“A”-22
14 Feb. 1970-14 April
1973
Both
“A”-22 and “A”-23 are precisely 1000 lines each, both begin with a 100 line
segment in 5-line stanzas, and use throughout a 5 word count line. Leggott says
LZ apparently intended a submerged structure spanning 6000 years to the present
in both movements (55). While it has often been claimed that natural history
primarily supplies the language of “A”-22 and literary history that of “A”-23,
this must be taken in a flexible sense.
508.1 AN ERA / ANYTIME / OF YEAR: these
opening lines were originally published as a poetry postcard by Unicorn Press
in May 1970. The design, carefully dictated by LZ, had blue type against a
yellow background, as alluded to at 508.7 (Leggott 34).
508.4 Others letters a sum owed…: the following
hundred lines in five line stanzas were originally published as Initial by the Phoenix Book Shop in NYC,
Christmas 1970.
508.6 out of old fields: from Geoffrey
Chaucer, Parlement of Foules line 22
(Leggott 38-39). LZ had used the third line of the following stanza as the
epigraph to the First Movement of “Poem beginning ‘The’” (CSP 9):
For out of olde feldes, as men
seith,
Cometh al this newe
corn fro yeer to yere;
And out of olde
bokes, in good feith,
Cometh al this newe
science that men lere.
But now to purpos as of this matere—
To rede forth hit gan me so delyte,
That al the day me thoughte but a lyte.
508.14 let me live here ever, / sweet now, silence
foison: from Shakespeare, Tempest
IV.i (“foison,” meaning plentiful harvest or abundance, appears a few lines
previous to the following, spoken by Ceres: “Earth’s increase, foison plenty, /
Barns and garners never empty […]”):
Ferdinand: Let me live here ever:
So rare a wonder’d
father and a wise,
Makes this place
Paradise.
[Juno and Ceres whisper, and send Iris on employment.]
Prospero: Sweet, now, silence!
Juno and Ceres
whisper seriously,
There’s something
else to do: hush, and be mute,
Or else our spell is
marr’d.
509.32 an affair with the moon / it looked as if
it…: the first manned moon landing was achieved by Apollo 11 on 20 July
1969. Leggott (124-125) identifies these lines through 509.35 as from Laurence
Sterne (1713-1768), A Sentimental Journey
through France and Italy (1768), chapter entitled “The Monk, Calais”:
“I had scarce uttered the
words, when a poor monk of the order of St. Francis came into the room to beg
something for his convent. No man cares to have his virtues the sport of
contingencies—or one man may be generous, as another is puissant; —sed non quoad hanc—or be it as it may,—for
there is no regular reasoning upon the ebbs and flows of our humours; they may
depend upon the same causes, for aught I know, which influence the tides
themselves: ‘twould oft be no discredit to us, to suppose it was so: I’m sure
at least for myself, that in many a case I should be more highly satisfied, to
have it said by the world, ‘I had had an
affair with the moon, in which there was neither sin nor shame,’ than have
it pass altogether as my own act and deed, wherein there was so much of
both.[…]
It was one of those heads which
Guido has often painted,—mild, pale—penetrating, free from all commonplace
ideas of fat contented ignorance looking downwards upon the earth; —it look’d forwards; but look’d as if it look’d at something beyond
this world.— […]
The poor Franciscan made no reply: a hectic of a moment pass’d across his
cheek, but could not tarry—Nature seemed to have done with her resentments in
him; —he showed none:—.”
510.30 killick: (or killock) a small anchor or
weight for mooring a boat, sometimes consisting of a stone secured by pieces of
wood (CD).
511.12 surge sea erupts boiling molten / lava
island from ice…: Leggott identifies LZ’s source as a 10 April 1969 New York Times ad with a photo for a CBS
program on the birth of the volcanic island Surtsey off Iceland, which includes
the sentence: “Born 1963 in a cataclysmic boiling up of molten lava from
storm-blown Icelandic waters” (58). Between Nov. 1963 and June 1967, Surtsey
began to appear from the ocean floor in spectacular fashion, to finally rise
174 meters above sea level with an area of 2.8 kilometers.
511.16 idola: plural of idolon (idolum) an
image; a false mental image or conception, a mistaken notion, a fallacy. From
Gk. idōlon, phantom (CD).
511.18 History’s best emptied of names’ /
impertinence met on the ways: Cf. remarks on sounding one’s time without
using names in “It Was” (CF 183).
511.20 shows then the little earth / at regard of
the heavens: from Geoffrey Chaucer, Parlement
of Foules, lines 57-63 (Leggott 53):
Than shewed he him the litel erthe,
that heer is,
At regard of the hevenes quantite;
And after shewed he
him the nyne speres,
And after that the
melodye herde he
That cometh of thilke
speres thryes three,
That welle is of
musyk and melodye
In this world heer,
and cause of armonye.
511.22 unfolding tract and flying congregate /
birds their hiding valentine’s day: from the Medieval Latin colophon to
Chaucer’s Parlement of Foules: “Explicit tractatus de congregacione Volucrum
die sancti Valentini” (Here finishes (unfolds) the treatise of the
congregation of birds (flying) the Day of St. Valentine) (Leggott 54).
511.32 chitin: a tough, protective,
semitransparent substance, primarily a nitrogen-containing polysaccharide,
forming the principal component of arthropod exoskeletons and the cell walls of
certain fungi (AHD).
515.10 four eyes agreed birdprint wrote…: through 515.32 from Herbert A. Giles, A History of Chinese Literature (1901), a major source throughout
“A”-22: “China has her Cadmus in the person of a prehistoric individual named
Ts‘ang Chieh, who is said to have had four eyes, and to have taken the idea of
a written language from the markings of birds’ claws upon the sand. Upon this
achievement of his task the sky rained grain and evil spirits mourned by night
(6).
515.12 metal say chase, wood say / carve…:
from Giles quoting the Erh Ya
(Nearing the Standard), a guide on the correct use of terms: “For metal we say lou
(to chase); for wood k‘o (to carve);
for bone ch‘ieh (to cut), etc., etc.”
(45).
515.17 As to flood, but for / You we’d all be
fishes: from Giles quoting the Tso
Chuan (a commentary on the Spring and
Autumn Annuals) on the legendary Emperor Yü who successfully dealt with
great flooding: “How grand was the achievement of Yü, how far-reaching his
glorious energy! But for Yü we should all have been fishes” (8).
515.19 As to drought, why burn / a witch…:
from Giles quoting from the Tso Chuan
(see preceding): “In consequence of the drought the Duke wished to burn a
witch. One of his officers, however, said to him, ‘That will not affect the
drought. Rather repair your city walls and ramparts; eat less, and curtail your
expenditure; practice strict economy, and urge the people to help one another.
That is the essential; what have witches to do in the matter? If God wishes her
to be slain, it would have been better not to allow her to be born. If she can
cause a drought, burning her will only make things worse.’ The Duke took this
advice, and during that year, although there was famine, it was not very severe”
(27).
