / never begins / or ends…: from Le “Livre” de Mallarmé
Folio 181 (A): “un livre ne commence ni
ne finit : tout au / plus fait-il semblant.”
426.21 . . the
crowd / other than / by silence…: through 426.26 from Scherer’s discussion
in Le “Livre” de Mallarmé: “Si la messe est
aux yeux de Mallarmé un spectacle exemplaire, c’est, entre autres raisons,
parce qu’elle permet à la foule qui y assiste d’y participer activement
par les répons, donc autrement que par le silence : «Quiconque y peut de
la source la plus humble d’un gosier jeter aux voûtes le répons en latin
incompris, mais exultant, participe entre tous et lui-même de la
sublimité se reployant vers le choeur.» Et c’est dans le même esprit que
Mallarmé salue la construction d’un grand théâter populaire […]” (113).
426.27 proposing
‘the / State raise / a trifling / tax on / works in / the public / domain…:
through 427.2 from Scherer’s discussion in Le
“Livre” de Mallarmé (Cox
267-268): “Et Mallarmé propose que l’État
institue, sur les œuvres tombées dans le domaine public, une taxe
minime, qui alimenterait une Caisse des Lettres; cette Caisse
pourrait organiser comme il convient «diverses célébrations littéraires» et
venir en aide aux jeunes écrivains, qui sont, pour les classiques,
des «légataires idéals, substitutés à la filiation directe ou par le
sang»” (117).
427.29 whose Book / prophecy…: see 421.37.
427.35 Sextus
Empiricus…: (c.160-210) Greek physician and philosopher,
an advocate and major source of Pyrrhonian skepticism.
428.3 ‘the
art / of letters by / comprehension cures / a most / inactive disease…: as
LZ indicates at 428.14, the source for the quoted passages through 430.2 is Against the Professors (Adversus Mathematicos), one of the three
major surviving works by Greek skeptic philosopher, Sextus Empiricus (see
427.35) as translated by R.G. Bury for the Loeb Classical Library. This work
consists of six books: Against the Grammarians, the Rhetoricians, the
Geometers, the Arithmeticians, the Astrologers and the Musicians respectively.
I.51-52: “For it is plain that
the end aimed at by every art is very useful for life. Some arts have been
introduced mainly with the object of averting things hurtful, others with that
of discovering things beneficial; medicine is an example of the first kind, being
a curative and pain-relieving art, and navigation of the second, for all men
are very much in need of assistance of the other nations. Since then
‘grammatistic’ [knowledge of letters] by
its comprehension of letters cures a most inactive disease, forgetfulness, and contains a most
necessary activity, memory, almost everything depends upon it, and without it
it is impossible to teach any necessary thing to others, and it will be
impossible to learn anything profitable from another. Thus the ‘grammatistic’
is one of the most useful arts.”
I.54: “[…] this does not refer
to the uselessness of the art which is found to deal with the elements and with
employing them in writing and reading, but that which is boastful and needlessly inquisitive.”
428.14 Against the / Professors…: see
428.3.
428.16 ‘the
subject / taught does not / exist…: from Sextus Empiricus, Against the Professors I.9: “It is no
part of our present task to pronounce upon the long and varied dispute
regarding learning which has been carried on by the philosophers. It is
sufficient to lay down that if any subject of learning exists, and if it is
attainable by man, four things must first be agreed upon—the subject taught, the teacher, the
learner, the method of learning. But, as we shall show, neither does the subject exist nor the teacher nor the learner nor the
method of learning; therefore no subject of learning exists.”
428.23 . . the
óbverse / perceptible by / all alike…: from Sextus Empiricus, Against the Professors I.36-38:
“Now teaching takes place
either by means of sense-evidence or by means of speech. But of these
sense-evidence is concerned with ostensible things, and the ostensible is
apparent, and the apparent, in so far as it appears, is perceptible by all alike, and what is perceptible by all alike is
incapable of being taught; therefore what is shown by sense-evidence is not
capable of being taught.—And speech
either signifies or does not signify something. Now if it signifies nothing,
neither does it teach anything. Now if it signifies nothing, neither does it
teach anything; while it signifies, it signifies a thing either by nature or by
convention. But it does not signify by nature since all men do not understand
the speech of all,—Greeks that of barbarians and barbarians that of Greeks, or
Greeks that of Greeks or barbarians that of barbarians. And if it signifies by
convention, it is plain that those who
have apprehended beforehand the objects to which the terms are conventionally
applied will also understand those terms, not that they are taught by them
what they did not know, but rather as reviving
what they did know; but those who lack learning about the things not known
will fail to do so.
If, then, the subject taught
does not exist, nor the teacher, nor the learner, nor the method of learning,
it is clear that neither does the subject learnt exist nor he who presides over
that subject.”
429.34 ‘wrong
moment / foolish for / sobering frenzied / youths…: from Sextus Empiricus, Against the Professors VI.7-8: “First in
order, let us state the views commonly expressed concerning Music by the
majority of people. If, they say, we welcome Philosophy as regulating human
life and repressing the passions of the soul, much more shall we welcome Music
because it produces the same results as Philosophy not by commanding us in a
violent manner but by means of a seductive persuasiveness. Thus Pythagoras,
having noticed on one occasion that the youths
who were in a state of Bacchic frenzy
from drunkenness differed not at all from madmen, advised the flute-player who
was with them the ‘spondean’ tune
[editor’s note: the sort of slow, solemn melodies used at spondai ‘libations’]; and when he had done as instructed, they
suddenly changed and became sober just as if they had been sober from the beginning.”
