CANTO XXX

Interpreted in the widest possible terms, the lyric condemns only Judeo-Christian dualism, which undermines man’s reverence for natural process and causes him to pervert those beneficent and self-regulating operations which Artemis represents. Interpreted more narrowly  but no less symbolically  (and safely), the lyric rejects not all forms of pity and compassion, but only “cheap sentiment,” the false tolerance by the weak of others’ weakness, incompetence, mediocrity, and imprecision, none of which nature, cast in the form of unstinting Artemis, ever condones.  [...] One might thus conclude that Artemis’ violence represents nothing more lethal than a rigorous attitude toward life. Even if Pound meant to apply her hard lessons to human societies, they might figure within a conservative tradition inaugurated by Nietzsche and continued, with major alterations, by the Catholic Max Scheler. 

Robert Casillo. The Genealogy of Demons.. Evanston Ill.: Northwestern UP, 1988. 111.