515.22 Annals moon’s summer midnight aerolite:
from Giles quoting from the Ch‘un Ch‘iu
(the Spring and Autumn Annals), one of the Confucian Five Classics: “In the 7th
year of Duke Chuang (B.C. 685), in summer, in the 4th moon, at
midnight, there was a shower of stars like rain” (25).
515.23 64 guesses at order…: from Giles
describing and quoting from the I Ching
(Book of Changes): “[Fu Hsi] subsequently increased the above simple
combinations [of hexagrams] to sixty-four double ones, on the permutations of
which are based the philosophical speculations of the Book of Changes. Each diagram represents some power in nature,
either active or passive, such as fire, water, thunder, earth, and so on. The
text consists of sixty-four short essays, enigmatically and symbolically
expressed, on important themes, mostly of a moral, social, and political
character […].” The following is a specimen (Legge’s translation):—“Text [hexagram] This suggests the idea
of one treading on the tail of a tiger, which does not bite him. There will be
progress and success […]” (21-22).
515.29 Stuck in a rut? try / a flagstaff…:
from Giles quoting from the Tso Chuan
(see 515.17): “In the rout which followed, a war-chariot of the Chin State
stuck in a deep rut and could not get on. Thereupon a man of the Ch’u State
advised the charioteer to take out the stand for arms. This eased it a little,
but again the horses turned round. The man then advised that the flagstaff
should be taken out and used as a lever, and at last the chariot was
extricated. ‘Ah,’ said the charioteer to the man of Ch’u, ‘we don’t know so
much about running away as the people of your worthy State’” (27-28).
516.7 Seventy plants, thirty / trees…:
describing the Shih Ching (Book of
Odes), Giles spends a paragraph enumerating the number of different plants,
trees, animals, birds, fishes and insects to be found in the odes (19).
516.35 hero dotes on: < Herodotus.
517.15 Pith or gore has 4 / seasons…: <
Pythagoras, 6th century BC pre-Socratic philosopher (see 15.368.31, 19.419.7, 30). Through at least 519.3 comes
primarily, but not entirely, from Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers (trans. R.D. Hicks)—a work (probably
3rd century AD) that uncritically compiles surviving information on the Greek
philosophers and is strong on biographical anecdote but weak on comprehensive
accounts of philosophy. LZ’s interest in Diogenes Laertius goes back at least
to “A”-14 (see 14.316.7,
319.3).
Through 517.26 from Diogenes
Laertius on Pythagoras (Quartermain, “Only Is Order Othered” 960-961):
517.15-17: “He divides man’s life into four quarters thus: ‘Twenty years a boy,
twenty years a youth, twenty years a young man, twenty years an old man; and
these four periods correspond to the four seasons, the boy to spring, the youth
to summer, the young man to autumn, and the old man to winter’” (VIII.10).
517.18: “We are told by Apollodorus the calculator that he offered a sacrifice
of oxen on finding that in a right-angled triangle the square of the hypotenuse
is equal to the squares on the sides containing the right angle” (VIII.11).
However, LZ’s “pursued pi beyond stratus” does not seem to refer primarily to
the Pythagorean theorem, but to the Pythagorean numerical philosophy in which
mathematics is extended to the cosmos. The mathematical pi (π) is a symbol used in geometry for the ratio of
the circumference of a circle to its diameter (CD).
517.18-19: “He too, according to Aristoxenus the musician, was the first to
introduce weights and measures into Greece” (VIII.14).
517.19-20: “As it is,
in certain [lines] he calls the eyes the portals of the sun” (VIII.29).
517.20-21, 23: “The
whole air is full of souls which are called genii or heroes; these are they who
send men dreams and signs of future disease and health, and not to men alone,
but to sheep also and cattle as well; and it is to them that purifications and
lustrations, all divination, omens and the like, have reference” (VIII.32).
517.21: “He bade his
disciples not to pick up fallen crumbs, either in order to accustom them not to
eat immoderately, or because connected with a person’s death; nay, even,
according to Aristophanes, crumbs belong to the heroes […]” (VIII.34).
517.21-22: “Of salt
he said it should be brought to table to remind us of what is right; for salt
preserves whatever it finds, and it arises from the purest sources, sun and
sea” (VIII.35).
517.23-25: “He forbids us to pray for ourselves, because we do not know what
will help us” (VIII.9).
517.25-26: “It was he
who first declared that the Evening and Morning Stars are the same, as
Parmenides maintains” (VIII.14). Diogenes Laertius notes this contested
attribution in his Life of Parmenides as well (IX.23); see following.
517.26 How can you, / opinion’s throbbing ear
aimless eye…: through 517.36 from Parmenides (6th century BC). Diogenes
Laertius’ Life of Parmenides is very short and cannot account for most of this
section. The probable source is Nahm’s Selections
from Early Greek Philosophy,
which LZ owned and used elsewhere (Leggott 389), and which incorporates various
translations. The following quotes and references from Parmenides’ fragments
are from Nahm in Richmond Lattimore’s translation.
517.26-28: “But do you keep your mind away from this way of inquiry [the way of
opinion], nor let the habit of long experience force you to direct along it an
aimless eye, a shrill ear and tongue; but examine by reason this much-contested
refutation that comes from me” (92).
517.30-33: “It must be that that, which may be spoken of and thought of, is
what is; for it is possible for it to
be, but it is impossible for nothing to be.” […] “And the decision of the
matter rests herein: either it is or it is not: and so it is decided, of
necessity, to give up one way as inconceivable and unnameable—for it is no true
way—and to admit that the other is actual and a true way. How then could that
which is be about to be? How could it
come into being? For if it has come to pass or is about to be, then it is not.
So becoming is put out of the question, and destruction is inconceivable” (93).
517.33-35: “It is no matter to me whence I take my beginning; for to that point
I shall return once more” (92).
517.36: “For thought comes to men with just that mixture of variable organs
which it happens to have at the time; for that which has power of thought is
for all men in any case the same thing, namely, the substance of their bodies;
and this thought is that which is preponderant” (95). This last fragment comes
from the Way of Opinion as opposed to the previous fragments from the Way of
Truth.
517.37 Pride drenched faster than fire…:
through 518.4 from Diogenes Laertius on Heraclitus (fl. 500 BC).
517.37-518.1: “Again he would say: ‘there is more need to extinguish insolence
than an outbreak of fire,’ and ‘The people must fight for the law as for
city-walls’” (IX.2).
518.2-3: “He reduces nearly everything to exhalation from the sea. This process
is the upward path. Exhalations arise from earth as well as from sea; those
from sea are bright and pure, those from earth dark. Fire is fed by the bright
exhalations, the moist element by the others” (IX.9). An unattributed epigramic
verse: “Do not be in too great a hurry to get to the end of Heraclitus the
Ephesian’s book: the path is hard to travel. Gloom is there and darkness devoid
of light. But if an initiate be your guide, the path shines brighter than
sunlight” (IX.16).
