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Three Cantos (Ur-Cantos)

Catullus villa

A Draft of XXX Cantos 1-30

rsz ship4 for c1

Eleven New Cantos 31-41

rsz guido cavalcanti

Fifth Decad of Cantos 42-51

monte dei paschi title page

Cantos LII-LXXI 52-71

confucius adams 2

The Italian Cantos 72-73

rsz marinetti

The Pisan Cantos 74-84

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Rock Drill. Cantos 85-95

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Thrones. Cantos 96-109

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Drafts and Fragments

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XXIX 

 

  

  1. Pearl, great sphere, and hollow,

  2. Mist over lake, full of sunlight,

  3. Pernella concubina

  4. The sleeve green and shot gold over her hand 

  5. Wishing her son to inherit 

  6. Expecting the heir ainé be killed in battle 

  7. He being courageous, poisoned his brother puiné 

  8. Laying blame on Siena 

  9. And this she did by a page 

  10. Bringing war once more on Pitigliano 

  11. And the page repented and told this 

  12. To Nicolo (ainé) Pitigliano 

  13. Who won back that rock from his father 

  14. “still doting on Pernella his concubine”. 

  15.               The sand that night like a seal’s back 

  16.               Glossy beneath the lanthorns. 

  17. From the Via Sacra

  18.               ( fleeing what band of Tritons

  19. Up to the open air 

  20. Over that mound of the hippodrome

  21. Liberans et vinculo ab omni liberatos 

  22. As who with four hands at the cross roads

  23. By king’s hand or sacerdos’ 

  24.                are given their freedom 

  25. —Save who were at Castra San Zeno ... 

  26. Cunizza for God’s love , for remitting the soul of her father 

  27. —May hell take the traitors of Zeno. 

  28. And fifth begat he Alberic 

  29. And sixth the Lady Cunizza. 

  30. In the house of the Cavalcanti 

  31.                                                      anno 1265: 

  32. Free go they all as by full manumission

  33. All serfs of Eccelin my father da Romano 

  34. Save those who were with Alberic at Castra San Zeno 

  35. And let them go also 

  36. The devils of hell in their body. 

  37. And sixth the Lady Cunizza

  38. That was first given Richard St Boniface

  39. And Sordello subtracted her from that husband 

  40. And lay with her in Tarviso 

  41. Till he was driven out of Tarviso 

  42. And she left with a soldier named Bonius

  43. nimium amorata in eum

  44. And went from one place to another 

  45. The light of this star o’ercame me” 

  46. Greatly enjoying herself 

  47. And running up the most awful bills. 

  48. And this Bonius was killed on a sunday 

  49. and she had then a Lord from Braganza 

  50. and later a house in Verona. 

  51. And he looked from the planks to heaven, 

  52. Said Juventus: “Immortal ... 

  53. He said: “Ten thousand years before now ... 

  54. Or he said:     “Passing into the point of the cone

  55. You begin by making the replica. 

  56. Thus Lusty Juventus, in September, 

  57. In cool air, under sky, 

  58. Before the residence of the funeral director 

  59. Whose daughters’ conduct caused comment. 

  60. But the old man did not know how he felt 

  61. Nor cd. remember what prompted the utterance. 

  62. He said:     “What I know, I have known, 

  63. “How can the knowing cease knowing?” 

  64. By the lawn of the senior elder 

  65. He continued his ambulation: 

  66. “Matter is the lightest of all things, 

  67. “Chaff, rolled into balls, tossed, whirled in the aether, 

  68. “Undoubtedly crushed by the weight, 

  69. “Light also proceeds from the eye; 

  70. “In the globe over my head 

  71. “Twenty feet in diameter, thirty feet in diameter 

  72. “Glassy, the glaring surface—

  73. “There are many reflections 

  74. “So that one may watch them turning and moving 

  75. “With heads down now, and now up. 

