CANTO XCVIII

 

The boat of Ra-Set moves with the sun

"but our job to build light" said Ocellus:

Agada, Ganna, Fassa,

  hsin

Make it new

...........

From Kati to Kang Hi

 two 1/2s of a seal

"De libro Chi-king" wrote his father "Ostendit, incitaque

 that you may reap in the sunlight."

A soul, said Plotinus, the body inside it.

"By Hilaritas" said Gemisto, "by hilaritas: gods;

 and by speed in communication"

 

This represents one of the densest ideograms in the Cantos: every part of it refers to every other part of it and to hundreds of other passages in the poem. Briefly as possible:

 

The boat of Ra-Set moves with the sun

 

Not the boat of Ra, a solar divinity, but of Ra-Set, a Poundian deity composed of both solar and lunar elements. In the total context of the Cantos, solar energy = reason/good government/horse-sense, TECHNE as in technology; etc.; lunar energy = intuition/great art/precognition*, entrancement, TECHNE as in technique.

     *  "The artist is the antennae of the race."--Ez

 

One of Ez's favorite ideograms, always popping up in odd places, MING, shows the sun and moon together, & means either light or intelligence, depending on context. Pound three times associates this ideogram with Scotus Erigena [who said, "All things that are, are lights," which Ez repeats several times in both English and Latin.]

 

In this solar/lunar, Egyptian/Chinese synergy Pound invokes or attempts a synthesis of those functions sometimes called "left brain" and "right brain."

 

"but our job to build light" said Ocellus:

 

Ocellus, a disciple of Pythagoras, here offers a thought with different meanings for different readers. I propose a reading that relates this to Schroedinger's concept of life as an anti-entropic force, Shannon's equating this negative entropy to information, and Fuller's definition of humans as "local problem-solvers."

 

Light as symbol of or manifestation of Higher Intelligence [undefined] permeates the closing, paradisiacal Cantos.

 

Agada, Ganna, Fassa,

 

Three names of the Holy City of Sudanese legend, which has recurred since Canto 74. The city of terrestrial paradise was destroyed four times by greed and other passions, but it always remains "in the mind indestructible." [Pound's version of Frobenius's German version of the Sudanese original.] This links to all the tragic wreckage in the Cantos, Troy "but a heap of smouldering boundary stones" in Canto 4, the defeat of the Malatestas & their jewels being huckstered by the Borgias [Cantos11, 30 and ad lib], the noble ideals of Jefferson and Adams drowned out by documents of factory horror [Cantos 31-34.] the cage at Pisa ["as a lone ant from a broken ant-hill/from the wreckage of Europe ego scriptor."]

 

 hsin

Make it new

 

The hsin ideogram [logs and axes] usually means renewal; Pound recalls Emperor Tching who wrote on his bath-tub hsin jih jih hsin [day by day, make it new] [Canto 61]

 

The perfect city may not remain

only "in the mind indestructible":

day by day we can  try to make it anew

 

This links to all the great artists in the poem and to all the statesmen Ez liked, Coke, Tai Tsong, Yong Ching, Jefferson, Adams, Jackson, Duke Leopold of Sienna [who in Cantos 42-44 created the only bank that Crazy Ez ever admired.]*

*It loaned at the lowest possible interest [to cover over-head], Leopold's idea being to benefit the whole people, not to make himself richer.

 

Renewal, make it new etc also links to the modernism of the Cantos and to Jefferson recommending modern dress for Washington's statue [Canto31], Malatesta as Renaissance Man, etc.

 

From Kati to Kang Hi

 two 1/2s of a seal

 

A paraphrase of a quote from Mong-Tse used earlier, saying that the testaments [final advice to successors] of King Wen and King Han were as like as two halves of a seal, even though they lived 1000 years apart. This Oriental teaching, concrete but luminous, illustrates again Ez's mania for precision, concreteness, the ideogram and his equal & opposite loathing for sloppiness, abstraction and "theories."

 

But Pound has changed the names in Mong-tse's parable to re-introduce Kati, an Egyptian pharaoh who has recurred since Canto 80 because he said "A man's paradise is his own good nature." Ez liked that enough to repeat it several times, both in English and hieroglyph. He said Kati might have been the first one to think of that.

 

But Kati links to Mong-Tse's sainted emperors because they all illustrate something we moderns find almost impossible to believe: Wisdom has sometimes governed. But this links to the Jefferson/Adams Cantos and Duke Leopold etc.

 

"De libro Chi-king" wrote his father "Ostendit, incitaque

 that you may reap in the sunlight."

 

A repeat from the Yong Ching Cantos. "The book, Chi King, educates, entertains and brings illumination." [Pound later translated the Chi King as The Confucian Odes.] I think Ez liked the fact that he cd see the harvest in the sunlight right there in the ideograms.

 

The Cantos also seek to educate, entertain and illuminate....

 

A soul, said Plotinus, the body inside it.

 

Pound believed the soul or life-force or whateveryacallit extended several feet beyond the body. He developed this fixed delusion through ardent practice of Tantric sex, which shd warn you all. Most of the erotic passages in the poem have Tantric overtones, especially Cantos 39, 74 & the Scotus Erigena

"All things are Light" "omnia quia sunt lumina sunt" refrains

 

"By Hilaritas" said Gemisto, "by hilaritas: gods;

 

The gods of the Cantos EXIST, as long as the Cantos exist, which means that Ez cd not cover all he wanted without including them, since we have no other adequate semiotic [yet.] Dionysus, Venus, Manitou, Lir, So-Shu, Neptune, dryads, Fortuna etc. exist as Pound experienced them. The virtue of poetry, he oft argued, is that you can say what you know and stop, whereas the structure of philosophy [in the West] forces you to say also what you don't know.

 

Gemisto, called both a neo-Platonist and a Deist in 2 sources I consulted, first appeared in Canto 9, because Sigismundo Malatesta admired him enough to re-bury him in a place of honor in the Tempio. He pops up a few more times to ridicule the Papacy and to attribute creativity to water. Now he tells us how to recognize a god: first by *hilaritas.* Since this appears near Apollonius's remark that he learned in India that some men are gods, it tells us how to recognize gods-in-art and also gods-in-people

 

Hilaritas relates to the later English "hilarity" but also conveys 'good humor,' cheerfulness, liveliness, love of life etc.  Here we see links to Sigismundo, aged and defeated, engaging in a practical joking contest with a friend [Canto11], the Synagogue in Gibraltar where Pound [raised Quaker] saw for the first time people in church *having a good time* [!] [Canto20], Kati telling us in hieroglyph & English that your "paradise" is your good nature, the creative ecstasy of Brancusi [Canto 85 et seq].

 

 and by speed in communication"

 

Pound liked to quote Kung-fu-tse on style: "Get the meaning across and then STOP." His critical and theoretical writings [30 volumes, more or less] repeat again and again:  put the maximum information in the minimum words. Gemisto seems to have similar sentiments.

 

So: having started in Hell like Dante and searched the world for our lost home, like Odysseus, we move toward a vision of light, intelligence and gods whom we can recognize by good humor and high information content & to stay in that "nice quiet paradise" we must make it new day by day make it new.

 

Apres Ez, Internet........