518.5 Love and hate—souls of / animals and plants…:
through 518.8 from Diogenes Laertius on Empedocles (5th century BC): “His
doctrines were as follows, that there are four elements, fire, water, earth and
air, besides friendship by which these are united, and strife by which they are
separated. These are his words: ‘Shining Zeus and life-bringing Hera, Aidoneus
and Nestis, who lets flow from her tears the source of mortal life,’ where by
Zeus he means fire, by Hera earth, by Aidoneus air, and by Nestis water. ‘And
their continuous change,’ he says, ‘never ceases,’ as if this ordering of
things were eternal. At all events he goes on: ‘At one time all things uniting
in one through Love, at another each carried in a different direction through
the hatred born of strife.’ […] The soul, again, assumes all the various forms
of animals and plants” (VIII.76-77). On the phrase “Love and hate” (518.5) also
see the famous opening phrase of Catullus, Carmina
85: “Odi et amo.”
518.9 Mind would not defend itself…: through
518.18 from Diogenes Laertius on Anaxagoras (c.500-428 BC):
518.9: “He was a pupil of Anaximenes, and was the first who set mind above
matter, for at the beginning of his treatise, which is composed in attractive
and dignified language, he says, ‘All things were together; then came Mind and
set them in order.’ This earned for Anaxagoras himself the nickname of Nous or
Mind […]” (II.6). Anaxagoras was tried by Athens for impiety, for declaring
“the sun to be a mass of red-hot metal,” and condemned to death. “When news was
brought him that he was condemned […], his comment on the sentence was, ‘Long
ago nature condemned both my judges and myself to death’” (II.13).
518.10-11: Anaxagoras’ concept of the homoeomeria appears in Diogenes Laertius
(II.8), but the image of bone here indicates LZ turned in this case to
Lucretius’ De Rerum Natura (see
12.164.19), who has an extensive passage on Anaxagoras’ theory: “Now let us
also search into the homoeomeria of Anaxagoras, as the Greeks term it, though
the poverty of our country’s speech does not suffer us to name it in our own
tongue; nevertheless the thing itself it is easy to set forth in words.
First—what he calls the homoeomeria of things—you must know that he thinks that
bones are made of very small and tiny bones, and flesh of small and tiny pieces
of flesh, and blood is created of many drops of blood coming together in union
[…], and all the rest he pictures and imagines in the same way” (I.830-840;
trans. Cyril Bailey).
518.12-13: “He declared the sun to be a mass of red-hot metal and to be larger
than the Peloponnesus, though others ascribe this view to Tantalus; he declared
that there were swellings on the moon, and moreover hills and ravines” (II.8).
518.14-16: “Silenus […] says that Anaxagoras declared the whole firmament to be
made of stones; that the rapidity of rotation caused it to cohere; and that if
this were relaxed it would fall” (II.12).
518.17-18: “Favorinus in his Miscellaneous
History says Anaxagoras was the first to maintain that Homer in his poems
treats of virtue and justice […]” (II.11).
518.18-19: “At length he retired to Lampsacus and there died. And when the
magistrates of the city asked if there was anything he would like done for him,
he replied that he would like them to grant an annual holiday to the boys in
the month in which he died; and the custom is kept up to this day” (II.14).
518.20 A porter’s neat wood bundle / talked wish,
question, answer, command: from Diogenes Laertius on Protagoras, 5th
century BC Sophist:
518.20: “He too invented the shoulder-pad on which porters carry their burdens,
so we are told by Aristotle in his treatise On
Education; for he himself had been a porter, says Epicurus somewhere. This
was how he was taken up by Democritus, who saw how skillfully his bundles of
wood were tied. He was the first to mark off the parts of discourse into four,
namely, wish, question, answer, command […] these he called the basic forms of
speech” (IX.53-54).
518.22 Our call’s nature, sound is / shocked air…:
through 518.26 possibly from Diogenes Laertius on Archelaus, student of Anaxagoras
and teacher of Socrates: “He was called the physicist inasmuch as with him
natural philosophy came to an end, as soon as Socrates had introduced ethics.
It would seem that Archelaus himself also treated of ethics, for he has
discussed laws and goodness and justice; Socrates took the subject from him
and, having improved it to the utmost, was regarded as its inventor. Archelaus
laid down that there were two causes of growth or becoming, heat and cold; that
living things were produced from slime; and that what is just and what is base
depends not upon nature but upon convention” (II.16). “Living things, he holds,
are generated from the earth when it is heated and throws off slime of the
consistency of milk to serve as a sort of nourishment, and in this same way the
earth produced man. He was the first who explained the production of sound as
being the concussion of air, and the formation of the sea in hollow places as
due to its filtering through the earth” (II.17).
518.26 most gorge to eat / I eat to live: from
Diogenes Laertius on Socrates: “He would say that the rest of the world lived
to eat, while he himself ate to live” (II.34).
518.27 Science: / a well—empty yet something / uncut: possibly from
Diogenes Laertius on Democritus, 5th century BC Atomist: “His opinions are
these. The first principles of the universe are atoms and empty space;
everything else is merely thought to exist […] in nature there is nothing but
atoms and void space” (IX.44-45).
518.29 Shadow speaking irks action: from
Diogenes Laertius on Democritus: “From him we have the saying, ‘Speech is the
shadow of action’” (IX.37).
518.30 Man
featherless two-legs, at which / the cosmopolite plucked…: through 519.3 from Diogenes Laertius on Diogenes of Sinope
(404-323 BC), one of the founders of the Cynic school of philosophy:
518.30-32: “Plato had defined Man as an animal, biped and featherless, and was
applauded. Diogenes plucked a fowl and brought it into the lecture-room with
the words, ‘Here is Plato’s man.’ In consequence of which there was added to
the definition, ‘having broad nails’” (VI.40).
518.31: “Asked where he came from, he said, ‘I am a citizen of the world (kosmopolites)’ [editor’s note: If this
answer is authentic, it apparently shows that the famous term ‘cosmopolitan’ originated
with Diogenes]” (VI.63).
518.32-33: “On being asked by somebody, ‘What sort of a man do you consider
Diogenes to be?’ ‘A Socrates gone mad,’ said he” (VI.54).
518.33-34: “Being asked what was the most beautiful thing in the world, he
replied, ‘Freedom of speech’” (VI.69).
518.34-35: “The only true commonwealth was that which is as wide as the
universe” (VI.72).
518.35-37: “Once he
saw the officials of a temple leading away some one who had stolen a bowl
belonging to the treasurers, and said, ‘The great thieves are leading away the
little thief’” (VI.45).