Sextus later comments (VI.23): “And, as to Pythagoras, in the first place he
was foolish in desiring to render
drunkards sober at the wrong moment,
instead of quitting the place; and
secondly, by trying to reform them in this way he confesses that flute-players
have more influence than philosophers for the reforming of morals.”
430.5 Aseptic
doctor: Sextus Empiricus; see 427.35.
430.15 Lunik’s
/ hunch moon / surface desolate…: both the Soviet Luna program and the U.S.
Lunar Orbiter programs (as well as Ranger and Surveyor programs) sent various
flights during the 1960s to photograph and land on the moon.
430.22 Alighieri threading / a needle…: Dante
Alighieri (1265-1321); there are several
mentions of needles in the Divine
Comedy, such as the following from the Inferno
XV.17-21:
and
each looked at us,
as in the evening men are wont
to look at one another under a new moon;
and towards us sharpened their
vision,
as an aged tailor does at the eye of
his needle.
However, a passage from Inferno XX.121-123 describing
female fortunetellers appears more directly related to the following allusion
to Catullus:
See the wretched women, who left the needle,
the shuttle, and the spindle, and
made themselves divineresses;
they wrought witchcraft with herbs
and images. (trans. J.A. Carlyle)
430.25 Gai’s /
spindle: Gai here is Catullus (Gaius Valerius Catullus), who in Carmina 64.306-322 describes the Parcae
(Fates) spinning the threads of life: “the Parcae began to utter soothtelling
chants […] while their hands duly plied the eternal task. The left hand held
the distaff clothed with soft wool; then the right hand lightly drawing out the
threads with upturned fingers shaped them, then with downward thumb twirled the
spindle poised with rounded whorl; and so with their teeth they still plucked
the threads and made the work even” (trans. F.W. Cornish).
430.27 astronauts’
violent / spinning docking / “God? We / were busy”: Gemini 8 was the first
manned docking of two spacecraft in orbit on 16 March 1966; however, a
malfunction caused the Gemini capsule to roll violently and forced an emergency
landing.
430.31 (West
of / Vatican Belvedere / Apollo “By / God a Mohawk”): the American painter
Benjamin West (1738-1820) reportedly exclaimed on seeing the classical statue
Apollo Belvedere at the Vatican: “My God! How like it is to a young Mohawk
warrior!”
430.35 Chatillon
‘fevered / with ivy / poison…: from Francis Parkman (1823-1893), The Oregon Trail (1849), Chap. 14: “For
my part, I was in hopes that Shaw and Henry Chatillon were coming to join us. I
would have welcomed them cordially, for I had no other companions than two
brutish white men and five hundred savages. I little suspected that at that
very moment my unlucky comrade was lying on a buffalo robe at Fort Laramie,
fevered with ivy poison, and solacing his woes with tobacco and Shakespeare.”
432.7 (the
aged / Cardinal wishes…: a full performance of Mozart’s Requiem Mass for JFK was given on 19
Jan. 1964 at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in Boston, presided over by
Cardinal Cushing (1895-1970), who apparently did have a rough voice. The Boston
Symphony Orchestra performed, conducted by Erick Leinsdorf (1912-1993) from
Vienna, who initially made his reputation in the U.S. in opera and was musical
director of the BSO from 1962-1969; he interrupted a performance of the
orchestra to announce the assassination of JFK.
432.15 enlightened
/ His Holiness / that his / medical advice…:
432.29 Sacco/Vanzetti:
two Italian-American anarchists, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, were
tried and convicted in 1921 of murder during an armed robbery. Both denied any
knowledge of the crime, and it was widely believed they were convicted due to
their radical politics; however, despite intense international interest and
numerous delays, they were executed in Massachusetts on 23 August 1927.
432.36 schlemiel:
bungler, dolt; Yiddish in origin (AHD).
433.1 ‘nectar
of / heather-honey gathering / of herbs…: evidently this is the “blarney”
description on a bottle of Irish Mist (433.12), a liqueur made from whiskey,
heather-honey and herbs and claiming to be an ancient recipe.
433.12 Irish Mist: see 433.1
434.10 From / thence sorrow / be ever / raz’d:
raz’d = erased; from Shakespeare, Pericles
I.i; Pericles speaking on the entrance of the daughter of Antiochus (qtd. Bottom 432):
See, where she comes apparell'd like the spring,
Graces her subjects, and her thoughts the king
Of every virtue gives renown to men!
Her face the book of praises, where is read
Nothing but curious pleasures, as from
thence
Sorrow were ever raz'd, and testy wrath
Could never be her mild companion.
You gods, that made me man, and sway in love,
That hath inflam'd desire in my breast
To taste the fruit of yon celestial tree
Or die in the adventure, be my helps,
As I am son and servant to your will,
To compass such a boundless happiness!
434.13 nine /
so soon twenty: PZ would have been nine on 22 Oct. 1952 and twenty in 1963,
more or less at the time he would have returned from the Paganini Prize
competition (412.14).
This concluding line points immediately to “A”-20, written prior to “A”-19 for
PZ’s 20th birthday and incorporating a poem he wrote at age nine.
