“A”-11

11 April 1951, rev. 12 May 1951

Although LZ dates this movement in the Table of Contents to “A” as 1950, surviving drafts are dated March-May 1951, and the volume of Paracelsus that he draws on extensively (see below) was published in 1951.

 

For “A”-11 LZ adopts the form of Guido Cavalcanti’s ballade, Perch’io non spero di tornar già mai, again as in “A”-9 reproducing almost precisely the rhyme scheme and line syllable count—there are a few deviations. T.S. Eliot begins “Ash-Wednesday” (1930) with a rendition of the famous first line: “Because I do not hope to turn again.”

Guido Cavalcanti - Ballata: Perch'io non spero

 

Perch'io non spero di tornar già mai,
ballatetta, in Toscana,
va tu leggiera e piana
dritta a la donna mia,
che per sua cortesia	5
ti fara molto onore.
Tu porterai novelle de’ sospiri,
piene di doglia, e di molta paura;
ma guarda che persona non ti miri,
che sia nimica di gentil natura;	10
che certo per la mia disavventura
tu saresti contesa,
tanto da lei ripresa,
che mi sarebbe angoscia;
dopo la morte poscia	15
pianto e novel dolore.
Tu senti Ballatetta, che la morte
mi stringe sì, che vita m'abbandona;
e senti come'l cor si sbatte forte
per quell, che ciascun spirito ragiona;	20
Tant’ e distrutta gia la mia persona,
ch'i' non posso soffrire;
se tu mi vuoi servire
mena l'anima teco,
molto di ciò ti preco	25
quando uscirà del core.
Deh Ballatetta, a la tua amistate
quest'anima, che triema, raccomando;
menala teco nella sua pietate
a quella bella donna, a cui ti mando:	30
Deh Ballatetta, dille sospirando,
quando le se' presente:
Questa vostra servente
vien per istar con vui,
partita da colui,	35
che fu servo d'Amore.
Tu voce sbigottita, e deboletta,
ch'esci piangendo de lo cor dolente,
con l'anima, e con questa Ballatetta
va ragionando de la strutta mente,	40
Voi troverete una donna piacente
di sì dolce intelletto,
che vi sarà diletto
starle davanti ognora:
Anima, e tu l'adora	45
sempre nel suo valore.

 

(Text from EP Translations 120-123)

Throughout “A”-11 LZ adapts phrases or ideas from Spinoza and Paracelsus, for which there are incomplete and sometimes unclear notes in his surviving papers. The Spinoza quotations below are from the text LZ used extensively elsewhere, especially in “A”-12 and Bottom: the Everyman edition of the Ethics translated by Andrew Boyle, with page numbers referring to that edition. The volume of Paracelsus, which he also uses extensively in “A”-12, is Paracelsus: Selected Writings, ed. Jolande Jacobi (Bollingen Foundation, 1951). This book was given to him by Edward and R’lene Dahlberg, presumably on its publication in 1951; Edward had been a colleague of LZ’s at the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn from 1948-1950.

 

124.2    River that must turn full after I stop dying: echoes the refrain of Edmund Spenser’s Prothalamion: “Sweete Themmes runne softly, till I end my Song.” As Ahearn points out the river motif is also indebted to the pastoral elegy, “Bronx,” by the American poet Joseph Rodman Drake (1795-1820), from which LZ quotes in Anew #15, “No it was no dream of coming death” (CSP 85). LZ’s notes indicate he found the Drake poem in The New York Book of Poetry, eds. Charles Fenno Hoffman and Clement Clark Moore (NY: George Dearborn, Publ., 1837).

124.7    honor: this term, which terminates each stanza, was initially suggested by Cavalcanti’s original in which the first stanza ends with onore, although unlike LZ he varies it thereafter. Cf. Baruch de Spinoza’s definition of honor in Ethics III, Definitions of the Emotions 3: “Honour or glory (gloria) is pleasure accompanied by the idea of some action of ours which we imagine others to praise” (135). See also next note and 13.297.7.

124.8    Freed by their praises who make honor dearer: LZ notes from Spinoza, Ethics IV, Prop. 52, Note: “For (as we have shown in Prop. 25, Part IV.) no one endeavours to preserve his being for the sake of some end; and inasmuch as this self-complacency is more and more cherished and encouraged by praises (Coroll., Prop. 53, Part III.), and, on the contrary (Coroll. 1, Prop. 55, Part III.), disturbed more and more by blame, we are led in life principally by the desire of honour, and under the burden of blame we can scarcely endure it” (177).

124.9    Whose losses show them rich and you no poorer: from Henry James, “The Altar of the Dead”: “People weren’t poor, after all, whom so many losses could overtake; they were positively rich when they had so much to give up” (Ahearn 117).

124.10  what stars’ imprint you mirror: LZ notes from Paracelsus, the 16th century occult philosopher and alchemist (see 12.134.9): “The starry vault imprints itself on the inner heaven of man” (Selected Writings 114). For Paracelsus on “the mirrored image he is,” see 12.177.32-178.4.

