“A”-23
13 April
1973-21 Sept. 1974
536.1 An unforeseen delight a round / beginning
ardent; to end blest…: beyond echoing the first lines of “A”-1, LZ is
evoking his B-A-C-H theme of “A”-12: blest-ardent-happy (see 12.127.16f), with
Celia “submerged” as an acronym two pages later at 538.10: “submerged name in
coldénia” (Ahearn 191-192).
537.8 equisetum—horse
+ bristle / (field horsetail): equisetum is a plant that Lorine Niedecker
described to LZ as “little fern-like plants with hollow stems” (Penberthy 149)
and mentions several times growing in the marshy areas around her house in
Black Hawk, Wisconsin, as well as that its common name is “horsetail” (154);
see Niedecker’s poem: “I rose from marsh mud, / algae, equisetum, willows, /
sweet green, noisy / birds and frogs […]” (Collected
Works 170). Horsehair is also used for making violin bows.
537.29 damp cannot warm the houses— / linden
thrives…: according to Leggott (325-326), this passage is based on memories
of a trip to London the Zukofskys took in May 1969.
538.10 submerged name in coldénia: see 536.1;
aside from Celia, a less submerged name in coldenia is Cadwallader Colden the
colonial governor and scientist (see 8.102.19, 12.256.24) for whom Linnaeus named the
coldenia. Coldenia is a small shrub with pinkish white flowers that prefers dry
areas.
538.10 second / paradise: from Paracelsus; see
12.146.24.
538.11 turnsole: a plant of the genus heliptropium, heliotrope; sunflower (from
L. tornare, to turn + sol, the sun).
538.11 borage: hairy blue-flowered European
annual herb long used in herbal medicine and eaten raw as salad greens or
cooked like spinach. The flower of the borage is bright blue, star-shaped and
has black anthers forming a cone at the center.
538.16 oak-ilex / holm: ilex is L. for the holm oak or holly. Holm also means an islet or a
river-island; a river-meadow, a low flat tract of rich land by the side of a
river (CD); see 557.14.
538.31 80 / flowers: LZ was already planning
his post-“A” project, 80 Flowers, by the time he wrote “A”-23;
see 562.9.
539.3 words earth: < Wordsworth.
539.8 Ye nó we see hay / io we hay we see…:
through 539.18 adapted from a transcription of an Arapaho song related to the
Peyote cult found in C.M Bowra’s Primitive
Song (Rieke 218-219); the Arapaho are a Native American plains tribe
closely associated with the Ghost Dance religion:
ye no wi ci hay
yo wi hay
wi ci hay
yo wi ci no
wi ci ni
(repeat from start)
wi ni wi ci hay
yo wi hay
wi ci hay
yo wi ci ni hay
yo wi ci ni hay
yo wi how
wi ci hay
yo wi ci no
wi ni no wa (Bowra 60)
Bowra offers this as an example of a song of purely “emotive sounds” without
being meaningful words, a relatively late example of the most primitive origins
of song. Part of Bowra’s argument is that adapting actual words to a song is a
relatively sophisticated and difficult cultural achievement.
539.19 Akin jabber: from Australian Aranda
song, “agkin jaba” (Woods 212).
540.6 Praise! gill . . gam . . mesh…: <
Gilgamesh. Through 543.31 is a condensed paraphrase of the Epic of Gilgamesh based on the translation by N.K. Sandars (Penguin
Classics). In LZ’s version, Gilgamesh = Strongest, Enkidu = One Kid or Stronger, Utnapishtim =
Everlasting. For a summary paraphrase of Sanders’ version that attempts to
outline the narrative and include details relevant to LZ’s reworking, Click here.
Although for the most part LZ’s version is identifiably indebted to Sandars,
albeit compacted and at times given different emphasis, there a couple of
parenthetical interpolations from elsewhere.
541.12 (Later he / agnized: rejected son supernal
being…:
541.16 (decalcomania): < Fr. décalcomania, < décalquer, counter-trace, + Gk. μανία, madness. The practice or process of transferring pictures to
marble, porcelain, glass, wood, and the like. It consists usually in simply
gumming a film bearing a colored print to the object, and then removing the
paper backing of the film by aid of warm water, the colored image remaining
fixed (CD).
541.26 seel: to close, or close the eyes of,
with a thread (e.g. a hawk); hence, to close, as a person’s eyes, blind,
hoodwink (CD).
541.28 roller-bird: or simply roller, any bird
of the family Coraciidae: so called
from the way they roll or tumble about in flight; a kind of domestic pigeon,
one of the varieties of tumblers (CD).
542.7 sapphire: here and at 542.21, LZ
translates Sanders’ lapis lazuli as sapphire, which as Leggott notes (182) is
apparently accounted for by the etymological note for sapphire in CD: < L.
sapphires, ML. also saffrus, safirus, < Gk. δάπφειρος, sapphire, or more probably lapis lazuli, <
Heb. sappīr = Arabic çafīr (> Persian saffīr), sapphire.
542.14 stirps: race, lineage, family; in law,
the person from whom a family is descended (CD).
545.14 shawm: a medieval and Renaissance
double-reed instrument, forerunner of the oboe.
545.36 Anthem th’new meadow: / rhododendron,
crocus-eye color violet, white / hyacinthine narcissus’ own: through 546.3
from Homeric Hymn to Demeter (Leggott 191); using the Loeb text, a combination
of homophonic suggestion and the English translation:
nosphin Dêmêtros chrusaorou, aglaokarpou,
paizousan kourêisi sun Ôkeanou bathukolpois [5]
anthea t’ ainumenên, rhoda kai krokon êd’ ia kala
leimôn’ am malakon kai agallidas êd’ huakinthon
narkisson th’, hon phuse dolon
kalukôpidi kourêi
gaia Dios boulêisi charizomenê Poludektêi,
thaumaston ganoônta: sebas to ge pasin
idesthai [10]
Apart from Demeter,
lady of the golden sword and glorious fruits, [5] she [Persephone] was playing
with the deep-bosomed daughters of Oceanus and gathering flowers over a soft meadow, roses and crocuses and beautiful violets,
irises also and hyacinths and the narcissus, which Earth made to grow at
the will of Zeus and to please the Host of Many, to be a snare for the
bloom-like girl—[10] a marvellous, radiant flower (trans. Hugh G.
Evelyn-White).
546.6 Rector
of / ox-stealers (May’s born) a /
varied finger…: the italicized lines through 546.26 from “Homer’s Hymn
to Mercury” as translated by Percy Bysshe Shelley; some of the key stanzas
follow:
[stanza 4: infant Mercury gets the idea to create the lyre out of a tortoise
shell]
Out of the lofty
cavern wandering
He found a tortoise,
and cried out—‘A treasure!’
(For Mercury first
made the tortoise sing)
The beast before the
portal at his leisure
The flowery herbage
was depasturing,
Moving his feet in a
deliberate measure
Over the turf. Jove’s
profitable son
Eying him laughed,
and laughing thus begun:—
[stanza 7]
Then scooping with a
chisel of gray steel,
He bored the life and
soul out of the beast.—
Not swifter a swift
thought of woe or weal
Darts through the
tumult of a human breast
Which thronging cares
annoy—not swifter wheel
The flashes of its
torture and unrest
Out of the dizzy
eyes—than Maia’s son
All that he did
devise hath featly done.
[stanza 72]
Within the heart of
great Apollo—he
Listened with all his
soul, and laughed for pleasure.
Close to his side
stood harping fearlessly
The unabashed boy;
and to the measure
Of the sweet lyre,
there followed loud and free
His joyous voice; for
he unlocked the treasure
Of his deep song,
illustrating the birth
Of the bright Gods,
and the dark desert Earth:
[stanza 49: Apollo
speaking]
‘And this among the
Gods shall be your gift,
To be considered as
the lord of those
Who swindle, house-break, sheep-steal, and shop-lift;—
But now if you would
not your last sleep doze;
Crawl out!’—Thus
saying, Phoebus did uplift
The subtle infant in
his swaddling clothes,
And in his arms,
according to his wont,
A scheme devised the
illustrious Argiphont.
[stanza 15]
The old man stood
dressing his sunny vine:
‘Halloo! old fellow with the crooked shoulder!
You grub those stumps? before they will bear wine
Methinks even you
must grow a little older:
Attend,
I pray, to this advice of mine,
As you would ‘scape
what might appal a bolder—
Seeing, see not—and hearing, hear not—and—
If you have understanding—understand.’
[stanza 31]
Apollo passed toward
the sacred wood,
Which from the inmost
depths of its green glen
Echoes the voice of
Neptune,—and there stood
On the same spot in
green Onchestus then
That same old animal, the vine-dresser,
Who was employed
hedging his vineyard there.
546.24 Seeing, see not; hearing, / hear not:
and—if you / have understanding, understand”: Shelley’s translation in the
last two lines of stanza 15 above echoes Matthew 13:13; Jesus explaining why he
speaks in parables: “Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing
see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand.”