518.37-519.2: “And one day when Plato had invited to his house friends coming
from Dionysius, Diogenes trampled upon his carpets and said, ‘I trample upon
Plato’s vainglory.’ Plato’s reply was, ‘How much pride you expose to view,
Diogenes, by seeming not to be proud’” (VI.26). “As Plato was conversing about
Ideas and using the nouns ‘tablehood’ and ‘cuphood,’ he said, ‘Table and cup I
see; but your tablehood and cuphood, Plato, I can nowise see.’ ‘That’s readily
accounted for,’ said Plato, ‘for you have the eyes to see the visible table and
cup; but not the understanding by which ideal tablehood and cuphood are
discerned’” (VI.53).
519.3: “Diogenes is
said to have been nearly ninety years old when he died. Regarding his death
there are several different accounts. One is that he was seized with colic
after eating an octopus raw and so met his end. Another is that he died
voluntarily by holding his breath” (VI.76).
519.2 Dog Star: Sirius, associated with the
hottest part of the year and thus madness. Diogenes of Sinope (see 518.30) is
frequently associated with dogs: called a dog (by Plato among others), calling
himself a dog (Cynic means literally Hound according to a footnote at VI.60 in
Hicks’ edition of Diogenes Laertius’ Lives)
and on occasion acting like and living with dogs. Cf. the dog imagery
associated with Shakespeare’s version of Diogenes, Apemantus, in Timon of Athens.
519.19 ‘if your house were burning…: this
anecdote is attributed to Jean Cocteau in an interview.
519.24 3 years on ivory leaves, / slighting green,
leaves history poorer: from Herbert Giles, A History of Chinese Literature (see 515.10): “Lao Tzǔ said, ‘Leave all things to
take their natural course.’ To this Han Fei Tzǔ adds, ‘A man spent three years
in carving a leaf out of ivory, of such elegant and detailed workmanship that
it would lie undetected among a heap of real leaves. But Lieh Tzǔ said, “If God
Almighty were to spend three years over every leaf, the trees would be badly
off for foliage”’” (71).
520.23 Annual in all parts annual— / mere regard
won’t carp…: through 521.15 from Theophrastus (see 14.319.3), 3rd century
BC Aristotelian philosopher, Enquiry into
Plants, which is a meticulous cataloging of the types and characteristics
of plants and trees (Leggott 101-102, 390):
“In the case of trees we may
thus distinguish the annual parts, while it is plain that in annual plants all
the parts are annual: for the end of their being is attained when the fruit is
produced” (I.ii.2). Leggott points out that 520.24-25—“mere regard won’t carp,
own / fruit sees”—is a homophonic rendition from the Gk. μέχρι γάρ των καρπων η
φύσις (mechri gar ton karon e physis)
meaning: “when the fruit is produced.”
“However, since it is by the help of
the better known that we must pursue the unknown, and better known are the
things which are larger and plainer to our senses, it is clear that it is right
to speak of these things in the way indicated: for then in dealing with the
less known things we shall be making these better known things our standard,
and shall ask how far and in what manner comparison is possible in each case.
And when we have taken the parts, we must next take the differences which they
exhibit, for thus will their essential nature become plain, and at the same
time the general differences between one kind of plant and another” (I.ii.3).
“Now in using the terms ‘cultivated’
and ‘wild’ we must make these on the one hand our standard, and on the other
that which is in the truest sense ‘cultivated.’ Now Man, if he is not the only
thing to which the name is strictly appropriate, is at least that to which it
most applies” (I.iii.6).
“For there are some plants which
cannot live except in wet; and again these are distinguished from one another
by their fondness for different kinds of wetness; so that some grow in marshes,
others in lakes, others in rivers, others even in the sea, smaller ones in our
own sea, larger ones in the Red Sea. Some again, one may say, are lovers of
very wet places, or plants of the marshes, such as the willow and the plane.
Others again cannot live at all in water, but seek out dry places; and of the
smaller sorts there are some that prefer the shore” (I.iv.2).
“However all plants when young have
smoother bark, which gets rougher as they get older; and some have cracked
bark, as the vine; and in some cases it readily drops off, as in andrachne
apple and arbutus” (I.v.2).
520.35 Rooted:
felt / depth, density, core…: these are descriptive categories Theophrastus
uses to distinguish types of roots (I.vi.3-6).
“But
no root goes down further than the sun reaches, since it is the heat which
induces growth” (I.vii.1).
“The character and function of the
roots of the ‘Indian fig’ (banyan) are peculiar, for this plant sends out roots
from the shoots till it has a hold on the ground and roots again; and so there
comes to be a continuous circle of roots round the tree, not connected with the
main stem but at a distance from it” (I.vii.3).
“There is a peculiarity special to
the olive lime elm and abele: their leaves appear to invert the upper surface
after the summer solstice, and by this men know that the solstice is past. Now
all leaves differ as to their upper and under surfaces; and in most trees the
upper surfaces are greener and smoother, as they have the fibres and veins in
the under surfaces, even as the human hand has its ‘lines,’ but even the upper
surface of the leaf of the olive is sometimes whiter and less smooth. So all or
most leaves display their upper surfaces, and it is these surfaces which are
exposed to the light. Again most leaves turn towards the sun; wherefore also it
is not easy to say which surface is next to the twig; for, while the way in
which the upper surface is presented seems rather to make the under surface
closer to it, yet nature desires equally that the upper surface should be the
nearer, and this is specially seen in the turning back of the leaf towards the
sun” (I.x.2).
“Some have, as it were, spinous
leaves, as fir Aleppo pine prickly cedar; some, as it were, fleshy leaves; and
this is because their leaves are of fleshy substance, as cypress tamarisk
apple, among under-shrubs kneoros and
stoibe, and among herbaceous plants
house-leek and hulwort. This plant is good against moth in clothes” (I.x.4).
The obscure “hulwort” translates the Gk. πόλιον (L. polium) from which LZ gets “poley.”
“Among other trees there is none
that we know which has spines for leaves altogether, but it is so with other
woody plants, as akorna drypis
pine-thistle and almost all the plants which belong to that class. For in all
these spines, as it were, take the place of leaves, and, if one is not to
reckon these as leaves, they would be entirely leafless, and some would have
spines but no leaves at all, as asparagus” (I.x.6).
“So again a white fig may
change into a black one, and conversely; and similar changes occur in the vine”
(II.iii.1).
“Further we are told that the plants
chosen should be the best possible, and should be taken from soil resembling
that in which you are going to plant them, or else inferior [editor’s note: i.e. the shift should be into better
soil, if possible]; also the holes should be dug as long as possible
beforehand, and should always be deeper than the original holes, even for those
whose roots do not run very deep” (II.v.1).
“All those trees which are
propagated by pieces cut from the stem should be planted with the cut part
downwards, and the pieces cut off should not be less than a handsbreadth in
length, as was said, and the bark should be left on” (II.v.5).