124.12  faced to your outer stars: Cf. Paracelsus: “The inner stars of man are, in their properties, kind, and nature, by their course and position, like his outer stars, and different only in form and in material. For as regards their nature, it is the same in the ether and in the microcosm, man” (Selected Writings 21).

124.12  purer / Gold than tongues make…: Ahearn (122-123) relates this to Paracelsus’ alchemical interests in the purification of gold as symbolic of a purification of the self, in which case the “tongues” here suggest the purifying flames. In the following lines LZ’s notes appear to refer to an alchemical illustration on “Preparation of the Elixir of Life” in Selected Writings (114).

124.16  thread gold stringing / the fingerboard: cf. Paracelsus: “aurum musicum, the wire or thread gold, used for the stringing of musical instruments (xxxv).

124.18  Honor, song, sang the blest is delight knowing: Spinoza’s given name, Benedict or Baruch, means blest, which is how LZ frequently refers to him; see index. On honor see Spinoza quotation at 124.8 and Ethics IV, Prop. 58: “Honour is not opposed to reason, but can arise from it” (180).

124.19  We overcome ills by love. Hurt, song, nourish / Eyes, think most of whom you hurt: from Spinoza, Ethics III, Prop. 44: “Hatred which is entirely conquered by love passes into love, and love on that account is greater than if it had not been preceded by hatred” (see 12.233.26). Spinoza, Ethics V, Prop. 10, Note: “E.g., we placed among the rules of life (Prop. 46, Part IV, with its Note) that hatred must be overcome by love or nobleness, not requited by reciprocated hatred. But in order that this rule may be always ready for us when we need it, we must often think and meditate on the common injuries done to men, and in what manner and according to what method they may best be avoided by nobility of character. For if we unite the image of the injury to the image of this rule, it will always be ready for us (Prop. 18, Part II.) when an injury is done to us” (207).

124.21  poison: LZ notes from Paracelsus: “In all things there is a poison, and there is nothing without a poison. It depends only upon the dose whether a poison is poison or not” (95).

124.21  rod blossoms: LZ’s notes appear to suggest a pun with the middle name of Joseph Rodman Drake (see note at 124.2), as well as an allusion to Numbers 17:8 where Aaron’s rod blossoms to confirm the legitimacy of the House of Levi for the high priesthood: “And it came to pass, that on the morrow Moses went into the tabernacle of witness; and, behold, the rod of Aaron for the house of Levi was budded, and brought forth buds, and bloomed blossoms, and yielded almonds.” The knight and minnesinger Tannhäuser requested absolution from the Pope for dawdling in Venusberg but was refused and told he could not expect forgiveness until the papal staff grew leaves; Tannhäuser leaves in despair and three days later the staff blossoms; the subject of one of Wagner’s operas. Also this phrase echoes the “red blossom” of 8.48.2, 8.105.4.

124.22  sweet lights: from Joseph Rodman Drake, “Bronx” (see note at 124.2): “Sweet sights, sweet sounds, all sights, all sounds excelling, / Oh! ’twas a ravishing spot formed for a poet’s swelling.”

124.22  in them I flourish: from Spinoza, Ethics V, Prop. 13: “The more an image is associated with many other things, the more often it flourishes. Proof.—The more an image is associated with many other things, the more causes there are by which it can be excited. Q.e.d.” (qtd. Bottom 29); see also quotation at 12.174.22.

124.23  not any one power / May recall or forget: from Spinoza, Ethics III, Prop. 2, Note: “Again, it is not within the free power of the mind to remember or forget anything” (89).

125.1    Venus lights: LZ notes Paracelsus and probably is thinking of an illustration of Venus in the Selected Writings depicting Venus with light radiating from behind her (26). Also Paracelsus’ remark: “If there had been no Venus, music would never have been invented, and if there had been no Mars, neither would the crafts ever have been invented” (129).

125.1    to / Live our desires lead us to honor: see quotation from Spinoza, Ethics IV, Prop. 52, Note at 124.7.

125.3    in nothing less than in death: from Spinoza, Ethics IV, Prop. 67: “A free man thinks of nothing less than of death, and his wisdom is a meditation not of death but of life” (187).

125.4    the extended / World that nothing can leave: LZ’s working notes suggest Paracelsus: “Therefore, the Great World, the macrocosm, is closed in itself in such a way that nothing can leave it, but that everything that is of it and within it remains complete and undivided” (17). Also according to sketchy notes from a seminar LZ gave at the U. of Connecticut in 1971, this alludes to Spinoza for whom extension characterizes bodies whereas duration characterizes thought (Butterick 161).

125.8    His second paradise: from Paracelsus: “The striving for wisdom is the second paradise of the world” (lxiii); see 12.146.24.

125.13  turn […] / four notes: in music a turn is an ornament consisting of four notes (Kenner, “Too Full for Talk” in Terrell 201). Scroggins argues that this represents the four main voices of the poem: Cavalcanti, Drake, Paracelsus and Spinoza (Bio 242-244).