547.27 the
labour of the olive: from Habakkuk 3:17-18: “Although the fig tree
shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no
meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in
the stalls. Yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my
salvation.”
548.11 Gate / of the Outward-Court looks North…:
through 548.29 from Ezekiel, mostly chapters 40 and 47 describing a vision
while captive in Babylon of a restored temple and land (Rieke, 217):
40:20-22: And the gate of the outward court that looked
toward the north, he measured the length thereof, and the breadth thereof.
And the little chambers thereof were
three on this side and three on that
side; and the posts thereof and the arches thereof were after the measure
of the first gate: the length thereof was fifty cubits, and the breadth five
and twenty cubits. And their windows,
and their arches, and their palm trees, were after the measure
of the gate that looketh toward the east; and they went up unto it by seven steps; and the arches thereof were before them.
40:28: And he brought me to the inner court by the south gate: and
he measured the south gate according to these measures;
40:31: And the arches thereof were toward the utter
court; and palm trees were upon the posts thereof: and the going up to it had eight steps.
41:12-14: Now the building that was before the
separate place at the end toward the west was seventy cubits broad; and the
wall of the building was five cubits thick round about, and the length thereof
ninety cubits. So he measured the house, an hundred cubits long; and the
separate place, and the building, with the walls thereof, an hundred cubits
long; Also the breadth of the face of the house, and of the separate place
toward the east, an hundred cubits.
8:16: And he brought me into the
inner court of the Lord’s house, and, behold, at the door of the temple of the
Lord, between the porch and the altar, were about five and twenty men, with
their backs toward the temple of the Lord, and their faces toward the east; and
they worshipped the sun toward the east.
47:8-13: Then said he unto me, These
waters issue out toward the east country,
and go down into the desert, and go into
the sea: which being brought forth into the sea, the waters shall be
healed. And it shall come to pass, that every thing that liveth, which moveth,
whithersoever the rivers shall come, shall live: and there shall be a very
great multitude of fish, because these waters shall come thither: for they
shall be healed; and every thing shall live whither the river cometh. And it
shall come to pass, that the fishers shall stand upon it from En-gedi even unto
En-eglaim; they shall be a place to spread forth nets; their fish shall be
according to their kinds, as the fish of the great sea, exceeding many. But the
miry places thereof and the marshes thereof shall not be healed; they shall be
given to salt. And by the river upon the
bank thereof, on this side and on that side, shall grow all trees for meat,
whose leaf shall not fade, neither shall the fruit thereof be consumed: it shall bring forth new fruit according to
his months, because their waters they issued out of the sanctuary: and the
fruit thereof shall be for meat, and the leaf thereof for medicine. Thus saith
the Lord God; This shall be the border, whereby ye shall inherit the land
according to the twelve tribes of Israel: Joseph shall have two portions.
47:22-23: And it shall come to pass,
that ye shall divide it by lot for an inheritance unto you, and to the
strangers that sojourn among you, which shall beget children among you: and they shall be unto you as born in the
country among the children of Israel; they shall have inheritance with you
among the tribes of Israel. And it shall come to pass, that in what tribe the stranger sojourneth, there shall ye
give him his inheritance, saith the Lord God.
548.30 Your nest among the stars . . / peace . .
flame . . fields: from Obadiah 1:4: “Though thou exalt thyself as the
eagle, and though thou set thy nest
among the stars, thence will I bring thee down, saith the Lord.” The
following three words can be found scattered through the rest of the text.
548.34 Is it to fast an / houre, Or rag’d to go…:
through 599.4 from Robert Herrick (1591-1674), “To Keep a True Lent” (see TP 79-80):
Is this a Fast, to keep
The Larder leane?
And
cleane
From fat of Veales,
and Sheep?
Is it to quit the dish
Of flesh, yet still
To
fill
The platter high with
Fish?
Is it to faste an houre,
Or rag’d to go,
Or show
A down-cast look, and sowre?
No: ‘tis a Fast, to dole
Thy sheaf of
wheat,
And
meat,
Unto the hungry
Soule.
It is to fast from strife,
From old debate,
And hate;
To circumcise thy life.
To shew a heart grief-rent;
To starve thy sin,
Not
Bin;
And that’s to keep
thy Lent.
549.10 ‘I have loved you, yet / you say wherein. Return, I / return’: from Malachi
1:2: “I have loved you, saith the
Lord. Yet ye say, Wherein hast thou
loved us? Was not Esau Jacob’s brother? Saith the Lord: yet I loved Jacob.” And
3:7: “Even from the days of your fathers ye are gone away from mine ordinances,
and have not kept them. Return unto
me, and I will return unto you, saith the Lord of hosts. But ye said, Wherein
shall we return?”
549.13 By the river sat down / remembered the harp…:
through 549.16 from Psalms 137:1-6:
“By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered
Zion. We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. For there they
that carried us away captive required of us a song; and they that wasted us
required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion. How shall we
sing the Lord’s song in a strange land? If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my
right hand forget her cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave
to the roof of my mouth; if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy.”
549.27 quoin own: < koinon, Gk. common (Odlin 558-559); Gk. koiné refers to what became recognized as the common ancient Greek
dialect, and thus more generally any dominant language or lingua franca.
549.32 One basket: scoop, / sifter and cradle:
Odlin (558-559) identifies this and various other details in the next 20 lines
as suggested by Jane Harrison, Prolegomena
to the Study of Greek Religion (1903, 2nd ed. 1907): “In primitive
agricultural days, the liknon, a
shovel-shaped basket, served three
purposes: it was a ‘fan’ with which to winnow grain, it was a basket to hold grain or fruit or sacred
objects, it was a cradle for a baby.
The various forms of likna and the
beautiful mysticism that gathered round the cradle and the winnowing-fan, will
be considered when Orphic ceremonial is discussed. For the present it is enough
to note that the ceremony of raising or waking Liknites marks clearly the
worship of a child-god” (401-402).
549.33 barley-and-oat- / born, a “goat” for spelt—:
from Jane Harrison, Prolegomena to the
Study of Greek Religion, quoting an epigram by the Emperor Julian on a “wine”
made of barley:
“To wine made of barley.
‘Who and whence art
thou, Dionyse? Now, by the Bacchus true
Whom well I know, the
son of Zeus, say—“Who and what are you?”
He smells of nectar
like a god, you smack of goats and
spelt,
For lack of grapes
from ears of grain your countryman the Celt
Made you. Your name’s
Demetrios, but never Dionyse,
Bromos, Oat-born, not Bromios, Fire-born from
out the skies.’
The emperor makes
three very fair puns, as follows: βρόμος
oats, βρόμιος of the thunder; πυρογενή wheat-born, πυριγενή fire-born; τράγος goat and τράγος an inferior kind of wheat, spelt. […] For the present it is
sufficient to note that all three have the same substantial content, there is a Dionysos who is not of heaven but
of earth” (415-416).
549.36 pawn own none: < Pannonia; from St. Jerome
quoted in Jane Harrison, Prolegomena to
the Study of Greek Religion: “there is a sort of drink made from grain and
water, and in the provinces of Dalmatia and Pannonia it is called, in the local
barbarian speech, sabaium” (419).
550.4 you mean a day: < Eumenides, the Furies in Greek mythology; also the
title of a tragedy by Aeschylus (Odlin 558-559).
550.6 Back (bach)
high: < Bacchai, violently fanatical followers of Bacchus or Dionysus;
also the title of a tragedy by Euripides (Odlin 558-559).
550.25 próchoös: in Greek antiquity, a small
vase of elegant form used especially to pour water on the hands before meals
were served (CD).
551.19 not smoke of flame, / light from smoke…:
these lines in italics from Queen Elizabeth I’s translation of Horace’s “Art of
Poetry,” lines 155 and 194. Further translations by Elizabeth appear at
552.20-26 and 555.13-33 (text from Bradner):
Shew me, my muse, a man in after tims of taken Troy
The manars of many a man that saw togither with their towns.
Who miss not smoke of flame but light from smoke to giue,
That thens he may shewe wondars great:
[…]
Lest, therfor, agid part be giuen vnto the young
And mans estate bequived to the boy,
Let vs abide in suche as best agre and
in ther time.
552.6 arbors tutor us:
< arbutus, the trailing arbutus is a fragrant creeper of the United States,
blooming in the spring, and also known as the May-flower; also a genus of
evergreen shrubs or small trees of southern Europe and western North America,
natural order Ericaceæ, characterized by a
free calyx and a many-seeded berry (CD); see 563.24.
552.11 Cart a new / case: fritt’ll lose? Stave
lucre: homophonic rendition from Martial, Epigrams XIII.i.7-8: “haec
mihi charta nuces, haec est mihi charta fritillus; / alea nec
damnum nec facit ista lucrum”
(this paper is my nuts, this paper is my dice-box; / hazard that brings me no
loss nor yet any gain) (trans. Walter C.A. Ker; quoted in Leggott 386).
