“A”-4

11 July 1929, rev. 23 July 1942

12.18    Stars of Deuteronomy: see Deuteronomy 1:10: “The Lord your God hath multiplied you, and, behold, ye are this day as the stars of heaven for multitude.”

12.22    Gate of Psalmody:

13.11    Gold lion stomach:

13.12    (red hair in intaglio):

13.18    He calleth for Elias: from J.S. Bach, St. Matthew Passion, No. 61b Recitative; Christ’s cry from the cross (see Matthew 27:46).

13.19            Clavicembalo: harpsichord.

13.23            ‘Religious, snarling monsters…: this and following lines in quotation marks are LZ’s translations from the poetry of Yehoash (see note at 14.18).

13.25    “Rain blows, light, on quiet water…:

14.18            Yehoash: pseudonym of Yiddish poet and translator Solomon Bloomgarden (1872-1927), who immigrated to the U.S. in 1891 and lived primarily in NYC. Much of his poetry includes creative translations from many linguistic cultures, including Japanese and Arabic, as evidenced in this movement. Other translations from Yehoash appear in “Poem beginning ‘The’” (CSP 13, 16, 20).

15.7      Set masts in dinghies: echoes the opening of EP’s Cantos translated from Book XI of Homer’s Odyssey: “Set keel to breakers, forth on the godly sea, and / We set up mast and sail on that swart ship.”

15.12    Tree of the Bach family / Compiled by Sebastian himself…: J.S. Bach put together a family genealogy with comments, from which the following remark is quoted. Veit Bach was Bach’s great-great-grandfather who settled in Wechmar in Thuringia, Germany and began the family tradition of music (Terry 4-5).

15.22    A carousel: see 12.3 (in the original printing of “A”-4, there are two explicit mentions of carousel in the opening lyric) and 6.24.4.