523.15 traveler recorded / city shape of a
chlamys, / street for men on horse, / library…: from The Geography of Strabo (c.63 BC-c.21 AD), Greek geographer, historian
and philosopher, describing Alexandria, Egypt in Book XVII.1.8: “The shape of the area of the city is like a chlamys [a short military cloak]; the long sides of it are those
that are washed by the two waters, having a diameter of about thirty stadia, and
the short sides are the isthmuses, each being seven or eight stadia wide and
pinched in on one side by the sea and on the other by the lake. The city as a
whole is intersected by streets
practicable for horse-riding and chariot-driving, and by two that are very
broad, extending to more than a plethrum in breadth, which cut one another into
two sections and at right angles” (trans. H.L. Jones). Strabo also describes
the inhabited world as “chlamys-shaped” at II.5.6. Strabo describes Pharos, the
renowned harbor lighthouse in some detail, although he does not explicitly
mention the famous library.
524.3 Where they make a desert / call’t peace:
from Cornelius Tacitus (1st century AD), Agricola
in his account of the Battle of Mons Graupius (84 AD), in which the Romans
decisively defeated the Caledonians. In a speech to his army, the Caledonian
Chief Galgacus says: “We, the most distant dwellers upon the earth, the last of
the free, have been shielded until now by our remoteness and by the obscurity
which has shrouded our name. Now, the farthest bounds of Britain lie open to
our enemies. There are no more nations beyond us only waves, and rocks, and the Romans. Pillagers of the world,
they have exhausted the land by their indiscriminate plunder. East and west alike
have failed to satisfy them. To robbery, butchery and rapine, they give the
lying name ‘government.’ They create a
desert and call it peace. Which will you choose to follow me into battle, or to submit to
taxation, labour in the mines and all the other tribulations of slavery?
Whether you are to endure these forever or take a quick revenge, this battle
must decide.”
525.17 How to write history, policy / an
unteachable gift…: through 525.29 primarily from Lucian (c.120-200), “How
to Write History,” a satiric and didactic essay in the form of a letter:
“I maintain then that the
best writer of history comes ready equipped with these two supreme qualities:
political understanding and power of expression; the former is an unteachable
gift of nature, while power of expression may come through a deal of practice,
continual toil, and imitation of the ancients” (Para. 34).
“That, then, is the sort of
man the historian should be: fearless, incorruptible, free, a friend of free
expression and the truth, intent, as the comic poet [Aristophanes] says, on
calling a fig a fig and a trough a trough, giving nothing to hatred or to
friendship, sparing no one, showing neither pity nor shame nor obsequiousness,
an impartial judge, well disposed to all men up to the point of not giving one
side more than its due, in his books a stranger and a man without country,
independent, subject to no sovereign, not reckoning what this or that an will
think, but stating the facts” (Para. 41).
“Let his diction nevertheless
keep its feet on the ground, rising with the beauty and greatness of his
subjects and as far as possible resembling them, but without becoming more
unfamiliar or carried away than the occasion warrants. For then its greatest
risk is that of going mad and being swept down into poetry’s wild enthusiasm,
so that at such times above all he must obey the curb and show prudence, in the
knowledge that a stallion’s pride in literature as in life is no trifling
ailment. It is better, then, that when his mind is on horseback his exposition
should go on foot, running alongside and holding the saddle-cloth, so as not to
be left behind” (Para. 45).
“Do you know what the Cnidian
architect did? He built the tower on Pharos, the mightiest and most beautiful
work of all, that a beacon-light might shine from it for sailors far over the
sea and that they might not be driven on to Paraetonia, said to be a very
difficult coast with no escape if you hit the reefs. After he had built the
work he wrote his name on the masonry inside, covered it with gypsum, and
having hidden it inscribed the name of the reigning king. He knew, as actually
happened, that in a very short time the letters would fall away with the
plaster and there would be revealed: ‘Sostratus of Cnidos, the son of Dexiphanes,
to the Divine Saviours, for the sake of them that sail at sea.’ Thus, not even
he had regard for the immediate moment or his own brief life-time: he looked to
our day and eternity, as long as the tower shall stand and his skill abide”
(Para. 62; trans. K. Kilburn).
526.4 With two pupils to one / eye…: from
Herbert Giles, A History of Chinese
Literature (see 515.10),
on the scholar Shên Yo (A.D. 441-513): “Personally, he was remarkable for
having two pupils to his left eye. He was a strict teetotaler, and lived most
austerely. He had a library of twenty thousand volumes. He was the author of
the histories of the Chin, Liu Sung, and Ch’i dynasties. He is said to have
been the first to classify the four tones. In his autobiography he writes, ‘The
poets of old, during the past thousand years, never hit upon this plan. I alone
discovered its advantages.’ The Emperor Wu Ti of the Liang dynasty one day said
to him, ‘Come, tell me, what are these famous four tones?’ ‘They are whatever
your Majesty pleases to make them,’ replied Shên Yo, skillfully selecting for
his answer four characters which illustrated, and in the usual order, the four
tones in question” (138-139). See also 526.18-19 and 532.8.
526.18 Too full for talk. 4 / tones: see
11.125.14, where the former phrase is preceded by “four notes first.”
526.22 wind / in the hollow of hand: from
Proverbs 30:4: “Who has gone up to heaven and come down? Who has gathered up
the wind in the hollow of his hands? Who has wrapped up the waters in his
cloak? Who has established all the ends of the earth? What is his name, and the
name of his son? Tell me if you know!” (New International Version).
526.31 Escaped conceptions clouds darken hang /
without violence…: through 527.3 from Herbert Giles, A History of Chinese Literature (179-188) from poems by the late
Tang poet Ssu-Kung T’u (Sikong Tu, 834-908) and Su Shih (Su Dongpo, 1036-1101),
the preeminent Song dynasty poet (Leggott 404). Through 526.34 from Giles’
translation of a sequence of 24 12-line poems by Ssu-Kung T’u known as the “24
Modes (or Catagories),” an important Taoist inspired work of poetics, from
which LZ picks up phrases here and there:
from Poem i: Energy—Absolute.
Freighted with
eternal principles,
Athwart the mighty
void,
Where cloud-masses darken,
And the wind blows
ceaseless around,
Beyond the range of conceptions,
Let us gain the
Centre,
And there hold fast without violence,
Fed from an
inexhaustible supply.
From Poem iii: Slim—Stout.
With green leaves the
peach-trees are loaded,
The breeze blows
gently along the stream,
Willows shade the
winding path,
Darting orioles collect in groups.
From Poem xiii—Animal Spirits.
That they might come
back unceasingly,
That they might be
ever with us!—
The bright river,
unfathomable,
The rare flower just opening,
The parrot of the
verdant spring,
The willow-trees, the
terrace,
The stranger from the
dark hills,
The cup overflowing
with clear wine…
From Poem xiv—Close Woven.
So words should not
shock,
Nor thought be inept.
But be like the green of spring,
Like snow beneath the moon.