552.20 some
. . / served . . ther cities . . altering…: through 552.26 from Queen
Elizabeth I’s verse translation of Plutarch’s prose “On Curiosity” from the Moralia (text from Bradner):
And some have served ther cities turne by altering
suche.
A sample may my country make, as said hit is,
That bending to Zephirus wynde and from Parnasus taking sone,
That to ye west his course did turn by Cherons help,
Hit wryed was to east, the sons arising
place. (1.9-13)
[…]
Therfor if plagy wilz ther be that noyful ar unsound,
Arising tempest great and dimly marks the mynd,
Best shal hit be giue them repuls and down throw flat to ground;
So to ourselues we bride an air clear, a
ligh and brethe ful pur. (1.19-22)
[…]
What of myne shal I imparte as of my gift to the? (4.15)
[…]
And so can not be shuned, but slandar felowes the busy care,
Wiche made Pithagoras teche fiue yeres silence
to young men,
Wiche cal he did Έχεμυθια, the suafes thing that silence doth expres.
(9.1-3)
[…]
But who is freed from this disease and is of mildy spirit
Nor gilty is of any iuel shal thus begin to say:
O goddis, how wise art thou, that dost forget
the yl. (14.24-26)
552.31 Crabbed age and youth . .
together…: through 553.1, from Shakespeare, “The Passionate Pilgrime”:
Crabbed age and youth cannot live together:
Youth is full of
pleasance, age is full of care; (XII)
[“eies” (eyes) appears three times in this
poem.]
Short, night, to-night, and length thyself tomorrow. (XIV).
Through the velvet leaves the wind
All unseen, gan
passage find;
That the lover, sick
to death […] (XVI)
Thus art with arms
contending was victor of the day,
Which by a gift of
learning did bear the maid away:
Then, lullaby, the learned man hath got the lady gay;
For
now my song is ended. (XV)
553.18 extrauagant
. . erring…: phrases in italics through 553.22 from Shakespeare, Hamlet I.i.144-167 (Folio text):
Marcellus: 'Tis
gone. Exit Ghost.
We do it wrong, being
so Maiesticall
To offer it the shew
of Violence,
For it is as the Ayre, invulnerable,
And our vaine blowes,
malicious Mockery.
Barnardo:
It was about to speake, when the Cocke crew.
Horatio:
And then it started, like a guilty thing
Vpon a fearfull Summons.
I haue heard,
The Cocke that is the
Trumpet to the day,
Doth with his lofty
and shrill-sounding Throate
Awake the God of Day:
and at his warning,
Whether in Sea, or
Fire, in Earth, or Ayre,
Th’extrauagant, and erring Spirit, hyes
To his Confine. And
of the truth heerein,
This present Obiect
made probation.
Marcellus:
It faded on the crowing of the Cocke.
Some sayes, that euer
’gainst that Season comes
Wherein our Sauiours
Birth is celebrated,
The Bird of Dawning
singeth all night long:
And then (they say)
no Spirit can walke abroad,
The nights are
wholsome, then no Planets strike,
No Faiery talkes, nor
Witch hath power to Charme:
So hallow’d, and so
gracious is the time.
Horatio:
So haue I heard, and do in part beleeue it.
But looke, the Morne
in Russet mantle clad,
Walkes o’re the dew of yon high Easterne Hill,
Breake we our Watch
vp, and by my aduice
Let vs impart what we
haue seene to night
Vnto yong Hamlet.
For vpon my life,
This Spirit dumbe to
vs, will speake to him:
Do you consent we
shall acquaint him with it,
As needfull in our
Loues, fitting our Duty?
553.22 Naked at birth / naked in earth…:
through 553.26 from Palladas, 4th century Greek poet and grammarian of
Alexandria, whose bitter epigrams are collected in the Greek Anthology. LZ used the Loeb edition of The Greek Anthology, trans. W.R. Paton (1915), vols. 3 & 4
(Leggott 87, 389):
553.22-23: Naked at birth / naked in
earth: “Naked I alighted on the earth and naked shall I go beneath it. Why
do I toil in vain, seeing the end is nakedness?” (10.58).
553.23-24: wrath
/ illumined: “I, unhappy man, have married a wife who is ‘pernicious
wrath,’ and my profession, too obliges me to begin with ‘wrath’ [editor’s note:
‘Wrath’ being the first word of the Iliad,
which as a grammarian he had to read]. Oh, man of much wrath forced to consort
with wrath in two things, my calling as a grammarian and my combative wife!”
(9.168).
553.24-25: ‘took’ (ay) down a / tone: in the Greek Anthology the Gk. ΤΟΥ
ΑΥΤΟΥ, meaning “by the same [author],” heads each subsequent epigram by the
same poet; the Anthology was
organized according to general types—e.g. amatory epigrams, dedicatory
epigrams, declamatory epigrams, etc.—and then roughly according to themes, so
works by the same poet are scattered about.
553.25: Fortune’s Temple Miss-Fortune’s Tavern:
there are four epigrams by Palladas “written on the subject of a Temple of
Fortune converted into a Tavern,” but the last covers the idea here: “And of
thee too, Fortune, they make mockery now thou art changed, and at the end thou
hast not even spared thy own fortune. Thou who hadst once a temple, keepest a
tavern in thy old age, and we see thee now serving hot drinks to mortals.
Justly bewail thine own mischance, fickle goddess, now that thou reversest
thine own fortune like that of mortals” (9.183).
553.26: nation smoked-cheesecake: “Odysseus
said ‘nothing is sweeter than a man’s fatherland’ [Odyssey I.34], for in Circe’s isle he never ate cheesecake. If he
had seen even the smoke curling up from that [Odyssey I.58], he would have sent ten Penelopes to the deuce”
(9.395)
553.26: Awe together deterrent: LZ is here
working from the Greek text, specifically the final word of epigram 9.489, ούδέτερον, pronounced very roughly,
aw-déterr-on. Paton’s translation of this epigram is: “A grammarian’s daughter,
having known a man, gave birth to a child which was masculine, feminine, and
neuter.”
553.36 . .
man’s life’s . . to say “One”: from Shakespeare, Hamlet V.ii: “Hamlet: It
will be short: the interim is mine; / And a man’s life’s no more than to say
‘One.’”
554.5 Let
be . . […] all readiness: from Shakespeare, Hamlet V.ii (qtd. Bottom
77, 152, 302, 358):
Horatio: If your mind dislike
anything, obey it. I will forestall their repair hither and say you are not
fit.
Hamlet: Not a whit, we defy augury;
there's a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, 'tis not
to come', if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will
come: the readiness is all. Since no man knows aught of what
he leaves, what is't to leave betimes? Let
be.
554.6 pitched high / ridgeplate (kingpost roofed)
one’s eavesdropping / secret…: through 554.37 describes LZ’s domestic setup
at 306 East Broadway, Port Jefferson on Long Island, including views from the
windows and Celia’s garden. The Zukofskys made the move to Port Jefferson in
Oct. 1973, during the period “A”-23 was composed.
555.1 Rose
spume’s disarmed enamored readiness / close a wind about her…: through
555.10 primarily from the Cupid and Psyche episode from Apuleius, The Golden Asse (The Metamorphosis) as translated by William Adlington (1566); the
most commonly available edition of this translation, used below, is from 1639,
although judging from LZ’s spelling, he appears to using an earlier edition.
“Rose spume” presumably alludes to Venus’ birth, so this first line obliquely
refers to her son Cupid. The following reproduce a few key passages but do not
pretend to account for all details:
“When Psyches was set downe,
all sorts of divine meats and wines were brought in, not by any body, but as it
were with a winde, for she saw no person before her, but only heard voyces on
every side. After that all the services were brought to the table, one came in
and sung invisibly, another played on the harpe, but she saw noman. The harmony
of the Instruments did so greatly shrill in her eares, that though there were
no manner of person, yet seemed she in the midst of a multitude of people.