  76. He went on toward the amateur student of minerals 

  77. That later went bankrupt; 

  78. He went on past the house of the local funny man,

  79. Jo Tyson that had a camera.      His daughter was bow-legged 

  80. And married the assembly-man’s son. 

  81.               O-hon dit que-ke fois au vi’-a-ge ... 

  82. Past the house of the three retired clergymen 

  83. Who were too cultured to keep their jobs. 

  84. Languor has cried unto languor 

  85.                   about the marshmallow-roast 

  86. (Let us speak of the osmosis of persons) 

  87. The wail of the phonograph has penetrated their marrow 

  88. (Let us ... 

  89. The wail of the pornograph....) 

  90.         The cicadas continue uninterrupted. 

  91. With a vain emptiness the virgins return to their homes 

  92. With a vain exasperation 

  93. The ephèbe has gone back to his dwelling, 

  94. The djassban has hammered and hammered, 

  95. The gentleman of fifty has reflected 

  96.                  That it is perhaps just as well. 

  97. Let things remain as they are. 

  98. The mythological exterior lies on the moss in the forest 

  99. And questions him about Darwin. 

  100. And with a burning fire of phantasy 

  101.                he replies with “Deh! nuvoletta ...” 

  102. So that she would regret his departure. 

  103.               Drift of weed in the bay: 

  104. She seeking a guide, a mentor, 

  105. He aspires to a career with honour 

  106. To step in the tracks of his elders; 

  107.                       a greater incomprehension? 

  108. There is no greater incomprehension 

  109. Than between the young and the young. 

  110. The young seek comprehension; 

  111. The middleaged to fulfill their desire. 

  112. Sea weed dried now, and now floated, 

  113.                   mind drifts, weed, slow youth, drifts, 

  114. Stretched on the rock, bleached and now floated; 

  115. Wein, Weib, TAN AOIDAN 

  116. Chiefest of these the second, the female 

  117. Is an element, the female 

  118. Is a chaos

  119. An octopus 

  120. A biological process 

  121.                                    and we seek to fulfill ... 

  122. TAN AOIDAN, our desire, drift ... 

  123.                             Ailas e que’m fau miey huelh 

  124.                             Quar no vezon so qu’ieu vuelh. 

  125. Our mulberry leaf, woman, TAN AOIDAN, 

  126. Nel ventre tuo, o nella mente mia

  127. “Yes, Milady, precisely, if you wd. 

  128. have anything properly made.” 

  129. Faziamo tutte le due ... 

  130. “No, not in the palm-room”.      The lady says it is

  131. Too cold in the palm-room.     Des valeurs

  132. Nom de Dieu, et 

  133.        encore des valeurs. 

  134. She is submarine, she is an octopus, she is 

  135. A biological process, 

  136. So Arnaut turned there 

  137. Above him the wave pattern cut in the stone 

  138. Spire-top alevel the well-curb 

  139. And the tower with cut stone above that, saying: 

  140.          “I am afraid of the life after death.” 

  141. and after a pause: 

  142. “Now, at last, I have shocked him.” 

  143. And another day or evening toward sundown by the arena

  144. (les gradins) 

  145. A little lace at the wrist 

  146. And not very clean lace either ... 

  147. And I, “But this beats me, 

  148. “Beats me, I mean that I do not understand it; 

  149. “This love of death that is in them.” 

  150.                Let us consider the osmosis of persons 

  151. nondum orto jubare

  152. The tower, ivory, the clear sky

  153. Ivory rigid in sunlight 

  154. And the pale clear of the heaven 

  155. Phoibos of narrow thighs, 

  156. The cut cool of the air, 

  157. Blossom cut on the wind, by Helios 

  158. Lord of the Light’s edge, and April

  159. Blown round the feet of the God, 

  160. Beauty on an ass-cart 

  161. Sitting on five sacks of laundry 

  162. That wd. have been the road by Perugia 

  163. That leads out to San Piero. Eyes brown topaz, 

  164. Brookwater over brown sand, 

  165. The white hounds on the slope

  166. Glide of water, lights and the prore

  167. Silver beaks out of night, 

  168. Stone, bough over bough, 

  169.                  lamps fluid in water, 

  170. Pine by the black trunk of its shadow 

  171. And on hill black trunks of the shadow 

  172. The trees melted in air.