“Wisteria” at 526.35 is mentioned in
“Poem xxiii—Illumined,” but the rest of 526.35-527.2 is from two works by Su
Shih. First from a travel journal: “My friend accompanied these words upon his flageolet [a small flute], delicately
adjusting its notes to express the varied emotions
of pity and regret, without the
slightest break in the thread of sound which seemed to wind around us like
a silken skein. […] ‘Now you and I have fished and gathered fuel together on
the river eyots [small islands]. We have fraternized with the crayfish; we have
made friends with the deer. We have embarked together in our frail canoe; we
have drawn inspiration together from the wine-flask—a couple of ephemerides launched on the ocean in a rice-husk! Alas! Life is but an instant
of Time’” (Giles 223-224). Ephemeridae = the May-flies, day-flies or
ephemerids, so called from the shortness of their lives after reaching the
perfect winged state, in which they have no jaws, take no food, but propagate
and speedily die (CD). Cf. the striking bug image LZ includes in the Gilgamesh
passage at 23.543.22-23, also concerning the ephemeralness of mortal existence.
526.37-527.3 adapted from a
dedicatory poem by Su Shih (see 526.31):
Should Heaven rain pearls, the cold cannot wear them as clothes;
Should Heaven rain
jade, the hungry cannot use it as food.
It has rained without
cease for three days—
Whose was the
influence at work?
Should you say it was
that of your Governor,
The Governor himself
refers it to the Son of Heaven [i.e. the Emperor].
But the Son of Heaven
says “No! it was God,”
And God says “No! it
was Nature.”
And as Nature lies
beyond the ken of man,
I christen this
arbour instead. (Giles 225-226)
527.14 prase: A light green or light
grayish-green variety of translucent chalcedony.
529.11 Order without Ordainer: see 531.18-19
and quotation below from Thomas Browne.
530.20 blind mole perswaded / any beast can see: from Edmund Spenser (1552-1599),
dedicatory epistle to The Shepheardes
Calender (1579): “The second shame no lesse then the first, that what they
so vnderstand not, they straight way deeme to be sencelesse, and not at al to
be vnderstode. Much like to the Mole
in Æsopes fable, that being blynd
her selfe, would in no wise be perswaded,
that any beast could see.”
530.25 old beachcomber’s gripe—the / folly . . craving for power . . circumnavigating: from Luis Vaz de Camões
(c.1524-1580), The Lusiads, the
Portuguese heroic epic on the voyages of Vasco da Gama around Africa to India.
LZ quotes from the end of Canto 4 when an old man harangues de Gama’s fleet as
it departs from Lisbon harbor; he is not described as a “beachcomber,” although
this might also allude to Camões himself who was shipwrecked at least twice:
“‘Oh, the folly of it, this craving for power, this thirsting after
the vanity we call fame, this fraudulent pleasure known as honour that thrives
on popular esteem! When the vapid soul succumbs to its lure, what a price it
exacts, and how justly, in perils, tempests, torments, death itself! It wrecks
all peace of soul and body, leads men to forsake and betray their loved ones,
subtly yet undeniably consumes estates, kingdoms, empires […]’” (119-120;
trans. William C. Atkinson).
531.1 come at last into / ample fields…:
through 531.9 from Robert Burton (1577-1640), The Anatomy of Melancholy
(121):
“As a long-winged hawk, when he is first whistled off the fist, mounts aloft,
and for his pleasure fetcheth many a circuit in the air, still soaring higher
and higher, till he be come to his full pitch, and in the end when the game is
sprung, comes down amain, and stoops upon a sudden: so will I, having now come at last into these ample fields of air, wherein I may
freely expatiate and exercise myself for my recreation, awhile rove, wander
round about the world, mount aloft to those ethereal orbs and celestial
spheres, and so descend to my former elements again.” […]
“The
Turks have a drink called coffee (for they use no wine), so named of a berry as
black as soot, and as bitter, (like that black drink which was in use amongst
the Lacedaemonians, and perhaps the same,) which they sip still of, and sup as warm as they can suffer; they spend much
time in those coffeehouses, which are somewhat like our alehouses or taverns, and
there they sit chatting and drinking to drive away the time, and to be merry
together, because they find by experience that kind of drink, so used, helpeth
digestion, and procureth alacrity. Some of them take opium to this purpose.”
[…]
“Amongst
so many thousand authors you shall scarce find one, by reading of whom you
shall be any whit better, but rather much worse, quibus inficitur potius, quam perficitur, by which he is rather
infected than any way perfected.—Qui
talia legit, Quid didicit tandem, quid scit nisi somnia, nugas? So that
oftentimes it falls out (which Callimachus taxed of old) a great book is a great
mischief.” […]
“Though
there were many giants of old in physic and philosophy, yet I say with Didacus
Stella, A dwarf standing on the shoulders
of a giant may see farther than a giant himself; I may likely add, alter, and
see farther than my predecessors; and it is no greater prejudice for me to
indite after others, than for Aelianus Montaltus, that famous physician, to
write de morbis capitis after Jason Pratensis, Heurnius, Hildesheim, &c.,
many horses to run in a race, one logician, one rhetorician,
after another.” […]
“If
the patron be precise, so must his chaplain be; if he be papistical, his clerk
must be so too, or else be turned out. These are those clerks which serve the
turn, whom they commonly entertain, and present to church livings, whilst in
the meantime we that are University men, like so many hidebound calves in a pasture,
tarry out our time, wither away as a flower ungathered in a garden, and are
never used; or as so many candles, illuminate ourselves alone, obscuring one
another's light, and are not discerned here at all, the least of which,
translated to a dark room, or to some country benefice, where it might shine
apart, would give a fair light, and be seen over all. Whilst we lie waiting
here as those sick men did at the Pool of Bethesda, till the Angel stirred the
water, expecting a good hour, they step between, and beguile us of our
preferment. I have not yet said, if after long expectation, much expense,
travel, earnest suit of ourselves and friends, we obtain a small benefice at
last; our misery begins afresh, we are suddenly encountered with the flesh,
world, and devil, with a new onset; we change a quiet life for an ocean of troubles, we come to a ruinous house,
which before it be habitable, must be necessarily to our great damage repaired;
[…].”
531.7 poet living tomb of his / games: Sir
Thomas Browne (1605-1682), whose Hydriotaphia,
or Urne-Buriall was originally published with The Garden of Cyrus (see 531.9), from which LZ primarily draws on
in the following.
531.9 the
emphatical decussation / quincunx…: a quincunx is an arrangement of things by fives in a square
or a rectangle, one being placed at each corner and one in the middle;
especially such an arrangement of trees repeated indefinitely, so as to form a
regular group with rows running in various directions (see 533.16 and 29).