Soon after her husband [Cupid]
came, and when he had kissed and embraced her he fell asleep. Then Psyches
(somwhat feeble in body and mind, yet mooved by cruelty of fate) received
boldness and brought forth the lampe, and tooke the razor, so by her audacity
she changed her mind: but when she took the lamp and came to the bed side, she
saw the most meeke and sweetest beast of all beasts, even faire Cupid couched
fairly, at whose sight the very lampe encreased his light for joy, and the
razor turned his edge. But when Psyches saw so glorious a body shee greatly
feared, and amazed in mind, with a pale countenance all trembling fel on her
knees and thought to hide the razor, yea verily in her owne heart, which
doubtlesse she had done, had it not through feare of so great an enterprise
fallen out of her hand. And when she saw and beheld the beauty of the divine
visage shee was well recreated in her mind, she saw his haires of gold, that
yeelded out a sweet savor, his neck more white than milk, his purple cheeks,
his haire hanging comely behinde and before, the brightnesse whereof did darken the light of the lamp,
[…]
Then poor Psyches went in all
haste to the top of the mountaine, rather to end her life, then to fetch any
water, and when she was come up to the ridge of the hill, she perceived that it
was impossible to bring it to passe: for she saw a great rocke gushing out most
horrible fountaines of waters, which ran downe and fell by many stops and passages
into the valley beneath: on each side shee did see great Dragons, which were
stretching out their long and bloody Neckes, that did never sleepe, but
appointed to keepe the river there: the waters seemed to themselves likewise
saying, Away; away, what wilt thou doe? flie,
flie, or else thou wilt be slaine. […]
[Juno and Ceres reproaching
Venus] ‘What is the cause Madam, or how hath your son so offended, that you
shold so greatly accuse his love, and blame him by reason that he is amorous?
and why should you seeke the death of her, whom he doth fancie? We most humbly
intreat you to pardon his fault if he have accorded to the mind of any maiden:
what do you not know that he is a young man? Or have you forgotten of what
yeares he is? Doth he seeme always unto you to be a childe? You are his mother,
and a kind woman, will you continually search out his dalliance? Will you blame
his luxury? Will you bridle his love? and will you reprehend your owne art
and delights in him? What God or man
is hee, that can endure that you should sowe or disperse your seed of love in
every place, and to make restraint thereof within your owne doores? certes you
will be the cause of the suppression of the publike paces of young Dames.’”
555.13 Tuning / to sounding stringe . . Won by /
his song…: through 355.33 from Queen Elizabeth I’s translations from
the Latin of the verse sections of Consolation
of Philosophy by Boethius (c.480-524) (Rieke 222). The following text is
from Bradner:
III.xii
Ther faining verse,
Tuning to sounding stringe
What he drew from
springes
The greatest of
mother gods […]
At last wailing said
the juge
Of shady place: We
yield;
To man we giue his
wife for feere,
Won by his song.
I.v
O framar of the starry circle,
Who, lening to the lasting groundstone,
With whorling blast
hevens turnest
And law compelst the
skies to beare […]
O weldar apeace the
roring floudes
And with what boundz the great heauen though gidest
The stable erthe do stedy.
II.ii
If sandz such store
by raging flawes
As stured sea turnes up,
Or skies bidect with
mighty stars
The heauens al that
lights […]
IV.v
None musith that the
southest wynd
With hurling waue
astones the shore,
Nor that ye hardnid snowy ball by cold
By feruent heate of sonne resolues.
V.ii
In moment stroke his
mynd all sees,
What wer, what be, what shal bifall,
Whom sole alone for
that he al espies
Truly the may sole
call.
V.iii
Or how may he finde, or found knowe
Suche forme
of wiche he knowes not shape?
V.iv
Ons in the porch wer
broght in men
Of obscure line, and
old the wer,
Who sens and image
out of lest motes
In mens myndz
ingrauen beliue,
As oft
haps the running stile
In sea paper leue,
Some printid lettars stik,
That marke haue none at all. […]
But
yet a passion doth begin and sturs
The myndz fors while body liues,
Whan
ether light the yees doth hit,
Or sound in ear doth strike.
Than sturred strength
of mynd
What figures within
hit holds
Joigned like he cals,
Applies them to the
outward knowen,
And fancies mixe to
formes
That hiden rest
within.
556.10 What we garden / ah in year-day home:
homophonic translation of the first line of Beowulf: “Hwæt! We Gar-Dena in geardagum” (Listen! We of the Spear-Danes in
the days of yore; trans. Benjamin Slade). As Salvato points out, this serves as
an announcement of the extended passage working from Old English poetry that
follows at 556.15-557.13.
556.15 Seeding Earth’s earthen mother each / ear
wax, end dree: out / little spear
that’s over (odd) / this is so—(may): translations, largely homophonic,
from several Old English poems (Salvato 86):
“Charm for Unfruitful Land” (lines 51-54):
Erce, Erce, Erce,
eorþan modor,
geunne þe se alwalda,
ece drihten,
æcera wexendra and
wridendra,
eacniendra and elniendra […]
Erce, Erce, Erce, Mother of Earth,
May the Almighty
grant you, the Eternal Lord,
Fields sprouting and springing up,
Fertile and fruitful […] (trans. Gavin Chappell)
“Charm for the Sudden Stitch” (lines 6-9):
Ut, lytel spere, gif
her inne sie!
Stod under linde, under
leohtum scylde,
þær ða mihtigan wif hyra
mægen beræddon
and hy gyllende garas
sændan […]
Out, little spear, if herein it be!
Stood under
linden, under a light shield,
where mighty
women proclaimed their power
and, yelling,
they sent spears […] (trans. Benjamin
Slade)
“Deor” (refrain):
Þæs ofereode, þisses swa mæg!
That passed away so may this (trans. Bemjamin Slade)
556.18 light / enwound gem studded five up /
on—ax’ll span eye beheld, stand / stem bed riven: words and phrases from
“The Dream of the Rood” (Salvato 86-87):
Þuhte me þæt ic gesawe syllicre treow
on lyft lædan, leohte
bewunden,
beama beorhtost. Eall
þæt beacen wæs
begoten mid golde. Gimmas
stodon
fægere æt foldan sceatum,
swylce þær fife wæron
uppe on þam eaxlegespanne. (4-9)
It seemed to me that I saw a most
wondrous tree,
the brightest of
rood-trees, extend aloft
encircled by
light. That sign was completely
covered with
gold; jewels stood,
beautiful, at the
surface of the earth; likewise there
were five
up on the
shoulder-beam. (trans. Alexander M. Bruce)
Hwæðere þær fuse feorran cwoman
to þam æðelinge. Ic
þæt eall beheold.
Sare ic wæs mid sorgum gedrefed, hnag ic hwæðre þam secgum to handa,
eaðmod elne mycle.
Genamon hie þær ælmihtigne god,
ahofon hine of ðam hefian wite.
Forleton me þa hilderincas
standan steame bedrifenne; eall ic wæs mid strælum forwundod. (57-62)
But there the eager ones came from
afar
to the Prince. I beheld it all.
I was with sorrows
sorely afflicted; I bent down
nevertheless to the hands of the warriors,
submissive, with
great zeal. They took there the
almighty God,
raised him from the
heavy torture. The warriors left me
to stand covered over
by moisture; I was all with punctures
wounded.
(trans. Alexander M. Bruce)
556.21 Dragged thole / load—sea-dark bided…:
through 556.28 from the “Creation Hymn” in Beowulf,
lines 86-101. As Leggott points out (59), LZ’s rendition draws on both
homophonic transliteration and translation:
ða se ellengæst earfoðlice
þrage geþolode, se
þe in þystrum bad,
þæt he dogora gehwam
dream gehyrde
hludne in healle; þær
wæs hearpan sweg,
swutol sang scopes.
Sægde se þe cuþe
frumsceaft fira feorran
reccan,
cwæð þæt se ælmihtiga eorðan worhte,
wlitebeorhtne wang, swa
wæter bebugeð,
gesette sigehreþig sunnan
ond monan
leoman to leohte landbuendum
ond gefrætwade foldan
sceatas
leomum ond leafum,
lif eac gesceop
cynna gehwylcum
þara ðe cwice hwyrfaþ.
Swa ða drihtguman dreamum lifdon
eadiglice, oððæt an
ongan
fyrene fremman feond on
helle.
Then the bold spirit, impatiently
Endured dreary
time, he who dwelt in darkness,
he that every
day heard noise of revelry
loud in the
hall; there was the harmony of the
harp,
the sweet song of the
poet; he spoke who knew how
the origin of
men to narrate from afar;
said he that the
almighty one wrought the earth,
(that) fair, sublime
field bounded by water;
set up
triumphant the sun and moon,
luminaries as
lamps for the land-dwellers
and adorned the
corners of the earth
with limbs and
leaves; life too He formed
for each of the
species which lives and moves.
So the lord’s
men lived in joys,
Happily, until one began
To execute
atrocities, a fiend in hell. (trans.
Benjamin Slade)
556.28 o that forth-looking ‘s fast— / hedge as it
will…: through 556.37 from “The Wanderer” (Salvato 87-88):
Ic to soþe wat
þæt biþ in eorle
indryhten þeaw,
þæt he his ferðlocan fæste binde,
healde his hordcofan, hycge
swa he wille. (lines 11-14)
I in sooth know,
that it is in man a
noble quality,
that he his soul’s coffer
fast bind,
hold his treasure.
Strive as he will,
þinceð him on mode þæt he his
mondryhten
clyppe ond cysse, ond on
cneo lecge
honda ond heafod, swa
he hwilum ær
in geardagum giefstolas
breac. (41-44)
that seems to him in mind, that he
his lord
embraces and
kisses, and on his knee lays
hands and head, as when he ere at times,
in former days, his gifts enjoy’d;
Sorg bið geniwad,
þonne maga gemynd mod geondhweorfeð;
greteð gliwstafum, georne geondsceawað
secga geseldan. Swimmað oft
on weg!
