Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, CANTO 10, by EZRA POUND


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

CANTO 10, by             Poem Explanation     Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: And the poor devils dying of cold, outside sorano
Last Line: All I want you to do is to follow the orders, %they've got a bigger army, %but there are more men in


And the poor devils dying of cold, outside Sorano,
And from the other side, from inside the ch·teau,
Orsini, Count Pitigliano, on the 17th of November:
Siggy, darlint, wd. you not stop making war on
insensible objects, such as trees and domestic vines, that have
no means to hit back... but if you will hire yourself out to
a commune (Siena) which you ought rather to rule than
serve ...
which with Trachulo's damn'd epistle ...
And what of it anyhow? a man with a ten acre lot,
Pitigliano ... a lump of tufa,
And S. had got back their horses
And the poor devils dying of cold ...
(And there was another time, you know,
He signed on with the Fanesi,
and just couldn't be bothered ...)
And there were three men on a one man job
And Careggi wanting the baton,
And not getting it just then in any case.
And he, Sigismundo, refused an invitation to lunch
In commemoration of Carmagnola
(vide Venice, between the two columns
where Carmagnola was executed.)
Et
anno messo a saccho el signor Sigismundo
As Filippo Strozzi wrote to Zan Lottieri, then in Naples,
I think they'll let him through at Campiglia
Florence, Archivio Storico, 4th Series t. iii, e
La Guerra dei Senesi col conte di Pitigliano.
And he found Carlo Gonzaga sitting like a mud-frog
in Orbetello
And he said:
Caro mio, I can not receive you
It really is not the moment."
And Broglio says he ought to have tipped Gorro Lolli.
But he got back home here somehow,
And Piccinino was out of a job,
And the old row with Naples continued.
And what he said was all right in Mantua;
And Borso had the pair of them up to Bel Fiore,
The pair of them, Sigismundo and Federico Urbino,
Or perhaps in the palace, Ferrara, Sigismund upstairs
And Urbino's gang in the basement,
And a regiment of guards in, to keep order,
For all the good that did:
Te cavero la budella del corpo!
El conte levatosi:
Io te cavero la corata a te!
And that day Cosimo smiled,
That is, the day they said:
Drusiana is to marry Count Giacomo ...
(Piccinino) un sorriso malizioso.
Drusiana, another of Franco Sforza's;
It would at least keep the row out of Tuscany.
And he fell out of a window, Count Giacomo,
Three days after his death, that was years later in Naples,
For trusting Ferdinando of Naples,
And old Wattle could do nothing about it.
Et:
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Interea pro gradibus basilic… S. Pietri ex arida materia ingens pyra extruitur in cujus
summitate imago Sigismundi collocatur hominis lineamenta, et vestimenti modum adeo proprie reddens,
ut vera magis persona, quam imago videretur; ne quem tamen imago falleret, et scriptura ex ore
prodiit, quae diceret: Sigismundis hic ego sum Malatesta, filius Pandulphi, rex proditorum, Deo
atque hominibus infestus, sacri censura senatus igni damnatus;
scripturam multi legerunt.
deinde astante populo, igne immisso, et pyra simulacrum repente flagravit.
Com. Pio II, Liv. VII, p. 85.
Yriarte, p. 288.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
So that in the end that pot-scraping little runt Andreas
Benzi, da Siena
Got up to spout out the bunkum
That that monstrous swollen, swelling s. o. b.
Papa Pio Secundo
Æneas Silvius Piccolomini da Siena
Had told him to spout, in their best bear's-greased latinity;

Stupro, c…de, adulter,
homocidia, parricidia ac periurus,
presbitericidia, audax, libidinosus,
wives, jew-girls, nuns, necrophiliast, fornicarium ac sicarium,
proditor, raptor, incestuosus, incendiarius, ac
concubinarius,
and that he rejected the whole symbol of the apostles,
and that he said the monks ought not to own property
and that he disbelieved in the temporal power,
neither christian, jew, gentile,
nor any sect pagan, nisi forsitan epicure….

And that he did among other things
Empty the fonts of the chiexa of holy water
And fill up the same full with ink
That he might in God's dishonour
Stand before the doors of the said chiexa
Making mock of the inky faithful, they
Issuing thence by the doors in the pale light of the sunrise
Which might be considered youthful levity
but was really a profound indication;

Whence that his, Sigismundo's, foetor filled the earth
And stank up through the air and stars to heaven
Where---save they were immune from sufferings---
It had made the emparadisèd spirits pewk"
from their jeweled terrace.

Lussurioso incestuoso, perfide, sozzure ac crapulone,
assassino, ingordo, avaro, superbo, infidele
fattore di monete false, sodomitico, uxoricido"

and the whole lump lot
given over to ...

I mean after Pio had said, or at least Pio says that he
Said that this was elegant oratory "Orationem
Elegantissimam et ornatissimam
Audivimus venerabilis in Xti fratres ac dilectissimi
filii ..." (stone in his bladder
testibus idoneis)
The lump lot given over
To that kid-slapping fanatic il cardinale di San Pietro in Vincoli
To find him guilty, of the lump lot
As he duly did, calling rumour, and Messire Federico d'Urbino
And other equally unimpeachable witnesses.

So they burnt our brother in effigy
A rare magnificent effigy costing 8 florins 48 bol
(i.e. for the pair, as the first one wasn't a good enough likeness)
And Borso said the time was ill-suited
to tanta novità, such doings or innovations,
God's enemy and man's enemy, stuprum, raptum
I. N. R. I. Sigismund Imperator, Rex Proditorum.

And old Pills who tried to get him into a front rank action
In order to drive the rear guard at his buttocks,
Old Pills listed among the murdered, although he
Came out of jail living later.

Et les angloys ne povans desraciner ... venin de hayne
Had got back Gisors from the Angevins,

And the Angevins were gunning after Naples
And we dragged in the Angevins,
And we dragged in Louis Eleventh,
And the tiers Calixte was dead, and Alfonso;
And against us we had "this Æneas" and young Ferdinando
That we had smashed at Piombino and driven out of the
Terrene of the Florentines;
And Piccinino, out of a job;
And he, Sidg, had had three chances of
Making it up with Alfonso, and an offer of
Marriage alliance;
And what he said was all right there in Mantua;
But Pio, sometime or other, Pio lost his pustulous temper.
And they struck alum at Tolfa, in the pope's land,
To pay for their devilment.
And Francesco said:
I also have suffered.
When you take it, give me a slice.
And they nearly jailed a chap for saying
The job was mal hecho; and they caught poor old Pasti
In Venice, and were like to pull all his teeth out;
And they had a bow-shot at Borso
As he was going down the Grand Canal in his gondola
(the nice kind with 26 barbs on it)
And they said: Novvy'll sell any man
for the sake of Count Giacomo.
(Piccinino, the one that fell out of the window).
And they came at us with their ecclesiastical legates
Until the eagle lit on his tent pole.
And he said: The Romans would have called that an augury
E gradment li antichi cavaler romanj
davano fed a quisti annutii,
All I want you to do is to follow the orders,
They've got a bigger army,
but there are more men in this camp.






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