Through 531.16 from Sir Thomas Browne, The
Garden of Cyrus, or The Qunicunviall, Lozenge, or Net-work Plantations of the
Ancients, Artifically, Naturally, Mystically Considered (1658):
“Which we shall take for
granted as being accordingly rendred by the most elegant of the Latines; and by no made term, but in use
before by Varro. That is the rows and
orders so handsomely disposed; or five trees so set together, that a regular
angularity, and through prospect, was left on every side, Owing this name not
only unto the Quintuple number of Trees, but the figure declaring that number,
which being doubled at the angle, makes up the Letter X, that is the Emphaticall decussation, or
fundamentall figure” (Chap. I).
“Quincuncial forms and ordinations,
are also observable in animal figurations. For to omit the hioides or
throat-bone of animals, the furcula or
merry-thought
in birds, which supporteth the scapulæ,
affording a passage for the windepipe and the gullet, the wings of Flyes,
and disposure of their legges in their first formation from maggots, and the
position of their horns, wings and legges, in their Aurelian cases and swadling clouts” (Chap. III).
“To enlarge this contemplation unto
all the mysteries and secrets, accomodable unto this number, were inexcusable
Pythagorisme, yet cannot omit the ancient conceit of five surnamed the number
of justice; as justly dividing between the digits, and hanging in the centre of
Nine, described by square numeration, which angularly divided will make the
decussated number; and so agreeable unto the Quincunciall Ordination, and rowes
divided by Equality, and just decorum,
in the whole com-plantation; And might be the Originall of that common game
among us, wherein the fifth place is Soveraigne, and carrieth the chief
intention. The Ancients wisely instructing youth, even in their recreations
unto virtue, that is, early to drive at the middle point and Central Seat of
justice.
Nor can we omit how agreeable unto
this number an handsome division is made in Trees and Plants, since Plutarch, and the Ancients have named it
the Divisive Number, justly dividing the Entities of the world, many remarkable
things in it, and also comprehending the general division of Vegetables. And he
that considers how most blossoms of
Trees, and greatest number of flowers, consist of five leaves; and therein doth rest the setled rule of nature; So
that in those which exceed there is often found, or easily made a variety; may
readily discover how nature rests in this number, which is indeed the first
rest and pause of numeration in the fingers, the naturall Organ is thereof. Nor
in the division of the feet of perfect animals doth nature exceed this account.
And even in the joints of feet, which in birds are most multiplied, surpasseth
not this number; So progressionally making them out in many, that from five in
the fore-claw she descendeth unto two in the hindemost; And so in fower feet
makes up the number of joynts, in the five
fingers or toes of man.
Not to omit the Quintuple Section of
a Cone, of handsome practice in Ornamentall Garden-plots, and in some way
discoverable in so many works of Nature; In the leaves, fruits, and seeds of
Vegetables, and scales of some Fishes, so much considerable in glasses, and the
optick doctrine; wherein the learned may consider the Crystalline humour of the
eye in the cuttle fish and Loligo.
He that forgets not how Antiquity
named this the Conjugall or Wedding
number, made it the Embleme of the most remarkable conjunction, will
conceive it duely appliable unto this handsome Oeconomy, and vegetable
combination; May hence apprehend the allegorical sence of that obscure
expression of Hesiod, and afford no
improbable reason why Plato admitted
his Nuptiall guests by fives, in the kindred of the married couple.” […]
“Night which Pagan Theology could
make the daughter of Chaos, affords
no other advantage to the description of order: Although no lower then that
Masse can we derive its Genealogy. All
things began in order, so shall they end, and so shall they begin again;
according to the ordainer of order and mystical Mathematicks of the City of
Heaven” (Chap. V).
531.18 make their worst use of / time’s shortness:
from Jean de La Bruyère (1645-1696), Les
Caractères de Théophraste, traduits du Grec, avec les caractères et les moeurs
de ce siècle (1688-1696).
531.19 fletcher’s / mark—our ballads care little / who makes the laws: this is a
frequently quoted remark by Andrew Fletcher (1655-1716), Scottish statesman,
that exists in a number of versions. However, LZ ‘s source is Herbert Giles, A History of Chinese Literature (see 515.10), who seems to
have slightly improved on the original: [speaking of the Book of Odes] “Confucius may indeed be said to have anticipated the
apophthegm attributed by Fletcher of Saltown to a ‘very wise man,’ namely, that
he who should be allowed to make a nation’s ‘ballads need care little who made
its laws’” (13).
531.34 To
guard / the glories of a face . . : from John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester
(1647-1680), “A Pastoral Dialogue between Alexis and Strephon”:
The Gods no sooner give a Grace,
But fond of their own Art,
Severely jealous, ever place
To guard the Glories of a Face
A Dragon in the Heart.
531.36 the
senses are too gross / and he’ll contrive a Sixth / to contradict the other
Five: from Rochester (see preceiding note), “A Satyr against Reason and
Mankind” (lines 8-9).
532.4 moving the Earth . . a proposal: from
Jonathan Swift, A Tale of a Tub
(1710) Section I: “I am informed, Our two Rivals
have lately made an Offer to enter into the Lists with united Forces, and
Challenge us to a Comparison of Books, both as to Weight and Number. In
Return to which, (with License from our President)
I humbly offer two Answers: First, We say, the proposal is like that which Archimedes
made upon a smaller Affair [Swift’s
footnote: Viz. About moving the Earth],
including an impossibility in the Practice; For where can they find Scales of Capacity enough for the first, or an
Arithmetician of Capacity enough for
the Second? Secondly, We are ready to accept the Challenge, but with this
Condition, that a third indifferent Person be assigned, to whose impartial
Judgment it shall be left to decide, which Society each Book, Treatise or
Pamphlet do most properly belong to.”
532.5 Ox world needs put on / the Furniture of a
Horse: from Jonathan Swift, “An Apology For the, &c.” from A Tale of a Tub (1710): “The dull,
unwieldy, ill-shaped Ox would needs put
on the Furniture of a Horse, not considering he was born to Labour, to plow
the Ground for the Sake of superior Beings, and that he has neither the Shape,
Mettle, nor Speed, of that nobler Animal he would affect to personate.”
532.7 who can make Shadows, no / thanks to Sun?:
from Jonathan Swift, A Tale of a Tub
Section XI:
“Jack
had not only calculated the first revolutions of his brain so prudently, as to
give rise to that epidemic sect of Æolists, but succeeding also into a new and
strange variety of conceptions, the fruitfulness of his imagination led him
into certain notions, which, although in appearance very unaccountable, were
not without their mysteries and their meanings, nor wanted followers to
countenance and improve them. I shall therefore be extremely careful and exact
in recounting such material passages of this nature as I have been able to
collect, either from undoubted tradition, or indefatigable reading; and shall
describe them as graphically as it is possible, and as far as notions of that
height and latitude can be brought within the compass of a pen. Nor do I at all
question, but they will furnish plenty of noble matter for such, whose
converting imaginations dispose them to reduce all things into types; who can make shadows, no thanks to the sun, and then mould them into
substances, no thanks to philosophy; whose peculiar talent lies in fixing
tropes and allegories to the letter, and refining what is literal into figure
and mystery.”