Fleotendra ferð no
þær fela bringeð
cuðra cwidegiedda. (50-55)
sorrow is renew’d,
when his friends’
remembrance through his mind passes;
when he greets with
songs, earnestly surveys
the seats of
men, swims again away.
The spirit of
seafarers, brings there not many
known songs:
Hwær cwom mearg? Hwær cwom mago? Hwær cwom maþþumgyfa? (92)
Where is horse, where
is man? Where is the treasure-giver ?
Eorlas fornoman asca þryþe,
wæpen wælgifru, wyrd seo
mære,
ond þas stanhleoþu
stormas cnyssað,
hrið hreosende hrusan
bindeð,
wintres woma, þonne won
cymeð,
nipeð nihtscua, norþan
onsendeð
hreo hæglfare hæleþum on
andan. (99-105)
The men has swept away the spearmen’s
band,
the slaughter-greedy
weapon, and fate omnipotent
and these stone
shelters storms dash,
fierce-rushing; binds the earth
the winter’s
violence; then comes dusky,
darkens, the shade of
night, from the north sends
the rough
hail-shower, to men’s grievance.
Wel bið þam þe him are seceð,
frofre to fæder on heofonum,
þær us eal seo fæstnung stondeð. (114-115)
Well it is for him who seeketh mercy,
comfort, at the
Father in heaven, where all our
fastness standeth.
(trans. Benjamin
Thorpe)
557.1 Regal mien swathed unrustling tread / o’the
wick, buoy, waded reef…: through 557.13 from two Old English riddles from
the Exeter Book (Salvato 88):
Riddle 7/5 (Swan)
Hrægl min swigað,
þonne ic hrusan trede,
oþþe þa wic buge, oþþe wado drefe.
Hwilum mec ahebbað ofer
hæleþa byht
hyrste mine,
ond þeos hea lyft,
ond mec þonne wide
wolcna strengu
ofer folc byreð. Frætwe
mine
swogað hlude ond swinsiað,
torhte singað, þonne ic
getenge ne beom
flode ond foldan,
ferende gæst.
Riddle 57/55 (Starling)
ðeos lyft byreð lytle
wihte
ofer beorghleoþa. Þa sind
blace swiþe,
swearte salopade. Sanges
rope
heapum ferað, hlude
cirmað,
tredað bearonæssas, hwilum burgsalo
niþþa bearna. Nemnað
hy sylfe.
557.14 ait, aight, eyet, / eyot, eyght…: through 557.17 from the Century
Dictionary entry for ait: “also spelled aight,
eyet, eyot, eyght […] found in Mod. E. only as the first element in i-land, now spelled improperly island, and as the final element in
certain place-names. A small island in a river or lake. Fog up the river, where it flows among green aits and meadows. Dickens
[Bleak House].”
557.18 Claque-law—bard hard, fire yet…: through
557.24 primarily homophonic renditions from medieval Welsh poetry using texts
from Gwyn Williams’ An Introduction to
Welsh Poetry (London: Faber and Faber, 1954), also used extensively for the
Welsh transformations in Little
(Rieke 223-224).
557.18: Claque-law—bard hard, fire yet:
from The Red Book of Hergest: “Gwacllaw bard hard effeiryat”
(Empty-handed the poet, splendid the priest) (Williams 66).
557.19: miracle porker-lane, apple,
birch, greetings, / calf-eyed, pie betide thee: the first line from Myrddin parchellan Affallenneu, Bedwenni,
Hoianneu. As Reike explains, this line renders the name of the author,
Myriddin, and the titles of three prophetic poems ascribed to him, meaning
respectively Apple Trees, Birch Trees, and Greetings from The Black Book of Carmarthen. Parchellan
means little pig, who is greeted in the third of these poems (Rieke 223;
Williams 66). The second line is from Myriddin’s “Apple Tree” poem: “Kaffaud paub y teithi” (Everyone shall
have his due) (Williams 70). Myriddin is a legendary poet probably of the late 6th
century and the prototype for Merlin of the King Arthur cycle.
557.20: gore / off head a great delight: from the title of Gwalchmai’s 12th
century poem Gorhoffedd meaning “a
great delight” (Williams 75).
557.22: beguile war in the nightingale—:
from Gwalchmai’s Gorhoffedd: “Gwylein yn gware ar wely lliant” (Gulls
play on the bed of the sea) (Williams 75); as Rieke points out (223), LZ
“translates” this line so as to pick up key images of the war and the
nightingale that appear prominently elsewhere in the poem.
557.20 pie betide thee . . gore / off: < Pythagorus.
557.23 lullaby
to your bounty: from Shakespeare, Twelfth
Night V.i:
Duke Orsino: You can fool no more money out of me at this throw: if you will
let your lady know I am here to speak with her, and bring her along with you,
it may awake my bounty further.
Clown: Marry, sir, lullaby to your bounty till I come
again. I go, sir; but I would not have you to think that my desire of having is
the sin of covetousness: but, as you say, sir, let your bounty take a nap, I
will awake it anon.
557.23 lulla / tree, snow-lee—eyry air goad:
from another poem by Gwalchmai: “llywy
lliw eiry ar goed” (a girl of the color of snow on trees) (Williams 77).
558.12 As wide the / Land (so gret faith…: from Geoffrey Chaucer, The Legend of Good Women, The Legend of Lucrecia:
I tell hit, for she
was of love so trewe,
Ne in her wille she
chaunged for no newe.
And for the stable
herte, sad and kinde,
That in these women
men may alday finde;
Ther as they caste
hir herte, ther hit dwelleth.
For wel I wot, that
Crist him-selve telleth,
That in Israel, as wyd as is the lond,
That so gret feith in al the lond he ne fond
As in a woman; and
this is no lye.
And as of men, loketh
which tirannye
They doon alday;
assay hem who so liste,
The trewest is ful
brotel for to triste.
558.18 stamped
the leasing: from Shakespeare, Coriolanus
V.ii (see also 558.22 below):
Menenius: Good my friends,
If you have heard
your general talk of Rome
And of his friends
there, it is lots to blanks
My name hath touched
your ears: it is Menenius.
1st Watch: Be it so, go back. The virtue of your name
Is not here passable.
Menenius:
I tell thee, fellow,
Thy general is my
lover. I have been
The book of his good
acts whence men have read
His fame
unparalleled, haply amplified;
For I have ever
verified my friends,
Of whom he’s chief,
with all the size that verity
Would without lapsing
suffer. Nay, sometimes,
Like to a bowl upon a
subtle ground,
I have tumbled past
the throw, and in his praise
Have almost stamped the leasing. Therefore, fellow,
I must have leave to
pass.
558.22 lots
to blanks: see 558.18.
558.23 ‘Sober toes soul’s reveler solaced / trope
in-their-midst,’: homophonic translations of two lines by the Provencal
poet, Giraut of Bornelh (fl. 1165-1200): “Si
per mon Sobre-Totz no fos” (Now if it were not for my Sobre-Totz
(Above All)), and “Per solatz
reveillar que s’es trop endormitz” (To awake solace / Because it
has been too long asleep). Rieke identifies (172-173) the source of these lines
as EP’s The Spirit of Romance
(50-51), which also supplies the translations given above; EP includes these
quotations because they appear as illustrative examples in Dante’s De Vulgari Eloquentia.
558.24 ‘blazed, man, trove-airs / occlude sots,
grant chant’s precise / that’s its praise—none “equal,” touch’: although
precise source unidentified, following on the preceding this clearly alludes to
troubadour poets and the obscurity of trobar
clus (closed verse).
558.27 (Chicken manure petrol, old man / of tot
ness, the far-out…: Odlin (315-316) identifies this as from The Last Whole Earth Catalog (1971),
which reprints a June 1970 article from the National
Enquirer on home-made “Chicken Manure Fuel” as produced by a farmer and
inventor, Harold Bate. Odlin reproduces the article in full, from which the
following is excerpted: “‘Put a chicken in your tank’ may never match the zap
of Esso’s ‘Put a tiger in your tank’ slogan. But British inventor Harold Bate
will tell you that chicken power will run your car faster, cleaner and better
than gasoline. […] Methane is not only cheap and efficient, said the inventor,
but it is better for your car—no carbon deposit on your cylinders and no engine
wear and no poisonous carbon monoxide fumes.” The Last Whole Earth Catalog adds Bate’s mailing address:
Pennyrowden, Blackawton, Totnes—Devon, TQ 9.7 Dn., England, which accounts for
LZ’s “tot ness” and perhaps also for “the far-out” as well.
