Canto XLV
BY EZRA POUND With Usura
With usura hath no man a house of good stone
each block cut smooth and well fitting
that design might cover their face,
with usura
hath no man a painted paradise on his church wall
harpes et luz
or where virgin receiveth message
and halo projects from incision,
with usura
seeth no man Gonzaga his heirs and his concubines
no picture is made to endure nor to live with
but it is made to sell and sell quickly
with usura, sin against nature,
is thy bread ever more of stale rags
is thy bread dry as paper,
with no mountain wheat, no strong flour
with usura the line grows thick
with usura is no clear demarcation
and no man can find site for his dwelling.
Stonecutter is kept from his stone
weaver is kept from his loom
WITH USURA
wool comes not to market
sheep bringeth no gain with usura
Usura is a murrain, usura
blunteth the needle in the maid’s hand
and stoppeth the spinner’s cunning. Pietro Lombardo
came not by usura
Duccio came not by usura
nor Pier della Francesca; Zuan Bellin’ not by usura
nor was ‘La Calunnia’ painted.
Came not by usura Angelico; came not Ambrogio Praedis,
Came no church of cut stone signed: Adamo me fecit.
Not by usura St. Trophime
Not by usura Saint Hilaire,
Usura rusteth the chisel
It rusteth the craft and the craftsman
It gnaweth the thread in the loom
None learneth to weave gold in her pattern;
Azure hath a canker by usura; cramoisi is unbroidered
Emerald findeth no Memling
Usura slayeth the child in the womb
It stayeth the young man’s courting
It hath brought palsey to bed, lyeth
between the young bride and her bridegroom
CONTRA NATURAM
They have brought whores for Eleusis
Corpses are set to banquet
at behest of usura.
N.B. Usury: A charge for the use of purchasing power, levied without regard to production; often without regard to the possibilities of production. (Hence the failure of the Medici bank.)
Ezra Pound, “Canto XLV ” from The Cantos of Ezra Pound. Copyright © 1993 by Ezra Pound. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corporation.Source: Cantos of Ezra Pound (New Directions Publishing Corporation, 1993)
the banker is destined to re posses all
with usura
Psalm 2:8 Only ask it of me, and I will make your inheritance the nations,
your possession the ends of the earth.
After the Napoleonic war the Rothschild patriarch was known as “The King of the Jews”
MY story is wild:
1930: World’s greatest poet
1940: Mussolini Superfan
1945: Declared insane, put in an asylum
He was finally released in 1958. On his 138th birthday, here are 10 thoughts from a poet who paid a heavy price for being a dissident:
1. Why Ancient Rome Fell. Rome fell as its language fell. Pound: “Rome rose with the idiom of Caesar, Ovid, and Tacitus, she declined in a welter of rhetoric, the diplomat’s language to conceal thought…Rome went because it was no longer the fashion to hit the nail on the head.”
2. On putting your skin in the game: “If a man isn’t willing to take some risk for his opinions, either his opinions are no good or he’s no good.” In the preface to Guide To Kulchur, Pound notes that he will be committing himself to ideas that “very few men can AFFORD to.”
3. Pound on words. Every word comes with “roots” and “associations” – with a history of where the word is “familiarly used” and also where it has been used “brilliantly or memorably.” A great writer uses words with full awareness of this background.
4. Pound on how to lose an empire: “A people that grows accustomed to sloppy writing is a people in process of losing grip on its empire and on itself.” Vague words betray a mind that is afraid of conclusions. You lose power over reality by first losing your conceptual grip.
5. The greatest of art foists “sudden growth” upon us. Great art helps us grasp a complicated emotion or idea in a flash via the means of an elegant “image.” The sensation of “sudden liberation” that accompanies great art comes from this image.
6. An apt definition of great literature from Pound: “Great literature is simply language charged with meaning to the utmost possible degree.” Bad writing is when the words are weak, the sentences meandering, and the paragraphs unsure of their own conclusion.
7. Pound against relativism: “When words cease to cling close to things, kingdoms fall, empires wane and diminish.” GK Chesterton agrees: “Fires will be kindled to testify that two and two make four. Swords will be drawn to prove that leaves are green in summer.”
8. Pound on how to design your reading list: “Properly, we should read for power. Man reading should be man intensely alive. The book should be a ball of light in one’s hand.” We read for entertainment, distraction, solace – but why not read for power?
9. Ezra Pound on why he discarded rhyme: “One discards rhyme, not because one is incapable of rhyming neat, fleet, sweet, meet, treat, eat, feet but because there are certain emotions or energies which are nor represented by the over-familiar devices or patterns.”
10. Pound on why literature is hero-worship: “The history of an art is the history of masterwork, not of failures, or mediocrity. The omniscient historian would display the masterpieces, their causes and their inter-relation. The study of literature is hero-worship.”