532.11 No,
one cannot play / everything at first sight: attributed to J.S. Bach.
532.17 An historian’s / vindication: minute
particulars of little / moment…: from Edward Gibbon, A Vindication of Some Passages in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth chapters
of the History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1779):
“The Public may not, perhaps, be
very eager to assist Mr. Davis in his favourite amusement of depluming me. They may think, that if
the materials which compose my Two last Chapters are curious and valuable, it
is of little moment to whom they
properly belong. If my readers are
satisfied with the form, the colours, the new arrangement which I have given to
the labours of my predecessors, they may perhaps consider me not as a
contemptible Thief, but as an honest and industrious Manufacturer, who has
fairly procured the raw materials, and worked them up with a laudable degree of
skill and success” (Chap. XVII).
“In the consideration of any
extensive subject, none will pretend to
have read all that has been written, or to recollect all that they have
read: nor is there any disgrace in recurring to the writers who have
professionally treated any questions, which, in the course of a long narrative,
we are called upon to mention in a slight and incidental manner” (Chap. XVII).
“Under these circumstances, it is
the duty of an impartial judge to be counsel for the prisoner, who is incapable
of making any defence for himself; and it is the first office of a counsel to
examine with distrust and suspicion,
the interested evidence of the accuser. Reason justifies the suspicion, and it
is confirmed by the constant experience of modern History, in almost every
instance where we have an opportunity of comparing the mutual complaints and
apologies of the religious factions,
who have disturbed each other's happiness in this world, for the sake of
securing it in the next” (Chap. XX).
“The spirit of resentment, and every
other lively sensation, have long since been extinguished; and the pen would
long since have dropped from my weary hand, had I not been supported in the
execution of this ungrateful task, by the consciousness, or at least by the
opinion, that I was discharging a debt of honour to the Public and to myself. I
am impatient to dismiss, and to dismiss FOR EVER, this odious controversy, with
the success of which I cannot surely be elated; and I have only to request, that, as soon as my Readers
are convinced of my innocence, they
would forget my Vindication” (Chap.
XX).
532.26 the
angel philosophizes / paths bordered with nevergreen: from
Georg Christoph Lichentberg (1742-1799), Aphorisms;
line 532.27 quotes a complete aphorism, while the preceding phrase is probably
from: “If an angel were to tell us about his philosophy, I believe many of his
statements might well sound like ‘2 x 2 = 13’” (trans. Franz H. Mautner &
Henry Hatfield).
532.34 Between grape bay and hungry / bay wind
song and sea / foam…: Grape Bay and Hungry Bay are along the Paget area on
the south shore of Bermuda where the Zukofskys took a trip in Jan. 1972,
details from which appear throughout much of the following pages. Apparently
they stayed in a beach cottage called Sea Foam, next to another called Wind
Song (Leggott 299). While on this trip they received news that LZ’s sister
Fanny Wand had died on 15 Jan., which accounts for the tears at 533.6 and grief
at 534.13 (Leggott 121).
533.9 pageant / bay inlet…: see 532.34.
533.16 qunincunx: see 531.9.
533.17 in town: Hamilton, the major city and
port of Bermuda a short distance from Piaget.
533.21 lily-turf (snakebeard…: a grass-like
form of evergreen that grows in clumps; common names include mondo grass,
lily-turf and snakebeard.
533.26 discount / banking…: Bermuda has a long
history of off-shore banking and as a tax haven.
533.28 extinct volcanic island: although famous as a coral reef atoll, Bermuda is
actually formed from a long extinct volcano.
534.15 sister: see 532.34.
534.15 . . beyond the laboratory brain . . :
this is the final phrase of Henry James’ essay, “Is There a Life After Death?”
(1910): “If I am talking, at all events, of what I ‘like’ to think I may, in
short, say all: I like to think it open to me to establish speculative and
imaginative connections, to take up conceived presumptions and pledges, that
have for me all the air of not being decently able to escape redeeming
themselves. And when once such a mental relation to the question as that begins
to hover and settle, who shall say over what fields of experience, past and
current, and what immensities of perception and yearning, it shall not spread the protection of its wings?
No, no, no—I reach beyond the
laboratory-brain.” Originally published in Harper’s Bazar and then collected with essays by various prominent
writers on the question of the future life in In After Days: Thoughts on the Future Life (1910). It is perhaps
worth noting that almost all the quotations from Henry James scattered
throughout LZ’s works refer to stories that deal in one way or another with the
persistence of the dead among or in the living.
534.21 Mist, summit disembodied lake…: at this
point the scene shifts from Bermuda to Bellagio, Italy, situated on a
promontory (535.5) at the point where Lake Como divides into two branches
(535.3). The Zukofskys spent 9 Nov. to 14 Dec. 1972 on a Rockefeller Foundation
fellowship at the Villa Serballoni in Bellagio (Leggot 9, 403).
534.23 these our actors . . Ayre . .: from Shakespeare, The Tempest IV.1:
Prospero: Our Reuels now are ended:
These our actors,
(As I foretold you) were all Spirits, and
Are melted into Ayre, into thin
Ayre,
And like the baselesse fabricke of this vision
The Clowd-capt Towres, the gorgeous Pallaces,
The solemne Temples, the great Globe it selfe,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolue,
And like this insubstantiall Pageant faded
Leaue not a racke behinde: we are such stuffe
As dreames are made on; and our little life
Is rounded with a sleepe:
535.8 black
hellebore: a plant of the genus Helleborus,
of the natural order Ranunculaceae,
particularly H. niger, the black
hellebore or Christmas rose, a native of southwestern Europe (CD). The flower
is in fact white but called black because most species are poisonous.
535.13 a peasant gardener’s attention…:
according to Leggott (300, 403), this is a gardener, Mario Ferrario, at the
Villa Serbelloni (see 534.21).
535.15 iberis: a genus of cruciferous plants,
consisting of annual, perennial, and shrubby species, distinguished by having
the two outer petals larger then the others; most species are native to the
Mediterranean and believed to have medicinal properties against rheumatism,
gout and other diseases; probably from L. Iberia,
Spain (CD).
535.15 evonymous: a shrub.
535.23 cento: a patchwork; in music and literature
a composition made up of a selection from the work of various authors or
composers, a pasticcio, a medley (CD; Ahearn 188).
535.27 still-vext
Bermoothes . . where / once thou call’dst me up…: from Shakespeare, The Tempest I.ii (Shakespeare used a contemporary
account of Bermuda as partial inspiration for this play):
Ariel: Safely in harbour
Is the king's ship;
in the deep nook, where once
Thou call'dst me up at midnight to fetch dew
From the still-vex'd Bermoothes, there she's hid:
The mariners all under
hatches stow'd;
Who, with a charm
join'd to their suffer'd labour,
I have left asleep
[…]