558.36 oak not wind-shak’d surge / wind-shaken
mane, cast water, on / the burning Bear: from Shakespeare, Othello II.i:
Montano: Methinks the wind hath
spoke aloud at land;
A fuller blast ne’er
shook our battlements;
If it hath ruffian’d
so upon the sea,
What ribs of oak, when mountains melt on them,
Can hold the mortise?
What shall we hear of this?
Second Gentleman: A segregation of the Turkish fleet;
For do but stand upon
the foaming shore,
The chidden billow
seems to pelt the clouds;
The wind-shak’d surge, with high and
monstrous mane,
Seems to cast water on the burning Bear
And quench the guards
of th’ ever-fixed Pole:
I never did like
molestation view
On the enchafed
flood.
559.28 ‘Guide, o…: < Guido Cavalcanti; see
“A”-9.
559.30 We cannot meet so the / false Spirit fly,
leave thee / thy integrity’: from Percy Bysshe Shelley, translation of a
sonnet by Guido Cavalcanti addressed to Dante:
I dare not now through thy degraded state
Own the delight thy
strains inspire—in vain
I seek what once thou
wert—we cannot meet
As we were wont.
Again and yet again
Ponder my words: so the false Spirit shall fly
And leave to thee thy true integrity.
560.3 úp-on a rouncy as he / couthe: from Geoffrey
Chaucer, “General Prologue” to The
Canterbury Tales, line 393:
A Shipman was ther, wonynge fer by weste;
For aught I woot, he
was of Dertemouthe.
He rood upon a rouncy, as he kouthe,
In a gowne of faldyng
to the knee.
560.4 The firste stok, fader / of gentilesse . .
the firste fader: from Geoffrey Chaucer, the balade “Gentilesse”; the first
and last of poem’s three stanzas follow:
The firste stok, fader of gentilesse—
What man that
claymeth gentil for to be
Must followe his
trace, and alle his wittes dresse
Vertu to sewe, and
vyces for to flee.
For unto vertu
longeth dignitee,
And noght the revers,
sauffly dar I deme,
Al were he mytre,
croune, or diademe.
[…]
Vyce may wel be heir
to old richesse;
But ther may no man,
as men may wel see,
Bequethe his heir his
vertuous noblesse
That is appropred
unto no degree,
But to the firste fader in magistee,
That maketh his his
heyre that can him queme,
Al were he mytre,
croune, or diademe.
560.6 in a summer season when / soft was the sun…:
through 560.17 from William Langland (c.1330-c.1400), The Vision of Piers Plowman, the B-Version Prologue. This appears
to be LZ’s own moderization with characteristic homophonic elements:
In a somer seson, whan softe was the
sonne,
I shoop me into shroudes as I a sheep were,
In habite as an heremite unholy of
werkes,
Wente wide in this world wondres to here.
Ac on a May morwenynge on Malverne hilles
Me bifel a ferly, of Fairye me thoghte.
I was wery forwandred and wente me to reste
Under a brood bank by a bourne syde;
And as I lay and lenede and loked on the watres,
I slombred into a slepyng, it sweyed so
murye.
Thanne gan I meten a merveillous swevene—
That I was in a wildernesse, wiste I nevere where.
A[c] as I biheeld into the eest an heigh to the sonne,
I seigh a tour on a toft trieliche ymaked,
A deep dale bynethe, a dongeon therinne,
With depe diches and derke and dredfulle of sighte.
A fair feeld ful of folk fond I ther
bitwene—
Of alle manere of men, the meene and the
riche,
Werchynge and wandrynge as the world asketh. (1-19)
[…]
Bidderes and beggeres faste aboute
yede
[Til] hire bely and hire bagge [were] bredful ycrammed,
Faiteden for hire foode, foughten at the ale.
In glotonye, God woot, go thei to bedde,
And risen with ribaudie, tho Roberdes knaves;
Sleep and sory sleuthe seweth hem evere. (40-45)
[…]
The Kyng and Knyghthod and Clergie bothe
Casten that the Commune sholde hem [communes] fynde.
The Commune contreved of Kynde Wit
craftes,
And for profit of al the peple plowmen ordeyned
To tilie and to travaille as trewe lif asketh.
The Kyng and the Commune and Kynde Wit the thridde
Shopen lawe and leaute—eeh lif to knowe his owene.
Thanne loked up a lunatik, a leene thyng
withalle,
And knelynge to the Kyng clergially he seide,
"Crist kepe thee, sire Kyng, and thi kyngryche,
And lene thee lede thi lond so leaute thee lovye,
And for thi rightful rulyng be rewarded in hevene" (116-127)
[…]
As dykeres and delveres that doon hire dedes ille
And dryveth forth the longe day with "Dieu save Dame Emme!”
Cokes and hire knaves cryden, "Hote
pies, hote!
Goode gees and grys! Go we dyne, go we!”
Taverners until hem tolden the same:
"Whit wyn of Oseye and wyn of Gascoigne,
Of the Ryn and of the Rochel, the roost to defie!”
— Al this I seigh slepyng, and sevene sythes more. (224-231)
560.20 An album leaf: Cf. Stéphene Mallarmé’s
poem, “Feullet d’album” (Rieke 191).
560.33 serein: a mist or exceedingly fine rain
which falls from a cloudless sky, a phenomenon not unusual in tropical climates
(CD).
560.34 An art of honor, laud— / ‘pleasures do’
wit’s joys accord…: through 561.3, Rabelais, Wyatt and Luis de Leon
(Leggott 138-139).
561.4 gar
them hear: from Robert Burns, “The Author’s Earnest Cry and Prayer”:
God bless your Honours! Can ye see’t,—
The kind, auld cantie
carlin greet,
An no get warmly to
your feet,
An gar
them hear it,
An tell them wi a
patriot-heat
Ye
winna bear it?
561.5 úp-on a rouncy: see 560.3.
561.6 aske
nomore . . go: from Edmund Spenser, The
Shepeardes Calender, from the concluding envoy (Rieke, “Quotation and
Originality” 101):
Goe lyttle Calender, thou hast a free passeporte,
Goe but a lowly gate emongste the meaner sorte.
Dare not to match thy pipe with Tityrus his style,
Nor with the Pilgrim that the Ploughman playde a whyle:
But followe them farre off, and their high steppes adore,
The better please, the worse despise, I aske
nomore.
561.6 Clear honor / liquid element, dull
th’arroyo: from Luis de Góngora (1561-1627), the sonnet “¡Oh claro honor!”: ““¡Oh claro honor
del líquido
elemento,
/ dulce arroyuelo
de luciente plata!”
(Pride of the fourth and liquid element, / Sweet brook whose waters with soft
music pass […]; trans. J.M. Cohen). (Rieke, “Quotation and Originality” 101).
561.7 codas— / rising: repeated, sun’s a comet:
from Luis de Góngora (1561-1627), the sonnet “De
la brevedad enganosa de la vida”: “A
quien lo duda, / fiera que sea de razón desnuda, / cada Sol repetido es un cometa” (He who would cling to doubt / Must see his
blind, unreasoning resaon’s rout, / And meteor pace of every sun confess;
trans. James Edward Tobin) (Rieke, “Quotation and Originality” 101).
561.9 to
string a kit with: from John Beaumont and Francis Fletcher, Philaster Or Love Lies A-Bleeding V.iv:
“I’ll have his little gut to string a
kit with; / For certainly a royal gut will sound like silver” (Rieke,
“Quotation and Originality” 101).
561.10 (sheep feint a bee hue-new: from Lope
de Vega (1562-1635), from the title of his play, Fuente Ovejuna, which is the name of a village and means Fountain
of the Sheep, although Rieke explains the original name may have been Fuente Abejuna, meaning Fountain of the
Bees (“Quotation and Originality” 101).
561.11 pulverable enamour’d): from Francisco
de Quevedo (1580-1645), the first stanza of the satiric poem, “Letrilla: Don
Dinero” (Letrilla: The Lord of Dollars) (Rieke, “Quotation and Originality”
101):
Madre, yo al oro me humillo,
él es mi amante y mi amado,
pues de puro enamorado
de continuo anda Amarillo […]
Mother, unto gold I yield me,
He and I are ardent lovers;
Pure affection now discovers
How his sunny rays shall shield me! (trans. Thomas Walsh)
561.11 ‘one body’s resurrection / not half so
great as / one flown grain uprising wheat’: from Robert Herrick
(1591-1674), “The Resurrection possible, and probable” (Rieke, “Quotation and
Originality” 101-102):
For each one Body, that I’th earth is sowne,
There’s an up-rising but of one for one:
But for each Graine, that in the ground is thrown,
Threescore or fourscore spring up thence for one:
So that the wonder is not halfe so great,
Of ours, as is the rising of the wheat.
561.14 ‘seek gloss hours fare on’: from Pedro Calderón De
La Barca (1600–1681), from the last line of the sonnet, “Éstas que fueron pompas y alegría”: “que, pasados los siglos, horas fueron” (Rieke, “Quotation and Originality” 102).
561.15 ‘structure a winding stair at / two
removes’: George Herbert (1593-1633), “Jordan (I),” first two stanzas
(Rieke, “Quotation and Originality” 102):
Who sayes that fictions onely and false hair
Become a verse? Is
there in truth no beauty?
Is all good structure in a winding stair?
May no lines pass,
except they do their dutie
Not to a true, but painted chair?
Is it no verse, except enchanted groves
And sudden arbours
shadow course-spunne lines?
Must purling streams
refresh a lovers loves?
Must all be vail’d,
while he that reades, divines,
Catching the sense at two removes?
561.17 frond then tagging silvers—increate / garden
only first hour thatch: from Sir Thomas Browne (1605-1682), The Garden of Cyrus; or, The Quincunciall,
Lozenge, or Net-Work Plantations of the Ancients, Artificially, Naturally,
Mystically Considered (1658); see “A”-22.531.9. Rieke identifies the first
phrase above as a homophonic transliteration of a phrase from Ovid in the
opening paragraph of Chapter I (“Quotation and Originality” 102):
”Plainer Descriptions there are from Pagan pens, of the creatures of the fourth
day; while the divine Philospher [note: Plato in Timæo] unhappily omitteth the noblest part of the
third; and Ovid (whom many conceive
to have borrowed his description from Moses)
coldly deserting the remarkable account of the text, in three words [note: Fronde
tegi silvas] describeth this work of the third day; the vegetable
creation, and first ornamentall scene of nature; the primitive food of animals,
and first story of Physick, in Dietetical conservation.” The phrase from Ovid
translates: “He ordered the woods to be covered with leaves.”
561.19 while a / star knows yew vinted lower /
trysts weave…: this passage through 561.33 and its buried sources have been
closely examined by Rieke (206-216). On the basis of LZ’s notebooks, she
identifies the presence of the following texts: Jean Racine’s Athalie (1691), Anthony Trollope’s Barchester Towers (1857), Thomas
Jefferson’s Notes on the State of
Virginia (1787), Peter Kalm’s Travels
in North America (1770), Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Grandfather’s Chair (1841), Cotton Mather’s The Life of John Eliot (1694), Henry David Thoreau’s Journals, Jonathan Swift’s The Battle of the Books (1704) and A Modest Proposal (1729), and Herbert
Giles’ A History of Chinese Literature
(1901). In the following I will only identify some of the more substantial of
these sources.
The above quoted segment at
561.19-20 is a homophonic adaptation from the play Athalie by Jean Racine (1639-1699), Act II.ix: “Quel aster à nos yeux vient de
luire? / Quel sera quelque jour cet enfant
merveilleux?” (What
star has, in our sight, just risen? / What will this wondrous child become some
day?), and Act V.ii: “It est vrai, de David un trésor est resté, / La garde en
fut commise à ma fidélité; / C’était de tristes
Juifs l’espérance
dernière,
/ Que mes soins vigilants cachaient à la lumière” (It is true David’s treasure
still remains. / I was entrusted with its custody. / It was the last hope of
the hapless Jews, / That I hid carefully from public view). Rieke further
points out that the word “vinted” was suggested by a passage from chapter 21 of
Anthony Trollope’s Barchester Towers
(1857): “I wouldn’t give a straw for the best wine that ever was vinted, after it had lain here a couple
of years” (Rieke 207); this sentence appears as an example of the use of “vint”
in CD.
561.21 the sheep happier / without the care of
wolves / West redskins’ talk grammars older / than East’s: from Thomas
Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia
(1787), the chapter on “Aborigines”: “This practice [of being ‘separated into
so many little societies’] results from the circumstance of their having never
submitted themselves to any laws, any coercive power, any shadow of government.
Their only controuls are their manners, and that moral sense of right and
wrong, which, like the sense of tasting and feeling, in every man makes a part
of his nature. An offence against these is punished by contempt, by exclusion
from society, or, where the case is serious, as that of murder, by the
individuals whom it concerns. Imperfect as this species of coercion may seem,
crimes are very rare among them: insomuch that were it made a question, whether
no law, as among the savage Americans, or too much law, as among the civilized
Europeans, submits man to the greatest evil, one who has seen both conditions
of existence would pronounce it to be the last: and that the sheep are happier of themselves, than under care of the wolves. It will
be said, that great societies cannot exist without government. The Savages
therefore break them into small ones. […] But imperfect as is our knowledge of
the tongues spoken in America, it suffices to discover the following remarkable
fact. Arranging them under the radical ones to which they may be palpably
traced, and doing the same by those of the red men of Asia, there will be found
probably twenty in America, for one in Asia, of those radical languages, so
called because, if they were ever the same, they have lost all resemblance to
one another. A separation into dialects may be the work of a few ages only, but
for two dialects to recede from one another till they have lost all vestiges of
their common origin, must require an immense course of time; perhaps not less
than many people give to the age of the earth. A greater number of those
radical changes of language having taken place among the red men of America, proves them of greater antiquity than those of Asia.”
561.24 Tongues: lark’s wings…: along with
lines 561.26-27, “agglutinative
questions when no redskins / lust white gospel in red-tongue,” from
discussions of John Eliot and Native American languages found in Nathaniel
Hawthorne, Grandfather’s Chair
(1841), a children’s history of early America, and Cotton Mather’s The Life of John Eliot (1691).
From
Chapter VIII of Grandfather’s Chair:
”My dear children, what a task would you think it, even with a long lifetime
before you, were you bidden to copy every chapter, and verse, and word, in
yonder family Bible! Would not this be a heavy toil? But if the task were, not
to write off the English Bible, but to learn a language utterly unlike all other
tongues, a language which hitherto had never been learned, except by the
Indians themselves, from their mothers' lips,—a language never written, and the
strange words of which seemed inexpressible by letters,—if the task were, first
to learn this new variety of speech, and then to translate the Bible into it,
and to do it so carefully that not one idea throughout the holy book should be
changed,—what would induce you to undertake this toil? Yet this was what the
apostle Eliot did. […] ‘Read this, my child,’ would he say; ‘these are some
brethren of mine, who would fain hear the sound of thy native tongue.’ Then
would the Indian boy cast his eyes over the mysterious page, and read it so
skilfully that it sounded like wild music. It seemed as if the forest leaves
were singing in the ears of his auditors, and as the roar of distant streams
were poured through the young Indian's voice. Such were the sounds amid which
the language of the red man had been formed; and they were still heard to echo
in it.”
From
Cotton Mather’s The Life of John Eliot:
“The first step which he judged necessary now to be taken by him, was to learn
the Indian Language, for he saw them
so stupid and sensless, that they would never do so much as enquire after the
Religion of the Strangers now come into their Country, much less would they so
far imitate us as to leave off their beastly way of living […] But if their
Alphabet be short, I am sure the words composed of it are long enough to tire
the Patience of any Scholar in the World, they are Sesquipedalia Verba, which their Linguo is composed of; one would think they have been growing ever
since Babel, unto the dimensions to
which they are now extended. For instance, if my Reader will count how many
Letters there are in this one word Nummatchekodtantamooonganunnonash,
when he has done, for his reward I’ll tell him, it signifies no more in English than our Lusts, and if I were to translate, our loves, it must be nothing shorter than Noowomantammooonkanunonnash. Nor do we find in all this Language
the least Affinity to, or Derivation from any European Speech […]” (qtd. Rieke 209-210).
561.25 ‘hi!’
requires a serious answer: from Henry David Thoreau, Journals for 14 March 1838: “If thy neighbor hail thee to inquire
how goes the world, feel thyself put to thy trumps to return a true and
explicit answer” (qtd. Rieke 211-212).
561.26 agglutinative questions when no redskins /
lust white gospel in red-tongue: see note at 561.24.
561.28 O my dear Ms Tress / don’t it know…:
through 561.33 mostly from Jonathan Swift. The first line is LZ’s version of
Swift’s coded manner of addressing Stella: “Omi dearmis tres, / Imi na dis
tres” (qtd. Rieke 214, who notes (261) that LZ’s source here is a review from
the New York Times Book Review (22
Oct. 1967) of Luis d’Antin Van Rooten’s Mots
d’Heures: Gousses, Rames: The d’Antin Manuscript).
From the opening sentences of The Battle of the Books (1710): “Whoever
examines with due Circumspection into the Annual
Records of Time, will find it
remarked that War is the child of Pride,
and Pride the daughter
of Riches; The former of which Assertions may be soon granted; but one
cannot so easily subscribe to the latter: For Pride is nearly related to Beggary and Want, either by father or Mother, and sometimes by both; And, to
speak naturally, it very seldom happens among Men to fall out, when all have
enough: Invasions usually traveling from North
to South, that is to say, from
Poverty upon Plenty. The most antient and natural Grounds of Quarrels, are Lust and Avarice; which, tho’ we may allow to be Brethren or collateral
Branches of Pride, are certainly the
Issues of Want. For, to speak in the
Phrase of Writers upon the Politicks, we may observe in the Republick of Dogs,
(which in its Original seems to be an Institution of the Many) that the whole
State is ever in the profoundest Peace, after a full Meal; and, that Civil
Broils arise among them, when it happens for one great Bone to be seized on by some leading
Dog, who either divides it among the Few,
and then it falls to an Oligarchy, or
keeps it to Himself, and then it runs up to a Tyranny.”
From “Thoughts on Various Subjects”
(1711): “The Stoical scheme of supplying our wants by lopping off our desires,
is like cutting off our feet when we want shoes.”
561.36 argute mute: inventive?: argute =
sharp, as a taste, or shrill, as a sound; subtle, ingenious, sagacious, shrewd,
keen. I will have him, continued my
father, … vigilant acute, argute, inventive. Sterne, Tristram Shandy (def. and example CD).
562.1 grig
/ ling, furze, gorse, fern: from Gilbert White (1720-1795), The Natural History of Selborne (1788),
Letter VII to Thomas Pennant:
”Though (by
statute 4 and 5 W. and Mary, c. 23) 'to burn on any waste, between Candlemas
and Midsummer, any grig, ling, heath
and furze, goss [gorse] or fern, is punishable with whipping and
confinement in the house of correction'; yet, in this forest [of Wolmer], about
March or April, according to the dryness of the season, such vast heath-fires
are lighted up, that they often get to a masterless head, and, catching the
hedges, have sometimes been communicated to the underwoods, woods, and
coppices, where great damage has ensued.”
562.8 cold-ridge inventoried / abreast of ‘10
years—80 flowers’: cold-ridge < Coleridge; LZ ran across a list of flowers
copied out in Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Notebooks
(Leggott 72, 387). LZ was already gathering materials for his next project, 80 Flowers, originally intended to be
worked on for ten years and completed by his 80th birthday. See 538.31.
562.10 Jubilant agony: < Jubilate Agno by the English poet
Christopher Smart (1722-1771) (Leggott 112); Smart’s title actually means
Rejoice in the Lamb.
562.13 eye against a lamp-post—eh: from Charles
Dickens, The Pickwick Papers (1837),
Chap. 2: “‘Here, waiter!’ shouted the stranger, ringing the bell with
tremendous violence, ‘glasses round—brandy-and-water, hot and strong, and
sweet, and plenty,—eye damaged, Sir? Waiter! Raw beef-steak for the gentleman’s
eye—nothing like raw beef-steak for a bruise, sir; cold lamp-post very good,
but lamp-post inconvenient—damned odd standing in the open street half an hour,
with your eye against a lamp-post—eh,—very
good—ha! ha!’ And the stranger, without stopping to take breath, swallowed at a
draught full half a pint of the reeking brandy-and-water, and flung himself
into a chair with as much ease as if nothing uncommon had occurred.”
562.36 A living calendar, names inwreath’d /
Bach’s innocence…: the last 26 lines of “A”-23 weave in an acrostic ABC
modeled on Chaucer’s “An ABC” (see 563.8); the alphabet appears in sequence
with most but not all letters appearing as either capitalized and/or beginning
a line. This first phrase can be found in William Wordsworth, “To My Sister”:
No joyless forms shall regulate
Our living calendar:
We from to-day, my Friend, will date
The opening of the year.
563.3 Eden garden labor: according to Leggott
(66) there is a buried allusion here to Richard Eden, History of Travaile (1577), mentioned in Bottom 101.
563.3 For / series distributes harmonies,
attraction Governs / destinies: referring to Charles-Marie Fourier
(1772-1837) (Leggott 66). Fourier’s utopian socialism was based on the
principle of universal harmony which would become possible with the lifting of
all conventional social restraints, but ultimately its realization would have
cosmic effects. He proposed an ideal society that would consist of relatively
small and independent communities, and also a law of passional attractions that
should determine all relationships. The Fourier series, developed by the French
mathematician Baron Jean Baptiste Joseph Fourier (1768-1830), is an infinite
series whose terms are constants multiplied by sine and cosine functions and
that can, if uniformly convergent, approximate a wide variety of functions (AHD).
563.6 doubts’ / passionate Judgment, passion the
task: from Henry James (Leggott 66), the story “The Middle Years” (1893),
spoken by the main character, Dencombe, a novelist: “A second chance—THAT'S the
delusion. There never was to be but one. We work in the dark—we do what we
can—we give what we have. Our doubt is our passion, and our passion is our
task. The rest is the madness of art.”
563.8 Kalenderes
enlumined: from Geoffrey Chaucer, “An ABC” (or “La priere de Nostre
Dame”); although at 562.36 LZ offers the translation for this phrase as “living
calendar,” more literal would be “illuminated” or “made bright” (see Bottom 116-117):
Kalenderes
enlumined ben they
That in this world
ben lighted with thy name…
563.8 21-2-3: the birthdays of CZ, PZ and LZ
were respectively Jan. 21, Oct. 22 and Jan. 23 (Leggott 67).
563.8 fire—
/ Land or—sea, air—gathered: Empedocles’ four elements (Scroggins 249).
563.9 Land or: < Walter Savage Landor.
563.10 Most art: < Mozart.
563.10 donn’d one: < John Donne. Don = to
put on, invest with: e.g. “Then up he rose, and donn’d his clothes,” Hamlet
IV.v. Donne is also a ME spelling of dun = to make of a dun or dull-brown
color; to cure, as cod, in such a manner as to impart a dun or brown color:
e.g. “The process of dunning, which
made the [Isles of] Shoals fish so famous a century ago, is almost a lost art,
through the chief fisherman at Star still duns
a few yearly” Celia Thaxter, Isles of
Shoales (definitions and examples CD).
563.11 Oes:
an archaic form of Os, can mean circles, or in the following context from
Shakespeare, stars (Leggott 224): A
Midsummer Night’s Dream III.ii.188: “Lysander:
Fair Helena! Who more engilds the night / Than all yon fiery oes and eyes of
light.” In Bottom, LZ quotes from
Francis Bacon speaking of the stage settings for masques: “The colors that show
best by candlelight are white, carnation, and a kind of sea-water green; and
oes and spangs as they are of no great cost, so they are of most glory” (343).
563.12 thrice-urged / posato (poised) ‘support
from the / source’ […] ‘to / rethink
the Caprices’: the remarks in quotations are from the jacket notes of PZ’s
recording, Niccolò Paganini: The 24
Caprices for Solo Violin (Vanguard 1970) (Leggott 66). Posato is It. meaning sedate, quiet or, as LZ suggests here,
poised, used to indicate the tempo of the music; in fact, three of Paganini’s Caprices (Nos. 7, 15 and 23) are marked
as posato.
563.16 sawhorses:
see “A”-7.
563.16 silver
/ all these fruit-tree tops: from Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet II.ii:
Romeo: Lady, by yonder blessed moon I
swear
That tips with silver all these fruit-tree tops—
Juliet:
O, swear not by the moon, the inconstant moon,
That monthly changes
in her circled orb,
Lest that thy love
prove likewise variable.
563.17 consonances / and dissonances only of
degree: from Arnold Schoenberg (Leggott 66), Harmonielehre (Theory of Harmony, 1922): “Consonances
and dissonances are not divided by a deep abyss. The
same harmony (interval or chord) is perceived by different generations in
various ways. Today’s consonance is yesterday’s
dissonance, just like today’s dissonance is tomorrow’s consonance.
In other words, one could say that every consonance
is an ‘aged’ dissonance.”
563.20 impossible’s / sort-of think-cramp work x:
according to Leggott (321-322) this is from Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951), Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics:
“Man kann sich auch (even) in eine Art
Denkkrampf versetzen, in welchem man tut: als versuchte man, das Unmögliche zu
denken und es gelänge nicht” (One can even get oneself into a
thinking-cramp, in which one does as
someone trying to think the impossible and not succeeding). Wittgenstein uses
the phrase “mental cramp” various times in his later writings, such as on the
opening page of The Blue Book, for
what happens attempting to solve traditional philosophical paradoxes or
puzzles.
563.21 moonwort: a fern, Botrychium Lunaria; also called lunary, which as well names Lunaria annua or honesty (see 14.356.12,
15.375.26).
563.22 music, thought, drama, story, poem: the
“parts” of L.Z. Masque or “A”-24 (see
564), which was
compiled by CZ before “A”-23 was written.
563.23 grace notes: in music, embellishment,
whether vocal or instrumental, not essential to the harmony or melody of a
piece, such as an appoggiatura, a trill, a turn, etc. (CD). See 6.21.2.
563.24 z-sited path are but us: < arbutus; see 552.6. Arbutus Path
was the name of the street where PZ lived in Port Jefferson, NY at the time
“A”-23 was written (Ahearn 191).
